Ep. 269: Outdated

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt. My name is Daniel Markin, and today I’m joined by Jonathan Pokluda, Jonathan, good to be with you. How are you doing?

Jonathan Pokluda:

Daniel, thanks for having me on. I’m doing great. You know, I appreciate you having me on. Thanks for nailing my last name. You got it right. And so we’re already off to an amazing podcast.

Daniel Markin:

This is an amazing podcast. This is great radio. Yeah. I hear a little bit of a twang in your voice. Where are you located?

Jonathan Pokluda:

I’m in Texas, but it’s funny that you say that because I’ll usually get east coast. For some reason, people are like, are you from the east coast? But you hear a twang, that’s my wife’s influence.

Daniel Markin:

Okay.

Jonathan Pokluda:

So if she was on here, the radio world would be like, “Wow, she really’s from Texas.” I mean, there’s definitely a twang there, but you’re the one of the first people to say that about me. I’ll take it though.

Daniel Markin:

Did you grow up in Texas?

Jonathan Pokluda:

I did. Yeah, born and raised, South Texas, 6,000 people in the middle of nowhere. And now I’m in Waco, Texas. So Chip and Joanna Gaines, if anyone’s seen Fixer Upper, we’re just hanging out here in Waco town.

Daniel Markin:

Do you know Chip and Joanna Gaines?

Jonathan Pokluda:

I don’t know them. We’ve lived in Waco two and a half years and I’ve never met them. I walked by them once at a basketball game. And I’ve seen just about every Fixer Upper episode there ever was and has been lots of people in our church worked for them, but I have never met them.

Daniel Markin:

That’s awesome. Yeah. So you’re down in Waco, Texas. You’re pastoring a church there. Tell me about your family.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah. So I’ll just back up for a second and say, I met my wife here in Waco, so we’ve been married for almost 17 years. We have three kids. Our son is eight and our daughters are 12 and 14 and we moved to Waco two and a half years ago from Dallas, Texas. And so I was a part of a young adult ministry there called The Porch. It’s a national ministry and we also have locations and campuses in Canada. So there’s 18 campuses around the world meets every Tuesday night. And so I’ve done that. I did that starting 14 years ago and got to see it just grow to 18 campuses around the country, thousands of people meeting there in Dallas. God did that in spite of me, that’s not false humility. I really believe that with all my heart, He was just kind of showing off that He can use anybody.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And so ministry for me was a crazy left turn in life. I wanted to be a millionaire before I was 30, was in the sales world. I was at a club 19 years ago and someone invited me to a church and I sat in the back row, hung over, smelled like smoke from the night before. I knew Jesus. I’d heard about Jesus. I would share Jesus with you, but I didn’t understand the grace of the gospel. And so I ended up giving my life to Christ in that time, and the Holy Spirit came in my life in a really radical life change. And so they say drugs, sex and rock and roll. In my case, drug, sex, and hip hop marked my life and church. Drug, sex, hip hop, and church. And, so I became a follower of Jesus Christ and that really made all the difference.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And so since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work on some literary resources, some books to help young adults navigate life. One called Welcome to Adulting. There’s a Welcome to Adulting Survival Guide. I’ve also written a resource for the church called Welcoming the Future Church, which is helping pastors reach the next generation. And then the most recent work is called Outdated and it’s on relationships, dating and marriage. Helping singles navigate the 21st century rules of dating in the church. And so, that’s a snapshot of life lately.

Daniel Markin:

And so lots of time in the books, lots of time with people, obviously in Texas pastoring a church.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

I’m guessing at your church with your young adult background, lots of young adults that you can speak to there. This is a program for young adults. And so I’d love to just begin talking to you about this book Outdated, because this is your newest book. Tell us a bit about the process. What’s it like writing and then pastoring and how much life experience in your whole ministry? You’ve done young adult ministry for a long time. One of the big things that often is always such a big topic is dating and Christians deep down wanting to do it well.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

Wanting to do it in a God honoring way.

Jonathan Pokluda:

That’s right.

Daniel Markin:

So I’d love to hear some of the why as to why did you write this book?

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah. So in The Porch, in this young adult ministry, I had the opportunity to have this front row seat of watching tens of thousands of people come together for the purpose of dating and marriage. And so much of ministry is pattern recognition. People do this and it works. It turns out well, and they do this and it turns out disastrous over and over and over and over. And no one thinks they’re doing something that’s going to turn out disastrous. It’s just what happens. And so as a pastor, you start to write down these patterns and then you’re getting into the word of God, the Bible, the 66 books that make up the scripture. And you start to realize that God has said a lot about relationships, a lot about marriage, a lot about love. He is love. The scripture says He is love that He’s the author of love.

