The Art of Living in Wonder with Bob Goff
Bob Goff is one of the most delightful people and he lives every single minute to its fullest. He exudes joy and fun. I met Bob and Maria many years ago, and had a chance to go to their lodge in Canada. It was pretty live-changing for me, and I let go of some pretty big things there. God has used Bob and Maria to set me more free, and I’m so excited you get to hear from them!
This week we’re talking about the dichotomy between cynicism and delight. The reason we wanted to have you, Bob, is because you have rejected cynicism and have chosen joy, beauty, and delight. You have a passion for beauty, whimsy, and delight, so tell us a little bit about that.
The thing about cynics is that it’s usually an insecurity they’re masking. It looks like confidence, but it’s actually insecurity. We’re all insecure, but we deal with it in different ways. Some people get mean like a rattlesnake, other people get quiet like a church mouse, and some people get the jitters. I know when I bump into somebody, what I’m trying to figure out if they’re an old school cynic or a new school. Old school cynics were actually awesome. They lived a little bit apart and made their own clothes, but they weren’t saying everyone else’s clothes were funny. They just said, I want to live a little bit apart from society because we want to understand these things more. New school cynics are rolling their eyes and being sarcastic. Old school cynics weren’t critical, they just wanted to understand what’s happening around them… Being self-aware is really helpful but when you start calling balls and strikes on everybody else, that makes you an umpire. I think Jesus wants us to be base coaches. He wants us to tell people when to run hard toward him.
I think what stands out with you is your determination to love well. Where did that passion come from?
My grandma and grandpa had a huge impact on me. I grew up in the Bay Area and my grandfather was a firefighter on the San Francisco Bay. He worked their graveyard shift for 40 years, and he never even put out a fire. But he knew how to love me well, and they are the ones that have been so transformational in my life. I knew really early on I had something special. I thought they hung the moon. They told me I was winsome and creative, and I believed that to be true. Sometimes people speak words into your life, speak truth into your life, and make you realize, wow, that’s actually kind of true. That’s what my grandparents did.... I think sometimes people come across cynical because they haven’t been dealt with with kindness and respect. I’m not giving them a hall pass for their behavior, but we’ve all taken hits along the way. We just need to decide how we’re going to deal with it. We want to deal with the people God created with kindness and respect. It’s difficult to say you love God, but then you don’t love the people he said he made in his image. All of us have our moments where we’re difficult and hard to love, but we also have our moments when we have something to offer...It’s important to have people in our lives that will speak truth over you, tell you who you’re turning into, tell us who we are. That’s a beautiful thing, because we’ll become who the people closest to us say we are.
I love what you just said about everybody's just recovering from something. I feel like that has given me so much grace for people. That has helped me cope with the world in a better way. Everybody’s going through stuff and sometimes people are acting out of their hurt and pain. Why do you think so many Christians feel the need to get angry to protect something.
I think people usually have great motives. Nobody jumps out of bed and thinks, I want to be mean and wreck somebody’s day. But they have a worldview and a bias just like I do. They just sometimes might not be aware of those biases or what’s going on around them. You mentioned our lodge in Canada, and the only way to get there is by sea plane. They teach you when you learn how to fly a plane is to know what’s going on inside the cockpit, and second know what’s going on outside the cockpit. I think we can apply that to our faith communities sometimes. Inside the cockpit is you and Jesus. Then know what’s going on outside the cockpit - there are a lot of people and a lot of pain. Sometimes we’re trying to correct people along the way, thinking that’s being helpful, and it comes from a good place. But it doesn’t come across as helpful. Sometimes I have really appreciated when people just let me be wrong. Not because they were going soft on doctrine, but because they were going so big on Jesus. They had great doctrine and great theology. They knew the theology of kindness and love and where that comes from. They realize the depravity of their life, and they can see the depravity of mine with a little bit more empathy. I think we just need to find nicer ways with our words...one of the things I’m learning is to be a little bit more picky in the words that I’m speaking.
