How to Flourish With Mike Donehey

Mike Donehey (former lead singer of Tenth Avenue North) and all around amazing musician joins Sarah Taylor today. How do you know if you’ve found God’s plan for your life? Don’t miss this conversation where they dig in on how to flourish, what scriptures say and what new projects he is working on, including his new album Flourish. (Hint: you’ll get a little sneak peek!)

Interview Links:

Follow Mike: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

New Album: Flourish

Book: Finding God’s Life For My Will

Chasing the Beauty Podcast: Mike’s Mom

Chasing the Beauty Podcast: Dori

 

Transcription:

Mike Donehey: People suffer the delusion that if you’re a Christian, anything, if you’re onstage, then you experienced some sort of divine revelation to do what you’re doing, so just up through the years, when did you know this was God’s will for your life? And I’d always respond to those people, I’d say I don’t. And I would watch them become crestfallen and their countenance suffer in this.What? Course you got a divine revelation. I go, no God’s will for your life is already in scriptures is be joyful. Pray, continually give thanks in all circumstance, this God’s will for your life. I go, when you want to talk about it, your occupational calling, I think God doesn’t care so much. If I’m a lawyer or a singer, he cares what kind of lawyer or singer you are?

Sarah Taylor: That’s Mike Donehey, our featured guest on today’s episode of the Passion Meets Purpose podcast, which is all about those things that just come naturally to you. It’s what you’re naturally good at or interested in. And then whatever those gifts and talents are that people often compliment you on, and it just feels like you’re in your zone when you’re doing it, and then it’s how you use that to give back to the world. That’s what the stories are all about on the Passion Meets Purpose podcast. So let’s get to it with Mike Donehey.

I am, I’m so glad that you have a guitar in your hand. I think you’re my first guest that has brought.

Mike Donehey: Oh, well, you know, you just got to come prepared for anything and everything. That’s my motto.

Sarah Taylor: I always find that musicians seem to be more comfortable when they’re holding their instrument.

Mike Donehey: That it’s fair. I I’ve been getting asked to do a lot of speaking lately and I just ask if I can bring a guitar and maybe sing. And I kind of do a combination of speaking and playing just cause otherwise I don’t know what to do with my hands.

Sarah Taylor: I love it. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Now that you officially are your own podcast host, do you have a new respect for all the people that have done radio all these years?

Mike Donehey: I needed no new found respect. I already had plentiful amounts of respect, but yes, the amount of respect has grown more, and just the amount of things you have to do, it’s just, I already despise the sort of open canyon of demand for content, I feel like we’re in, in this day and age. There’s like a yawning chasm that just keeps demanding more and more and more. And I’m like, gosh, I don’t know how you guys do it. You just keep on cranking out.

Sarah Taylor: Well, I feel if anyone would be able to do it, it’s you? Because I’m going to guess if I had like Mike Donehey bingo for this interview, I’m going to hear at least five quotes from some different authors of some very prestigious books.

Mike Donehey: No pressure, no pressure. Okay. Why don’t you are saying about music cause Leo Tolstoy’s, said emotion, music is the shorthand of emotion, you know?

Sarah Taylor: One, four more to go. All right, Mike, for someone that’s not familiar with Tenth Avenue North, your upbringing and everything, let’s do kind of the elevator pitch of, can we start a little bit about how you grew up? Not necessarily in a musical family, but you and your sister who’s a musician would perform when your parents would have people over.

Mike Donehey: Yeah, I think that’s the reason my parents had so many children was just to have free entertainment for them and their friends, and they would, they would say, oh, our son does several impressions, Mike?! And I’d come in. Yes, father, were you just wanting to delight in my being no perform for my friend. Mush mush. And then, you know, they’d put a quarter in the slot and I’d start cranking out impressions.

Sarah Taylor: I hear you had a Steve Urkel and a Kermit the Frog.