Jonathan Pokluda:

He’s the source of all true, pure love. And so as we move closer to Him and we understand His ideals and values, and we begin to apply those to relationships, those are the ones that work out really well and go well for people. So I just started writing down those patterns, writing down the scriptures, really documenting that process to come up with something that I’m just like, “Man, this works.” Then my favorite feedback, the most encouraging feedback I’ve gotten from my data is, “Hey, I read your book and now we’re engaged. I read your book and we’re three months into marriage now.” This is what happens. “Hey, I’ve read your book. And I found contentment in singleness. Then for the first time in my life, I’m okay, that I’m single and I’m not miserable. I found contentment.” And so some of that outcome from this resources is what has encouraged me.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And so that’s really the process of writing. I’ve taught on dating every year for 12 years. And so you say some of the same things over and over and over coming up with new and creative ways to illustrate these eternal truths that God gave us in the scripture. Dating’s nowhere in the Bible. So there’s the spoiler alert. Genesis to Revelations, you’re not going to find dating anywhere because it’s a relatively new idea. It’s about 120 years old. And if we think about that, it’s really profound that prior to 120 years ago, no one in the history of the world ever went on a date. It never happened. The word dating or date entered the English language as a euphemism for prostitution. So to go on a date meant to exchange and experience for sexual favors.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And if you fast forward to the 21st century, it’s very similar to how we date today. When I say we, I mean the world, not the church. But the way the world dates, we watch The Bachelor, The Bachelorette. You’re exchanging an experience for sexual or intimate favors. And so that was never God’s ideal. That was never God’s idea. And that is why I think we’re seeing the highest divorce rates, the lowest marriage rates, people are getting married later, they’re getting married less and marriages aren’t lasting. And so I’m just raising my hand and say, “Hey, we’ve got to do something different.” And to do something different is really to return to the values of the creator of the heavens to the earth, the author of love and begin to apply those wisdom principles to the way that we build relationships here.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. What you’re describing with dating, I totally can see that teased out, especially when you apply consumers into all of this.

Jonathan Pokluda:

That’s right.

Daniel Markin:

Because it becomes in my mind, as I understand dating is you’re trying to walk with somebody else and pursue the Lord together. But in a consumer society that seems to actually be taking the front seat. It’s like, “Well, let me test out all these different options for a bit.” Which in a sense that doesn’t mean that the method of dating is inherently wrong as I understand it, because beforehand, there would be parents were heavily involved that dating process.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah. Or wise counsel, whether it was parents or community or the church. But if you think about the way that we date today, we get into a relationship and because we have all the feels, the puppy love, we wake up in the morning and we’re so excited to attack the day because this person loves us or they might love us or just the thought of the potential for them loving us, makes us excited. And, then we progress through the relationship until the feelings leave. And when the feelings leave, we end it. It’s not you, it’s me. We have more resources to help us with dating than we’ve ever had before. We have personality tests, Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, DISC, StrengthsFinder. Whether I’m a lion, an otter, a beaver, we have compatibility test to find out if we’re compatible. We have matchmakers, be it professional human beings that their occupation is matchmaking, or be it a software, a website, an app.

Jonathan Pokluda:

We have Tinders, Swipe left, Swipe Right, we have Bumble. We have all of these resources that help us and assist us in the topic of dating. And yet we’re getting worse at marriage. The marriage satisfaction rates are the lowest they’ve ever been. And so you have about half of marriages end in divorce. And then you have this other significant portion of marriages that stay married, but they don’t love each other. They’re roommates, they’re sleeping in separate rooms. There’s no intimacy. And so we’ve got to think through where did we go wrong? And I think you raise an interesting point, Daniel. Song of Solomon 1:7, I believe it might be verse four. It just says ‘Their friends and family praise their love more than wine’. That is to say, they gathered around to celebrate what this couple had more than the party. It was everyone had agreement that they would make a great couple. And I think that community aspect is left out of the way we do this today.

Jonathan Pokluda:

We follow our feelings. And our feelings, they are adulterous. They will lead us astray, like Proverbs 7 that we will stray from the path if we follow our feelings. We can look at every relationship we’ve ever been in and we realized that we trusted our feelings and those relationships don’t exist anymore. And so if you think about the way the world dates today, where you get in a relationship until you don’t feel it anymore, it really is not training for marriage. It’s training for divorce. We are going to a systematic university to train us how to divorce someone, not how to stay married. We have learned, this is how you trust your feelings when really our feelings lead us astray.

