001: Jesus, You Have My Attention - NO OTHER GODS

How do you find what you worship?

How do you spend your Money, Time, Energy, Attention?

"No Other Gods" before Me.

They Simply don't work! Turn from these worthless things/idols to the living God...

Breathe in: Jesus….Breathe out: YOU HAVE MY Attention

+ 001 Jesus, You Have My Attention - Transcript

Tim: Hey everybody. My name's Tim Timmons and you're listening to the first of the 10,000 Minute Experiment Podcast. So next to me, I've got-

Emmoe: Moi, rhymes with joy.

Tim: Moi?

Emmoe: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tim: Remember the first time I met you, because your real name is Emmoe.

Emmoe: Emmoe, that's right.

Tim: Right, but I call you Moi and anybody can call you Moi.

Emmoe: Yes. Anybody can, as long as they ask for permission, but yes.

Tim: Because people can't call me Timmy.

Emmoe: Really?

Tim: Only people that knew me when I was a kid can call me Timmy.

Emmoe: Whoa.

Chris: It makes sense.

Emmoe: I didn't know that.

Tim: It really makes me mad. And there are a few things that really get my goat, but that one's like, hey, Timmy? I'm like, why don't you shut your face?

Emmoe: Well, that's my first name. No one can call me my first name. That will get me mad.

Tim: That's true. That's true. I actually know her first name and maybe at some point in these podcasts it'll come out.

Emmoe: Only you and the government, nobody else.

Tim: Okay. And then to my left-

Chris: I'm Chris.

Tim: Chris Cleveland. Chris is a stud. Chris and I walk together.

Chris: We do.

Emmoe: In life or on a trail?

Chris: Exactly. Yeah. It's both. And that's how old we are.

Tim: Right.

Chris: It's just a weird thing to tell people. I've got this buddy I walk with.

Tim: Yeah.

Chris: And That's how old I am.

Tim: It just sounds so perfectly Christian.

Chris: It is perfectly Christian, but actually the first time you were like, hey, let's go for a walk. I thought, oh, okay, that's weird but cool. And then I came and it was a walk, I was trying to play it off. But I went home and was sore for days a little bit. So next time I brought the shoes I laced up, I was stretched out before. It's like, man, we're going. Except the last walk we were doing our thing and then all of a sudden your wife runs by us. I mean just full out run. She was trotting around. And we're puffing up these hills and I'm like, man, she's way better than us.

Tim: Yeah. Hillary was killing it.

Chris: She was.

Tim: It was a little embarrassing.

Chris: More for you than me, but that's fine.

Tim: We yelled out, yeah, we just finished our run, now we're just doing a cool down. So yeah, Chris and I actually walk together, but it's one of my favorite things to say, yeah, we're walking together in life, because it just sounds so good.

Chris: That's true.

Tim: Well, that's about it, you guys, this has been so great.

Emmoe: Learned a lot.

Tim: Thanks for listening everybody. So we'll wrap it up. So guys, the whole purpose of this podcast, and this is going to be going on... We're going to try it this whole next season. Hence aught aught one.

Emmoe: Right.

Tim: Because we're getting ready. But the point of 10,000 minutes, and if you've never heard this before, then here you go, if you've heard it before, you can maybe skip for one minute. But the idea is that there are 10,080 minutes in a week, just do the math. There are 80 minutes that we gather as the church every week, whether that's in a coffee shop or in some building or whatever. And I found that I'm amazing. I really can surrender and praise God. And in the 80 minutes that we gather as the church.

Tim: I talk about Him, I'm aware of Him. And yet when I walk out those doors, after the 80 minutes into the 10,000 minutes, I just forget that I'm with Him all week long. And I think it hit me as one time I was walking out of a gathering I had just been leading and somebody cuts me off on the road and I was so mad about it. I'll use that example a lot, because I get really not happy about people driving and so to this many times... I didn't go up them and give them the bird. That's just not what I do, because they could have been somebody from the church gathering I was just leading.

Chris: Did you have that thought?

Tim: Yeah. At least I had that thought don't look like a total dork. But I drove past them and I looked at them with a smile, like I'm a Jesus follower look at me now. And I remember thinking in my head, I'm better than you.

Chris: Oh man. Yeah.

Tim: I'm actually better than you and you are so stupid. Which is just contempt in my heart. And anytime I feel like I'm better than somebody else, that's just contempt. So just this idea of how would I actually practice the way of Jesus during my week, during the 10,000 minutes of the week? So the hope was that week, I just decided, I'm going to start practicing, praying for my enemies that week.

Chris: Yeah.

Tim: So that's where a lot of the stuff started, a few couples, we got together and we just started practicing the principles of Jesus. So that's the idea of 10,000 minutes. And it's not to earn anything from God by doing these things, because this could just be another cool Christian thing that we end up doing is like, hey, let's do one more cool thing for God. Because we all know that's gotten us nowhere.