Mike Donehey: Yeah. Sometimes my dad would make me combine. He did this whole home video series where I was the Urkel Nader, or I was Steve Urkel as Arnold Schwartzenegger. That was a very special time.

Sarah Taylor: I think this actually sounds great. Cause this was before iPads so this is how we entertained one another.

Mike Donehey: They needed content. You know what I’m saying, Sarah? They just needed some content and I was happy to provide.

Sarah Taylor: So then you did, like, I know drama acting all that in college and gathered a group of your friends together. You guys started a band. I’m not, my first joke, question for you, was going to be, now tell me, how did we get the name of 10th avenue north? But that’s…

Mike Donehey: Do you really want to know?

Sarah Taylor: No, no. That’s my joke name. Cause I felt so bad that you guys got asked that throughout the entire longevity of your career.

Mike Donehey: Fair enough. There’s no obvious spiritual reference, you know, to extrapolate. So people were pretty confounded as we were, you know, it was sort of a shock test that we ended up with that name. We always meant to change it and never got around to it.

Sarah Taylor: Well, because of the great success of your band, I remember the first time I met you, when you guys came on a radio promo tour, this is going to age both of us, but you came out, you played some songs at our station in Seattle, and you were just getting ready that week to propose to your girlfriend.

Mike Donehey: Oh yeah. I remember that. I remember that tour very well for that reason, because I was full of trepidation. You know? A lot of, lot of excitement, first time going to radio stations about to ask her father if I could marry, marry her. He did say yes. So that’s a great relief here.

Sarah Taylor: You are four, four daughters later,

Mike Donehey: four daughters later. It is. Insanity. It really is. There’s just, there’s just always crying and sometimes the girls cry too. And it’s wonderful. I love it.

Sarah Taylor: So how long from that time that we first met, when 10th avenue started helped me do some band math. How many years was that?

Mike Donehey: Well, 10th avenue north started in the spring of 2000. So the band lasted until was at 2020? While our farewell shows were at the beginning of 2021. So I mean, 21 years. Wow. You made it so pretty good. And I liked to say we didn’t break up. We retired, cause that’s actually a more accurate depiction of what happened. You know?

Sarah Taylor: I’ve heard you do some sort of a medley. Where you weave in all of the titles of your songs?

Mike Donehey: Oh, that’s, it’s more of like a a blessing really is what it is. A benediction. You know, I would never bore you with playing parts of all my songs. I mean, you can’t show up and go, oh no, no, I can’t really. And then you play, but I would like to tell you and your listeners, Sarah, that, that love is here, right? That God is by your side, he will hold your heart. Right. And when you realize that, that you are more, that he’s strong enough to save you, this is where the healing begins. Even when you feel like you’re losing or when you’re struggling or when you feel. You know, we see redemption when, and we know that we don’t do that alone. No man is an island. Right. We’ve got to do that together. Sailing by God’s promises like stars in the night. To not just follow our plan, but actually want what you want. Right? I have this hope, you know, that I can actually give up control. It’s going to happen. You know?

Sarah Taylor: My jaw just dropped. I tried to catch, how many did you get times in there? Even though that wasn’t.

Mike Donehey: Times wasn’t a single, so I, that doesn’t make the cut. I could put it back.

Sarah Taylor: That’s fair enough. Wow. That’s fantastic. I mean, just even listening to that, it brings back so many memories. Okay. So you like to say that the band retired in each of you kind of went on your own separate ventures. But one of them seems to be like merging again because I saw that you’ve opened up an awesome Airbnb in Florida. You said that. I know that Reuben, but then some other people helped retrain your thoughts on what stewardship looks like and hospitality. Yeah.