Daniel Markin:

Wow. I’ve never thought of it that way, but I completely agree. It is almost a training for divorce. And so ideas have consequences. So exactly what you’re saying, you’re seeing that teased out.

Jonathan Pokluda:

That’s right. [crosstalk 00:11:22]

Daniel Markin:

They do. And so it’s no wonder and not like it happens overnight like a Kim Kardashian marriage, I think she married a basketball player for a day, and then they got divorced. I feel like that’s an exaggeration, but our culture would look at marriage like, well, that’s more of a longer commitment, but there definitely is a loosening, not a capital C on the word commitment there. [crosstalk 00:11:53] Yeah, we are.

Jonathan Pokluda:

We’re the next generation. The next generation is terrified. And it started with millennials. They were terrified of commitment. So the term FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out was introduced into our generation. And it really started as FOBO, Fear Of a Better Option. And so, as we think about marriage to commit ourselves to someone is to say, “Man, what am I missing out on?” And really with these ideas of the one and trying to find the perfect match, it puts so much pressure on us. We’ve got to get this right. And so most people don’t and the people that do get it right think about it altogether different. And that’s really a big part of this book.

Daniel Markin:

So how do you understand that idea of the one.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

The one person, especially as a Christian.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Exactly.

Daniel Markin:

Because we believe that God ordains all things.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

I’ve heard people say, “Through God’s sovereignty, you end up with the one God has for you.”

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

I’ve also heard people say, “There’s not in particular one person. There’s lots of people you could marry, or you could date.” Where do you land on that? And how have you counseled young adults?

Jonathan Pokluda:

The one is out there with the Oompa Loompa and the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. And they’re all hanging out on an island. And so if you’re looking for the one, you’re going to be looking for a really long time. You’re not trying to find a soulmate, an S-O-U-L mate, you’re trying to find a solemate, a S-O-L-E mate. That’s one mate for a lifetime. And, this idea of the one or my perfect match, it really comes from Greek mythology. So Zeus, the Greeks believed that at one point, every one had four arms and two heads, and that the Greek gods cut them in half. And so you had to roam throughout the earth trying to find your soulmate, the person that you originally started off being a part of them.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And if anybody’s older listening, remember in Jerry Maguire, they say, “You complete me.” And it’s just this idea, I’m trying to find that person to complete me. But every person, every human being is absolutely complete. Jesus Christ was the most complete human being that’s ever walked the planet earth. And, he was single. That’s where I would just start with your audience. I would say to anyone listening, I want to apologize as a pastor on behalf of the church that we’ve missed this because we’ve elevated the calling of marriage above singleness, and the scriptures do not do that. In I Corinthians 7:7, the apostle Paul says, “I wish you were, as I am.” He was single. And he says, “Singleness is a gift.” He says, “Each one has their own gift.” And he’s really plagiarizing the words of Jesus in a lesser known passage in Matthew 19, Jesus says, “There are some who are celibate for the sake of the kingdom.” He says, “Not everyone can accept this, but those who can should.”

Jonathan Pokluda:

Now, you have the greatest missionary that ever lived, who was single. And you have the Messiah, the one who follow his example. He also was single. We know that the scriptures say that whoever finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord, but it doesn’t say in Proverbs 18:22, that whoever finds a wife finds what is ultimate. And we see in Genesis, it’s not good for a person to be alone. And while that’s true, we were made to live in community. It’s also true that singleness is a very high calling in the scripture. And that if you have the gift of singleness, in fact, there’s a quiz in Outdated that you can take the quiz and find out for certain if you have the gift of singleness. And if you have the gift of singleness, if you’re single today, use that gift today.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Don’t get obsessed with trying to lose that gift as quickly as you can. But to go back to talking about the one, my wife, I’m six foot, seven inches tall, I’m weird tall, I’m odd tall, and she’s five foot three. I’ve got dark hair. She has blonde hair. I like guns, motorcycles, and the UFC. She doesn’t like any of those things. And so, I would just ask, is there someone out there better for Monica than me? And the answer is absolutely. Hundreds of thousands of men out there would be more compatible for my wife than I am, but she’s the one for me because she’s the one I committed to. I entered into a covenant for. And so now for the rest of our life, we’re committed to serving each other as the scripture calls us to in Ephesians 5, I Peter 3, and Colossians 3, that I am to care for her.