Tim: But it's how do we really join Jesus in our day? And I want be known as somebody who actually not just joins Jesus, but I looked like Jesus, not because I was trying to, but because that was just coming out of my life, because I joined him in all that I was doing.

Tim: And I get excited about each of us have different lives, but in our lives this next week and whoever's listening, we're going to have a practice that we're going to do every single week and we're going to go through different series, but we're going to have a practice that we will walk through. And at the end of the week, then we're going to actually talk through how it went.

Emmoe: Yay. Follow ups.

Tim: This is going to be great.

Emmoe: Accountability.

Chris: I can already...

Tim: So Chris, yours this week will be taking off your shirt-

Chris: Perfect.

Tim: ... And just running down the street, yelling out, I love you, I love you.

Chris: This is going to go great.

Tim: Yeah.

Chris: This is going to be great. Just follow my wife's Instagram for updates.

Tim: J/K, J/K, that's not actually going to happen.

Chris: Okay, great.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. It'll be a different practice than that.

Chris: Perfect.

Tim: So that's the point of this podcast that we will be together. Whoever's listening, we will be practicing the way in the heart of Jesus. Not so that we'll be more loved by him, but we might actually look more like him on the other side of it.

Tim: So Moi, everybody, is going to be with me every single week and then we're going to have a rotating cast of characters coming through.

Emmoe: Yeah. And you got some cool friends coming through to do some practices every week with us, so it'll be fun to see different, different angles, different perspectives.

Tim: Chris, we've done a million radio interviews.

Chris: Yes.

Tim: Chris is an artist, everybody. And you can go check out Stars Go Dim.

Chris: Try it. Yeah.

Tim: On...

Emmoe: See what you find.

Chris: Shameless play. I'm so allergic to it. I am.

Tim: Where can you find your music, Chris?

Chris: Well, Mardel, LifeWay Christian book store, Water Mark Christian...

Tim: Yeah. I think that's it.

Chris: Yeah. Okay. Those two places. And my mom's house.

Tim: Oh, a few years ago, look, this is a while ago, my first record that nobody else... There are seven copies left that I know of on the planet, and nobody will ever hear this record, is one of those. And somebody found one on a... Not a swap meet. At a house... Garage sale on Maui.

Chris: On Maui?

Tim: Yeah.

Emmoe: Hawaii.

Chris: Wow. See, I had a similar thing where somebody found one in a Goodwill that I knew and sent me a photo of it. I was like, okay. I think they bought it.

Tim: That's perfect.

Chris: Yeah. I was like, how can I get a residual from the [crosstalk 00:07:30].

Tim: From the Goodwill?

Chris: Yeah. Give them a call.

Tim: Oh, also it's your birthday.

Chris: It is, 36. I'm feeling it. I feel 36. It's affecting me a little bit, leading up to it.

Tim: You don't it at all. You look 44, or something like that.

Chris: Thanks man.

Emmoe: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. I'm trying to keep up with the kids in all senses of that word.

Tim: No, I'm just so happy you spent this with us. Thank you.

Chris: Yeah. Thanks, man. It's going to be fine. I woke up for pretty good about it.

Tim: Good.

Chris: I wasn't sure.

Tim: Yeah.

Chris: But it's fine.

Tim: About being here or about the birthday?

Chris: A little both, but mainly the birthday. Yeah. It's mainly the birthday.

Tim: Okay, good. Okay. So just in a second, we're going to jump into this next week's experiment that we are going to do together and try together. But before we do, here's just a little section of my new song called No Other Gods. And it really gives context to what this next week's experiment is all about. So we'll be right back.

Speaker 4: You have walked with me for miles and you brought courage through my trials. Oh God. How you've been good to me. So here I stack up all the stones. That's how all the good you've done. Oh God. You've been good to me. [inaudible 00:08:53] You are gone.

Tim: Tim Timmin's here. We've got-

Emmoe: Moe.

Chris: Chris.

Tim: Chris. And we're back. It's been a long time. So I know you've already forgotten about us, but we just listened to part of my new song, No Other Gods, which was amazing. We had tears in the room.

Emmoe: Yeah.

Chris: I was prostrate on the floor, that's a good Christian.

Tim: Yeah. I've always had a tough time with that word.

Chris: Because when I say it, it's in my head and I was like, I don't want to say this word and then I did.

Emmoe: Is it biblical? That's where we're going.

Tim: But prostate and prostrate, every time.

Chris: Is this a cancer? Should I go get checked?

Tim: He's prostrated on the floor.

Chris: And then I remembered it was my birth... I'm one year closer to it. There was a lot happening within that brief pause.

Tim: Oh my God.

Chris: Yeah.

Emmoe: I live on the other side.

Chris: I'm glad you were with me.

Tim: Yes, gosh, the test.