Mike Donehey: Ah, man, it’s good. Good. We’ll get you your deep dive in here. Yeah, I had this big epiphany when my wife were first married and I was out on the road with 10th avenue north, I thought that I was really pure when it came to money, because I just didn’t want to think about it at all. So I just gave away a lot of money. I didn’t file things or keep track things. I just got money, because the love of money is the root of all evil. And I remember for any real estate people. We were living in the front half of this duplex in the nicest area in Nashville, basically, it was all like all Vanderbilt doctors who lived around us. And we lived in the front half of this old duplex and the owner of the duplex came and he goes, I want to sell this to you guys, cause this was my mom’s house. And I love you guys. And it was, you know, $180,000 or something. And I’m going, are you kidding me? I’m making, you know, a hundred bucks a show. I can’t afford that. Not knowing if I had scrounged the down payment. And then I rented out the back half, the back half tenant would pay for my mortgage.

So it actually, you know, like that kind of thinking? And as the band went along, you know, our bass player became a full-time real estate agent. That’s why he ended up putting the band and him and a couple other people really helped me start rethinking about what stewardship looks like. And I’ve been thinking a lot personally, that may be if the love of money is the root of all evil than the disregard or hatred of money is close by. It’s actually two sides of the same coin. It’s still an idolatry issue. But to steward it well, You actually have to undo your grip of idolatry of money and its hold on you.

Sarah Taylor: And so how did that lead you to deciding, to make this investment and choosing to do an Airbnb for it?

Mike Donehey: Yeah, a lot of that was just perfect storm of things. My, my wife’s one of her best friends is an Airbnb host, Superhost, and manages 15 properties. And basically we had bought this house in Nashville when, when we finally realized, oh, we really should buy a property. And we ended up buying, this is like maybe way more deep dive than you want to go. But we ended up buying a house in the worst neighborhood in Nashville that over the last decade has become the cool neighborhood of Nashville.

And so our house, crazy, so we’re actually able to refinance it and get a new house just down the road where all our friends lived on this street. And now my sister lives on my street. I have another sister who lives at the end of my street, Jason and our old drummer lives on my street, Jordan, our old ANR from Providence, the girl, a woman who signed us, she lives four doors down from me. And so we’re like, oh, we love it. And then we were renting out our old house and we kind of decided, man, Jeff, our guitarist and Brendan, our piano player, moved back down to Jupiter and we spend a month down in Jupiter every summer, and that’s where we went to schools where we felt loved.

So we met and we said, what if instead of renting a house in Nashville, we sold that. And we bought a place in Airbnb. Where we could stay. And then if we have friends who go, man, I want to go see westbound where you’re from. We go, go stay at Airbnb. We got a spot. And it’s the Airbnb is right in between Jeff, our guitarist, and Brendan our piano player. Right in between their two houses.

Sarah Taylor: Oh, that’s just absolutely perfect. I like it. I hope so. Have you gotten some people to start staying there? Like is it, is it working for you? You just launched it.

Mike Donehey: It’s happening. We took a massive loss our first month because of some circumstance outside of our control, but we stand to look profitable here in December. And all of February is completely booked, so I, you know, it’s looking good.

Sarah Taylor: It looks wonderful. Well, we talked a little bit about how you’ve got a bunch of projects going on. So you pick from, because it’s your own fault for writing another book on top of the book you’ve already written, having Chasing the Beauty, having Flourish. So, you go ahead and start with whichever project you want to, to begin with.

Mike Donehey: Yeah, it’s so funny, cause I don’t, I feel like most days I don’t do anything. And so when you kind of start stacking it all up, it’s sad. It’s sad. It feels like it sounds more impressive than it actually is. But I, I released my first solo, full length album in August, maybe. So that obviously is really exciting. It was called Flourish and musically speaking, it’s the most proud I’ve been of anything, simply because I didn’t have to take in my whole band, all their opinions too. So it feels like a more true representation of my musical tastes. So I’m really digging it. And yeah, and I started writing, well, I have a podcast now called Chasing the Beauty, which that really was the result of the pandemic, because I mean, you’re just sitting in your house and you just can’t do anything. So everybody became a podcaster, which is my joke. So.

Sarah Taylor: But not everybody sticks with it. I mean, it’s one thing to start one and it’s another to be so consistent and you you’ve been very consistent.