Jonathan Pokluda:

We’re mutually submitting to one another that I’m putting her preferences before my own, to love and to serve her and to cherish her. That’s the calling on my life now that we’ve entered into this covenant. And that really is the pathway to the greatest intimacy, the greatest joy in marriage. And so people try to find the right one and you don’t find the right one. It’s forged, it’s forged through difficulties. No one when they get married, think, “Oh, we’re going to go through miscarriages and infertility, we may lose a child, God forbid. I’m going to lose my job. All these challenges that life throws at us and going through those challenges, selflessly, that’s where a marriage is really forged into something beautiful. But singles today get stuck at this idea of, I’ve got to find the right one for me.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And there’s too much pressure. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You get stuck in this paralysis by analysis to date someone may mean you’re missing out on someone else. And we don’t look for anything else, Daniel, in life like that. If I’m looking for something, I have to know what I’m looking for so I know if I found it. Not just chasing a feeling. I need something more pragmatic, more logical than just chasing a feeling. If I’m looking for milk, I don’t stand in front of the freezer at the grocery store and say, “Well, how do I feel about the milk?” I know what milk I’m looking for. And so when I find it, I commit to it. I purchase it.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. I agree with you on that. And that’s where I land. So, my wife and I, [Alise 00:18:03], we actually met funny enough in a very modern dating way, met on Bumble, on a dating app. But I took the advice, funny enough, from Aziz Ansari and his book on dating where he’s like the biggest mistake a lot of people make is they connect online, but they never actually meet in person. So, I just made sure I reached out to Alise and said, “Hey, let’s get tacos as soon as possible.” But to try and get together as quick as possible to be in person. But we’ve talked about this.

Daniel Markin:

We’ve been married a year and a half now. She loves watching The Bachelor. She just finds it so out of control, what these people go through and they’re always talking about the one and we’re talking about that exact thing. How do you know are we the one for each other? When you imagined the one, did you imagine me? And it’s funny because where we land on this is there could have been so many different the ones, but the moment I put the ring on Alise’s finger, I told her you’re the one.

Jonathan Pokluda:

That’s right.

Daniel Markin:

And so, in some ways it was God’s sovereignty working boom, to that moment where I put the ring on her finger and said you are the one.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

And what’s been unique is actually there’s been moments and glimpses and reminders like the footsteps in the sand, you turn around and you see all the different areas where the Lord affirmed that choice, affirmed that decision. Our pallets, we enjoy the same food, same music, just little things that I could have never imagined actually affirmed that Alise was literally the one. She was created to be my partner.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

And so it’s just such a unique thing.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And if you all didn’t like the same food, if you didn’t like the same music, you would have fun trying to figure out how to compliment each other in that. And that would be okay, too. And it would be affirmed in different ways. And so I absolutely have a extremely high view of God’s sovereignty. I believe He is absolutely sovereign and all-knowing and controls everything. Everything exists in His control. There’s not a a sparrow that hits the ground outside of His control and knowledge. And, yet He doesn’t call us to know His mysterious will. He calls us to seek out His revealed will. And in the way that people date in the world today is they forsake God’s revealed will. And they’ll come up to me and say, “I just don’t know if God wants us to break up or get married.”

Jonathan Pokluda:

And I’m like, “Well, if one’s an option, I’m not really sure the other should be.” But they’re like, “I just don’t know, does God want me to break up or get married?” I’m like, “Why are you sleeping together?” Like, “Yeah.” I’m like, “Well, He wants you not to sleep together.” He says, “Yeah, does He want us to break up or get married?” Why is God going to reveal to you His mysterious when you have forsaken His revealed will?

Jonathan Pokluda:

There’s all of these things, these 66 books of instruction from the Lord that He directs us in that we should know and apply to our relationships. And as we do that, we walk by faith and He leads us. He’ll guide us and lead us and we can apply our logic and what we know, He tells us what we should look for in a spouse through different ideas and the scriptures. And when we find that we should commit to it, and God’s going to work out… Matthew 6:33 ‘Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you’. He’s going to work out those other details, but don’t blow past the clear instruction that He’s given us in the word.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Where do you think then that many single people are having the most difficulty with that exact point? So beginning to start getting married because I was single for a really long time and I was waiting for a sign in the sky or something to be like, “Oh, no, Lord help.” Do you think that is one of the biggest challenges for single people is them just trying to figure out that mysterious will, that mystery?

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yes.