Chris: You're not there yet.

Tim: I might be getting there pretty quick. I don't want to talk about it too much, because that's not the practice. That's not the practice we're going for. So because we would like prostate on the floor. This has been so good-

Chris: Prostrate.

Tim: Oh prostrate. Oh, prostrate.

Chris: "Strate." Yeah.

Tim: Hey, you could just think of it, I'm lying straight-

Chris: I'm lying straight on the floor.

Tim: Prostrate on the floor.

Chris: I think that's the original Greek.

Tim: Yeah, it is actually, that's that's the whole thing. So this week we're going to lie down straight on the floor. Chris you'll have a shirt on. Okay. So the idea of No Other God-

Chris: This is all getting-

Emmoe: I'm out.

Chris: Yeah. It's all getting...

Tim: The idea of No Other Gods, the hope behind it. So I wrote it with a guy named Jason Ingram. As we were writing it, I came into the room and I had just prepared this message on, I think, it was on worship and what we give our worship to. And one of the best definitions I've come up with for worship is what I give my attention to. Literally I give my attention to so many things during my week. When I pick up my phone, I go straight to giving my attention to something. And these things necessarily aren't bad. Think about all the different things that we give our attention to. To actually just go for it, what are all the things during your day that you guys give your attention to?

Emmoe: My phone.

Chris: Kids and yourself?

Emmoe: My work.

Chris: Yeah.

Emmoe: My hair. I have to be honest. My looks. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris: My shoes. I love shoes.

Tim: You do.

Chris: I thought about it too long today. Too long. It's embarrassing, actually. It is what it is.

Tim: It's what it is.

Chris: But I like how it came out.

Tim: Wait how that your shoes came out today?

Emmoe: Happy birthday to me.

Chris: Glad of the choice that I've made.

Tim: But it's true, it's even the small little things that might even... I end up worshiping those more than I think I.

Chris: Right, yeah, when you really think about it. Oh gosh. That's like the most embarrassing part of my Sunday, when my phone tells me how long I've been on it. And then-

Emmoe: The weekly report.

Chris: ... Give me a percentage of how much longer or less. And the other day we had a snow storm. It was Breckenridge out here for a week. We went to down the hill, we went to the school, sleded four days in a row. It was the best Sunday, because I came back and it was like your usage down 58% or something like... And I'm not even going to tell you how much it usually is, because it literally is embarrassing. I try to blame it on GPS, but it's not. I'm just looking at it.

Tim: Playing these-

Chris: But it was the best. Yeah. And it's like, oh my gosh, yeah, I've just worshiped this thing or whatever this is for half my day. It's unbelievable.

Tim: Yeah. It's the small things like that. All the things that I give my attention to. My kids are great things. These are wonderful little 200 of them that I have upstairs. They're all really great. But even in that, even in parenting, that can become this idol. So I think in my life, I'll talk about this a lot, that I practiced worry most of my life. And I got so good at worry. Hm I've practiced scarcity and trying to fulfill all these different things, and I've gotten really good at those things. I've practiced humor in the wrong moments and gotten really good at that. That got me through so much of school.

Chris: Really?

Tim: So I was thinking about that the other day. My kids were going through something, oh my gosh, I don't know any of that stuff. And I didn't know any of that stuff, because somehow I got through with my humor and I practiced that and it got me through it. So when I was doing the message on the first commandment on worship, which is, "There should be no other God's above me," God is saying. And I think I'd always seen that and heard that as almost, not arrogant God, but a God who's saying, "You will not do this where else you will..." How did you guys hear that? How do you hear his voice in that? Again in my whole life, I've just really seen that as God going, "don't you dare look at someone else."

Chris: Very authoritative.

Tim: Yeah. How'd you guys hear that?

Emmoe: I heard it very matter of fact. There are no other gods. Almost like it is what it is, you could go check it out, but it's just the truth.

Tim: Yeah.

Chris: I guess I always thought... I've never even thought about this, really, but as I think about it right now, I guess I would think about these silly Bible stories where they would fashion some bronze God, and I'm like, oh, I'm not supposed to worship this statue.

Tim: Right.

Chris: I don't even know what that means. There's probably a whole disconnect of what God is actually saying. Of course I'm not going to worship a statue. Why would I do that? That sounds stupid. I'm not an idiot, I'm not dumb. But-

Tim: What if it was a pair of Nikes?

Chris: Right. Yeah. So change the context. Like, oh.

Tim: I do like that. But still, I totally have that same context where you see this idle worship and you go, those people are so stupid, why would they put something before God?

Chris: Yeah. And I don't even think it'd be like... in my mind it wasn't even putting it before it, I pictured these people just in love with this little inanimate object in a really overt way, not just giving their attention to it, but like, I love you LaCroix. I'm going to pray to you and...

Emmoe: Beautiful songs to you.