Mike Donehey: I, I do, you know, I think access more, who’s kind of putting it on. I think they would like me to do one every day. And I’m trying to do that balance of being consistent enough where people don’t forget about it, but also I want each episode to really matter. And matter to me. So I don’t, I’m not just burning through anyone I can, I think.

Sarah Taylor: Canyon. The canyon of content.

Mike Donehey: So right. Well, right now I was gonna say you’ll enjoy this story. So last year, right before the pandemic, I’m planning this basketball pickup league and there’s guy named Bo Reinhart who plays my basketball league. And I make the announcement. Hey, our band is retiring and Bo grabs me after basketball Sunday night and goes, Hey, I just saw you post that your your band is breaking up. I said, yeah, he goes, Hey, I’m leaving NEEDTOBREATHE. Cause you know, guitarist co-founder of NEEDTOBREATHE and his brother bear.

And I said, are you serious? He goes, yeah. I said, let’s get lunch. So the next day we go get tacos and me and Bo are sitting there at Mostafa and then Mac Powell from Third Day walks in and he’s like, what’s up boys? Whatever. We’re all breaking up. We’re all breaking up our bands. Right now. Look at us. And it was just the weirdest moment. So I, I say that because Bo just told me Last week that he’ll, he hasn’t given any interviews about why he left NEEDTOBREATHE and he’s going to do my podcast and we’re in talks.

Sarah Taylor: Oh, you’re getting the exclusive.

Mike Donehey: So he says, we’ll see. We’ll see if it actually happens.

Sarah Taylor: I’m going to tell my people to go after him, see if I can release that thing first. Just kidding. So I am a listener of your podcast and I waned to talk a little bit about these recent episodes you did about a phone call that you received from your mom in a parking lot.

Mike Donehey: Yeah, dude, I have really crazy story about this. The whole reason I started the podcast was I wanted to do this story, which was, I was out on tour with Casting Crowns, it’s probably 2010. I remember my mom calls me, I’m standing outside by the buses and she goes, Hey, do you remember when I was assaulted? And I got pregnant and then I had the baby, but gave her up for adoption then you know, I I’d never met her. Well, I go what? She goes, what? I said, what? She said, what? I said, what? She said, oh, I can’t remember who I told you kids I told, well, yeah, Launched them to tell me that my half sister that I didn’t know existed was coming to find her on the internet. So it led to this huge unraveling where my mom ended up meeting her child. And then we all met, met her. But I noticed that my mom and my half sister still had a bit of a strained relationship because it kind of did bring about a lot of traumatic stuff for my mom. So my mom had to start going to therapy, kind, tried to deal with some of this. But I would talk to my half sister and I would talk to my mom. I go, man, you guys both want to have a relationship with each other, but kind of don’t know how. And so I interviewed my mom and then interviewed my half sister, and my half sister’s name is Dori. So we call it Finding Dori part one and two, you know, and the coolest part is those just came out. I mean, they came out a couple of weeks ago. And my dad says, my dad called me up last week and he goes, dude, your mom and Dori, since those came out, have been talking more than they’ve ever talked. And now my, my sister Dori is coming to have Christmas with my whole family for the first time. So, you know, you’re hoping that when you do a podcast, you’re not just making content for other people. You want to affect the people in your own life to. I’m really happy to say that is the case.

Sarah Taylor: I’m so happy to hear that that’s been their impact behind the scenes. How did they both feel comfortable? It’s one thing to share it privately with family or friends that know you, and it’s quite another to say yes, to putting the most difficult circumstances out for everyone to hear.