Daniel Markin:

Do you think that keeps them from actually entering in?

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah. I think a lot of people think about it like you did for a really long time. Jesus says, I read this the other day, ironically, He said, it’s a wicked and adulterous generation wants a sign. And I think that, that is how we approach dating and marriage. Lord, give me a sign. How do I know when I found the one and how do I know? And there’s nothing else in life that we think about that way. And God does not ask us, nowhere in the scriptures does he ask us to think about that. So when Abraham is looking for a wife for his son, he sends his servant out with a list. He says, “This is what I want. I want you to find someone from among God’s people. And Eliezer goes to where people serve, and he prays that she would be a servant. And that that’s how he’s going to know if she serves.

Jonathan Pokluda:

We can take that same principle and apply it to our own search. I’ll go back to my milk analogy. If my wife, she sends me to the store for milk. She never just says we need milk. She’s very specific because she knows I’ll get the cheapest, generic milk I can find. She wants the organic 2% blue label, blue cap, this brand milk. She’ll say milk, but parenthetically, she’ll write this description that she wants me to find. So when I’m walking through the milk aisle, I know what I’m looking for so that I know when I found it. I don’t open the refrigerator door and sit and think, “Okay, how do I feel? And God, would you give me a sign that this is the right milk?” I’m like, “Oh, this is the blue label, blue cap, 2% organic, this brand. I’m going to commit to that one.”

Jonathan Pokluda:

And really in searching for a spouse, should you want a spouse, that’s the way you should. So if I’m a guy, I’m looking for a woman who fears the Lord, the Proverbs 31:30. A woman who fears the Lord should be praised. A wife of noble character. Her life is marked by the pursuit of Jesus. She’s kind, gentle. Her beauty comes from a gentle and quiet spirit, Peter says. So I’m writing all of these things that the scripture uses to describe a woman. And so that when I see her, I’m like, “Oh yeah, this is what God says I should look for.” And I’m like, “Hey, do you want to marry me? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?” And that blows people’s mind. It is that simple. That marriage is always going to outlast the marriage of someone who chased a feeling because your feelings change. And if you follow your feelings, the same feelings that lead you in that relationship will lead you out of a relationship.

Daniel Markin:

Well, in the same way that feelings change, tastes change as well.

Jonathan Pokluda:

A hundred percent.

Daniel Markin:

In the same way that you enjoy some food now changes later.

Jonathan Pokluda:

People change.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah.

Jonathan Pokluda:

If you’re like, I want someone who is really fit, so it’s like, I’m going to marry someone who’s really fit. And then maybe four kids later, they may not be so fit.

Daniel Markin:

True.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And, nobody thinks about it that way. So do you leave them because now you just assumed, “Oh, I thought they’re always going to be fit.” And the reality is we’re all getting uglier and people get so offended when I say that, but I’m just like, show me the 85 year old that you’re attracted to. And by the grace of God, hopefully you’re 85 one day. And if your spouse is 85, hopefully you’re still committed to them.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And you’re still going to see the 23 year old co-ed is just as hot as you always thought. That’s not going to change.

Daniel Markin:

I’ve heard a saying, it says, women are like wine. They get finer with age, but men are like milk. To bring it back to your milk analogy there. But there’s something very, very true about that. I heard always growing up too, as a young Christian man, make a list of all the things that you want in a woman, what you want in a wife. And what you have just described isn’t making up a list, but it’s way different than the list that a lot of my friends made. Where it’s like, I want a girl who plays sports. I want a girl who is this particular height and this particular hair color. And she has got a degree and she has a nursing degree. That’s a really specific degree. Or she has a business degree because I want her to be able to also be contributing financially and have a good head on her shoulders. I feel like some of the lists while they can speak to good principles, get oddly specific and I think oddly unrealistic.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Or worldly.

Daniel Markin:

Or worldly, yeah. And I think that a lot of young adults struggle because they have built a person in their mind that doesn’t actually exist, but the person they have built is just a reflection of themselves.

Jonathan Pokluda:

I’m a big fan of lists.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah.

Jonathan Pokluda:

So, if you’re listening and you want marriage, create a list, just make sure it’s God’s list. And so in Outdated, I actually list, “Hey, if you’re a guy, here’s what to look for in a girl. If you’re a girl, here’s what to look for in a guy.” This is what the scripture says. And that should be our list. When we say things like hair color may change. She may get cancer and go through chemo and her hair falls out.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And so you got to be careful when you base everything on the physical, the scripture says charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting. Beauty is fleeting means it’s going away. It’s a depreciating asset. So hopefully you invested in something more concrete and eternal than beauty because beauty is going to leave. And so will your marriage, if that’s what you chose somebody on. Ladies, the guy that would date you for your body will leave you for your body and your body is fleeting. That’s what you need to know. It’s fleeting. Gravity is going to take its toll on that body.