Let's talk about the things you and Maria do, because you do things so out of the box. And I think this might be the greatest way that we learn from your lives is just thinking differently about what's conventional. You’re always trying to think of a more delightful way to speak to somebody and to show them the love of God. How do you come up with the things that you do?
I’m kind of like Tigger. Bouncing off all the walls all the time. The hallmark of an enneagram 7 is a bunch of joy, and go for it on the surface. But underneath that is a mile of strategy. You know exactly why you’re doing what you’re doing... My wife, Maria, is actually such a wise owl. She’s like Sarah following Abraham around. know exactly why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah. So camp comes up for sale. So you can be Tigger so long as you're with a wise owl. Tigger without the wise owl is just ricocheting off things. Maria said it really well in Love Lives Here: we're not the same, but we can still be one. Sameness isn't required to be oneness. So we've experienced this oneness. We just jump in and we both bring what we have...Maria is the one with her feet on the ground that loves God and brings so much order and beauty to the chaos.
In my book, we talk a lot about having choice. Pursuing joy, delight, and believing the best isn’t just something you fall into. It’s something you choose. People listening are probably thinking, I want to choose delight, I want to see the good, I want to choose joy and peace. What would you say to them about the process of that choice?
Yeah, you have agency over that. You can exercise a little bit more control over that than you thought. So I would start by saying let's find words that are more relatable for you. And so you can describe feelings right now. Sweet Maria and I decided a long time ago that we weren’t going to talk about where I was because oftentimes I’m in Afghanistan or Somalia, and that’s not helpful for her to know. So instead of talking about geography, we talk about where I am emotionally and how I’m feeling...You can just find things that are helpful to you. Whether that’s putting technology to the side or finding something that gets you in the zone. That's just living super intentionally. You might just spend some time with someone every day talking about how you’re really doing. If they’re feeling distracted, ask a few questions around that. What’s distracting you? Don’t just take I’m feeling distracted as an answer. And ask questions like, what are you hoping for? We don’t have to give all the energy to negativity. Maybe even ask what they’re hoping for the people they love? There’s something powerful when we can make it not about ourselves. That’s the message of the gospel of Christ. It’s not about you.
Here’s a big question for you Bob. We’re heading into a divisive year, and it could get worse, and probably will. I just wonder your hope for us as believers. What would it look like for us to do this year differently than in the past?
I would say I want us to be nameless standouts. Those are the two words that come to mind. I want us to be nameless, because we’re not trying to make ourselves more popular or well-known. I want people to look at us and say, “wow, they’re onto something else.” That’s what I mean by standouts. We want people to know that we’re just as screwed up as they are, but we’re not making these setbacks in our lives campsites. So when somebody falls flat or says something super lame, which seems like it's every day, I'm not going to be the guy calling balls and strikes on that. Contributing to a really noisy room just makes my voice get softer, not louder. It’s already filled with noise. What I want to do is start humming a different tune. Walk into that noisy room and just start humming.
I’ve been around you a lot Bob and read a lot of your work, and I’ve never thought about this before today, but I think the banner over you is just that there’s no fear. You're not afraid of something. You're not trying to grasp something or control something or make something happen. There’s just an ease to you. Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I would say it differently. I don’t feel like I need to control the outcomes, but I want to participate in them...I’ll work hard, I’ll do the best I can, but I don’t feel like I need to control what God is doing in your life…It lets you delight in other people’s journeys...You can move from feeling like you need to control people, to being able to delight in their life and their impact...My worldview is that Jesus Christ is the answer, but I’m not trying to manipulate people. Matthew 16 tells us it isn’t flesh and blood that reveals these things, but it’s the spirit of God. So I just don’t want to get in the way. I don’t want all my big opinions to block everybody’s view of Jesus. Whatever the hot topic of the day is, we just need to take a breath, and point people toward scripture. Not towards you. I want people to meet Jesus. I don’t want them to meet my opinion.