Mike Donehey: To be honest. I’m shocked. They said yes. Cause I really didn’t think they would. And I wasn’t going to push it. And I asked my mom, I’m going to ask her once to, oh, there’s a lot that I haven’t even explained to your dad that I haven’t told anyone. So let me think about that. And I said, okay. And then they’d come to visit and she goes, Hey, I, I want to do your podcast. And I said, oh, okay. Let’s do it. And then I asked my half, my sister Dori, and she said, ah, I don’t know. I said, okay, no problem. And then a couple of weeks later, Hey, did you want to do that podcast? I go and I sent her the one with my mom and she goes, oh, interesting. Hmm. Well, I’m not good at talking. I’m not good. I just can’t talk like that. I go, okay. She goes, well, maybe if you send me the questions ahead of time and I said, oh, okay. I send you questions here. Oh yeah. I hear they are. Didn’t hear anything. A couple of weeks ago by I go, Hey to her just last, last thought, I really don’t want to bug you, but if you want to do it… she goes, yeah, let’s do it. Right. So some people just need to be, they need to feel like you really want them to do it.

Sarah Taylor: I loved how you mentioned how Dori looks more like your mom than any of the other siblings.

Mike Donehey: It’s dead true. It’s wild. True. How much she looks like my mom. So that’s a great is a great kindness, I felt from the Lord.

Sarah Taylor: Well, there they’re very powerful episodes. So we will link to both of them in our show notes, but you should just be subscribed to Chasing the Beauty. Anyway, let’s talk about, so you have a first book called Finding God’s Life For My Will, right? Did I get that right at all? Is what I got it, right. Oh, it’s so hard. I don’t appreciate the cleverness of the title because it makes me have to think every time I say it and I say it real slow.

Mike Donehey: But ain’t that the thing, just trying to get people to stop and think that in itself is a worthy cause these days, yeah. Finding God’s Life For My Will. I wrote it because people suffer the delusion that if you’re a Christian anything, if you’re onstage, then you experienced some sort of divine revelation to do what you’re doing. So just through the years, when did you know this was God’s will for your life? And I’d always respond to those people. I’d say I don’t. And I would watch them become crestfallen and their countenance suffer. And they say, what? Course you got to divine revelation. I go, no God’s will for your life is already in scriptures is be joyful. Pray, continually give thanks in all circumstances, this is God’s will for your life. I go, when you want to talk about your occupational calling, I think God doesn’t care so much if I’m a lawyer or a singer. He cares what kind of lawyer or singer. And I think, I hope you know, that book frees people up from this.

It’s almost like we want to hold God like a terrorist. We want to hold him hostage. You kind of like Jacob, right? Or Jacobs holding the angel, they wrestle through the night and he’s holy and he’s, you will bless me. I’m not leaving here without a blessing. And sometimes we take God hostage. We say, tell me your will your plan for me? Tell me your plan for me. And he doesn’t a lot of the time. I mean, I guess some people feel like they get special revelation. I just, haven’t been one of those people. And I look back and I go, Hmm, isn’t that? It’s almost like God’s trying to tell me, Hey, I don’t need output from you. I don’t need performance from you. I actually want intimacy with you. And so the best analogy I’ve come up to… someone says, oh yeah, what’s your book about? I said, it’s about this. It’s about God has the directions, right? He’s like sitting in the chair and you’re driving. But without the directions, you don’t know where to go. Right? So you’re like, this is my life I’m driving. And I know some people like Jesus is supposed to be in the wind, whatever. Just go with the analogy for a second, carrie Underwood. I’m driving my life, but God’s got all the directions. So I’m consulting him. Hey, do I need to turn left? Do I need to turn right? And then he goes, oh, turn right now. And you’re going, God, it would be a lot better if you just plugged the directions into my little map and then I wouldn’t have to be waiting to hear from you. I would just know where to go. And it’s like, Jesus goes, yeah, then you’d stop listening to me and communicating with me. I don’t want to give you five years from now because I want intimacy.

Sarah Taylor: I know, can you imagine a couple of years ago, if God did speak to us that way, and he said to you, well, there’s going to be a global pandemic and everybody is going to go home. People would think you’d lost your mind.

Mike Donehey: They would. And there’s this movie called about time. Have you ever seen this movie? It’s like a British romcom with Rachel McAdams?