Daniel Markin:

Wow, yes, it will. I turned 25 and I read a thing on Reddit that said the moment you turn 25, you begin to die. And I think I was 23 at the time. I’m like, “Forget it.” But I’ve looked back at that since turning, I’m 27 now, and yeah, as soon as you hit 25, you start to feel like everything is breaking down.

Jonathan Pokluda:

I just turned 40. And so we had our honeymoon photo album on our coffee table for a long time. I was like, “Man, we got to put that up. We were hot.” And I get it. My wife is still beautiful. Don’t get me wrong. Three kids later. The way that God designed intimacy is if we go through it the correct way, she remains the epitome of beauty to me because she’s my outlet. She’s the one that I come together with and celebrate intimacy with. And so she is that for me, the epitome of beauty for me. But in reality, her body’s going to change. My body has changed. And, that’s going to happen for everyone. The age defying industry is a $30 billion industry, but nobody has learned how to defy age completely.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah.

Jonathan Pokluda:

So you can get all the Botox you want, at some point gravity skin elasticity wins.

Daniel Markin:

It does. And I think actually the wrinkles and the aging is a sign of beauty because it’s a sign of wisdom. And I just think there’s something very attractive to that. You see an old couple together, still holding hands, wrinkled. That’s what I want to be 30, 40 years from now is walking hand in hand with Alise like that.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah, I know we need to wrap up soon, but I just would say that there’s this verse I Samuel 16, when Israel is looking for a king and God says, “I do not look what man looks at. I do not look at the outward appearance. I look at the heart.”

Daniel Markin:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jonathan Pokluda:

And, so some Christians will say, “Well, what if I’m not physically attracted to them?” I would say, “You should pray that God would make you attracted to what he’s attracted to.” And that we would walk so closely with God that we would find attractive what He finds attractive. And so I do think that takes a real spiritual maturity to say, wrinkles are attractive because they’re a sign of wisdom. And while I think that’s true, I think that’s something that we have to learn through our time with God.

Daniel Markin:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, we do have to wrap it up here, but let me ask you just two questions about the book, just bring it back to Outdated. What was the most challenging chapter to write, maybe the most frustrating chapter to write? And then what is the chapter you get most excited about in that book?

Jonathan Pokluda:

Yeah, there’s a chapter in breaking up and it’s always just pastorally, it’s difficult to deal with heartache because people feel so desperate. They want closure, they want a conversation, they feel ghosted, forgotten, and they’re confused because someone slid into their DM’s. And so I just talk about how leaders remove confusion and how to love somebody is really that we don’t leave them wandering. We remove confusion and what it looks like to break up well, if things to end. How we do that in a way that we actually leave someone better than we found them. And so I think because of the serious nature and the delicate nature of that conversation, that might have been the hardest to write.

Jonathan Pokluda:

And the one that I’m most excited about is just this revolutionary idea of, if you just know what you’re looking for, you’ll be able to find it. And until you know what you’re looking for, you will not be able to find it. And we really just take this idea that has become so complicated. Honestly, Satan has made it complicated through Eastern philosophy and following feelings. And, the scripture says, it doesn’t say to follow your hardest, it says to guard your heart. Proverbs 4:23 because everything we do flows from it. In Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 He says, ‘Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge God.’ And so we can’t follow a heart that’s uninformed. And I really expound on that idea. And I think that’s been revolutionary for people to understand, what of my feelings can I trust? What does that look like? And so I love when people have said, “Hey, that’s been helpful to me.”

Daniel Markin:

Amazing. Hey, thank you for your time. And thank you for just all your insight here. If people want to grab your book, they want to buy it, where can they find it?

Jonathan Pokluda:

It’s available everywhere books are sold. Amazon being the biggest distributor of books, it’s certainly there. And so you can go on Amazon, but you can go to jonathanpokluda.com for a list of different retailers that have it available in Canada and the United States. And so you can just jonathanpokluda.com.

Daniel Markin:

Amazing. Jonathan, thanks again for joining us and spending time here with us. And we look forward to being able to chat again at some point.

Jonathan Pokluda:

Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate it. It’s great being with you.