Sarah Taylor: The notebook girl. I never … I think maybe I tried to watch it and got confused.

Mike Donehey: Listen. It’s about this British family and the men in the family can travel back in time to any point in their own life and change things. And that movie, I actually consider one of the most life-changing movies I’ve ever watched, because it helps me realize that even if I had the power to go back and relive my life, I want to actually show up every day in such a way that I wouldn’t even need to. Even if I had that power, cause today, just the mystery and wonder that is today is enough, you know?

Sarah Taylor: And how do you do that?

Mike Donehey: It’s a great, great question. So I have this song on my new record called the glory I couldn’t see. And I wrote this song. Inspired a little bit by the Screwtape letters. There’s this letter in the Screwtape letters, if you don’t, if you’re not familiar with the Screwtape letters, it’s a CS Lewis book where an uncle demon is coaching a nephew demon, how to tempt a human. And at the older demon says to the nephew demon, Hey, can you get your human, right? Cause the Al the uncle demon is coaching the nephew. The best way to get your human off track is to get them to obsess over the past. He goes, but the problem with the past is it’s finite. So if you can get them to kind of obsess over the past, that’s good. But even better as if you could get them to obsess over the future because the future is infinite. He goes because we both know what the enemy knows and he’s talking about God, says we both know that the present is the only point where time touches eternity. Okay. So think about, think about where you want to be five years from now. Guess what you won’t be, then you’ll be now, then will always be now. There is no, then just kind of like a U2 song. There is no them, there is no, then. It was always going to be now. And the sooner I can realize that… there’s another there’s another guy who said something like this, I’m actually not getting this quote dead on, it’s something like, the secret to peace is to embrace your current circumstance as if you had chosen it. And when I’m in this present, like I’m in the pandemic, my tour has been canceled. My band is all retired. I don’t know how I’m going to make money. I don’t know how I’m going to, if I’m going to make music. I don’t know anything I could, I, for, for weeks I did this, I sulked. I was bitter and I was missing this opportunity that.

In his mercy. I’m not saying he caused the pandemic, but in his mercy, if I would accept where I was, I would see, oh my goodness, I’m catching fireflies with my girls tonight. We’re camping out in the backyard. I have uninterrupted time with my wife cooking meals and reading books. And there was all this beauty and glory that was actually right here. But if I was obsessing over the past or obsessing over the future, I was missing it because I was B… instead of choosing where I was, I was a victim to where I was. And in order to victimize yourself, you have to say, okay, I don’t choose how I got here, but I choose to be here. I choose this moment. And that’s when you, you get peace and you start to see the glory right underneath your nose.

Sarah Taylor: I feel like we should pause and let everyone digest what you just gave there. Sorry. No, it was good. Also my tally mark, I think you made your quota because you you and I, and I hear that guitar, we still are going to get something from you on the guitar. All right. So your quote of do the, the secret to the secret, to what?

Mike Donehey: The secret to peace is to embrace your current circumstances, if you had chosen it. Okay. But. The president is the only point where time touches eternity. That’s yeah.

Sarah Taylor: So we got that one. That’s two more. I’m going to give you the YouTube song. Quote.

I think we made the, I think you made it. We only have a couple seconds left here and you haven’t give us a, give us a teaser for Grace in the Gray, your next book.

Mike Donehey: Oh yeah. Grace in the Gray, a more loving way to disagree. I know that’s not a very relevant title. Yeah, I I’ve, I’m in the unique position where as a Christian musician, a lot of people think I side with them, you know? They’ll ride me in there in my message box and they just think that I agree with them wholeheartedly. And I go, no, I don’t agree with that. And I, I really feel like if we’re supposed to speak the truth in love, so speak the truth, but also in love, that means your posture is just as important as your position. And a lot of times Christians especially can get that wrong because what you believe determines whether you go to heaven or hell, and we kind of apply that logic to everything. So when someone disagrees with us in a lot of areas, it unnecessarily has way more importance than it should. So kind of just an exploration of who said in essentials, unity in non-essentials, Liberty and an all things love, I think St. Francis.

Sarah Taylor: Going for bonus points here, didn’t you, I might be quoting you to you. I think I read it from you that what if one of the ways that we love God is how we love each other or how we take care of each other?

Mike Donehey: I mean, that’s just true. Like if the divine image is, is on every person, right? Jesus said, you know, you show the world that you’re my disciples by the way you love each other.

And he said, how you take care of the least of these, you did it unto me. So how I treat you is how I treat God. I think that’s that’s so that’s that’s a mother Theresa quote, she said. The, they said, how could you take care of all these people who are sick and dying? And she said, well, when I take care of the least of these, I take care of Jesus. That means every person I love is Jesus. He’s just wearing a disguise.

Sarah Taylor: Okay. Well, we covered, I think we covered everything. We covered podcast, books, flourish, Airbnb, but you have this guitar and we’ve been teasing it throughout the whole thing. Now here’s my only rule, whatever you play or do don’t make my digital team go searching for rights to this thing for the podcast.

Mike Donehey: Oh, got you. I got you. I’ll get you some rights. Okay. So this is that song I was talking about. My wife says I need to get more vulnerable, not like fake vulnerable, where I just kind of tell you the parts where I sound really honest with still sound like a hero? Is probably the most vulnerable, a song I’ve attempted to write.

I want to hear Heaven when my daughter laughs And feel the Spirit every time we dance, when we dance. She always wants to dance..

‘Cause I’ve been busy, been making plans. I have a way of living in my head, in my head. I’m outside looking in.

But I’m waking up. I’ve lost too much.

You’re going to have to go look it up to hear the rest, but that song is called Glory I Couldn’t See.

Sarah Taylor: Sounds so good.

Mike Donehey: I got a glorious child right here. Can you say hi, Margo? She’s got her eye patch on, looking like a pirate.

Sarah Taylor: Is Margot the caboose.

Mike Donehey: She’s the last one Lord willing and the Creek don’t rise. She’s the last one. Are you the baby?

Sarah Taylor: Oh yeah. We’ve got one of those around here. The baby stays a baby for a long time.

Mike Donehey: And this is actually very perfect, but I did not plan this, but I’m done not letting myself be interrupted. Do you know what I mean? I think we’re so we have this like, Sorry, you said it’s over, but we have this… I’m just really tired of performative picture perfect Christianity. And cause the truth is it’s just so messy. It’s just, it’s it’s people, it’s humans that God chooses to reveal his grace through. And we kinda, Paul would say he displays his grace through our weakness. And I think if you look at Jesus, and, you know, my book finding God’s life from my well, I have a whole chapter called the ministry of interruption. How so many of Jesus’s miracles he’s being interrupted while he’s on his way to do something. And a lot of times, I think we miss opportunities to see the kingdom of God, because we’re going, it’s gotta look like this. It’s gotta be like this. And I don’t want to do that anymore.

Sarah Taylor: So good. It’s like, it’s not an interruption I’m available. You have to be when you have small kids.

Mike Donehey: Oh man. Yeah. They will break you of that if you resist. So you either conform or get broken.

Sarah Taylor: Thank you for your time. And we will link up to… When does this book come out?

Mike Donehey: Not until the fall, not till next next fall. Got some times.

Sarah Taylor: Okay. All right. Chasing the Beauty is the podcast. We’ll link to it in the show notes and take care. Our thanks to Mike Donehey and Kai Elmer of Fair Trade for hooking up this Passion Meets Purpose podcast interview. We’re going to have another episode for you every two weeks. If you haven’t subscribed, please do so. Also leave a rating and review and who you’d like to have as a guest on the podcast. And I’ll make sure I go after them.

My name is Sarah Taylor. Thanks for being along. I’ll see you in two weeks.