Chris: Yeah. It's just weird. I think it's probably just not really thinking it through for what it actually means.

Tim: So in that message, the idea was, "There should be no other gods before me," God is saying, not from this place. And I love how you've seen that, Moi, that's beautiful, I just did not see it like that. And I think what was so powerful to me was, it wasn't that He was saying, "There should be no other gods before me, so don't do it." It was, "There should be no other gods before me, because none of those will satisfy. None of those are worth giving your full attention to." And even as I think of buying gear for my studio, I'm trying to get the best deal to be really wise financially or to do something. Because I think making music is really powerful for me and for everybody around us. So in and of itself is not a bad thing. But I give so much attention to this thing and it just doesn't work, it doesn't feel the thing that I'm always trying to fill.

Chris: That's why you always buy more.

Tim: That's why I always buy more. Or I'm trying to be useful or I'm not that time with my kids. But I feel like this is good for the greater good. And I just keep seeing in my life that I keep running down and pursuing things and giving my full attention to things that actually just don't work. And my wife and I talk about this all the time, and we just watch each other pursue other things. I always know in her life when she's not doing well. Gosh, it would be so easy, I know what actually gives you life. It's just hard to say, hey babe, why don't you just take a little time for you and just hang out with Jesus for a little bit? Because I know when she does that, she is a whole new human. But she'd kick me so strong.

Chris: I think it's a whole mind shift. Even you approaching worshiping as how you give your time is pretty radical for most people. I think the first time I heard that it was like, oh wow, this really changes things for me. And once you really start, even us talking here, it's like, oh my gosh, I've been worshiping a lot of things I didn't realize I was worshiping. And I've been learning how to do a lot of things over the course of my life that I didn't really want to learn how to do. It just happened. And we're almost not even cognizant of what we're doing. We're just floating in a sense. And you say, oh gosh, I've gotten really great at ignoring my family and being on my phone, or I've got really great at spending my money on weird stuff, or worrying myself to death, or being insecure. And yeah, I've prayed to God and done these things through that.

Chris: But when I really look at it, I've put all of these other idols and gods, if that's how you define them, in front of God. And then it's like, well, who's next? Just keep going down the line. Wow. I put all this stuff in front of my wife. And I put all this stuff in front of my kids, in front of my health, in front of all these things. It seems simple to say what you did, but it's like, if you really internalize it, it's radical, it's pretty life changing.

Tim: Truly. That is why we want to do this show, is that we actually want to put this into an experiment form. Our hypothesis is going to be that the practice this week, you guys, is that we would breathe in Jesus. We would breathe out, you have my attention. Breathe in Jesus, breathe out, you have my attention. That all day long, that would be the practice. And I write this X in my wrist every day for many reasons. One is just because I woke up again today, I'm not supposed to be here, so I'm just thankful I got another one. But the other one is to remind me whatever the practice is that we're doing. So this week, I don't know what you guys even want to do, if there's something you guys want to write in your car or something, or put alarm or somewhere, or write something, or wear something, but let's just practice breathing in Jesus, breathing out, you have my attention. And what could that do? So even if you think about your week ahead of you, how actually might that change your week?

Chris: It's interesting, we talked about this a little yesterday and so I woke up thinking that. And I was freaked out about my birthday today for whatever stupid reason. But there was just a centered space pretty immediately. I got up and the stress of getting three kids to school and although I did sleep a little later, it was 7:50 and kids have to leave at 8:00, and I'm like, oh. But my wife had done the work, which she usually does, she's way better person than I am. But even just in those few moments, it just took some of that stress away. So it'll be interesting to see how a whole week of thinking through that really is.

Tim: Yeah. It's a matter of waking up with that. One of my friends had talked about definition for prayer is aligning and realigning to the heart of God all day long. So prayer has always seemed like this huge thing, which we're actually go into, we'll talk about prayer in a few weeks.

Emmoe: Yeah.

Tim: But this idea of it's aligning and realigning to the heart of God all day long. Because this idea of breathing in Jesus, breathing out, you have my attention, is really this aligning of our hearts and realigning, no shame attached at all. Just realigning to the heart of God. And where he's at work and joining Him in that moment. So you have my attention.

Tim: What am I learning when my kids just did something that totally frustrated me this week, which will happen this next week, when I'm sober enough in this way and not just angry or whatever, I can actually say, okay, Jesus, you have my attention, what do you want to teach me in this moment? When I get cut off in the car and I'm pissed about it, Jesus, what do you want to teach me in this moment? That's my hope with this hypothesis, is that this week we will be more aware of what Jesus is doing and join him in it. So if you guys want to do that with us, please do. And the next episode, Chris will be a lot older quite then. You'll know more about being 36.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah.

Emmoe: Sounds about right.

Tim: All right you guys, thanks again for listening to this next week we've got Jason Ingram who's one of my favorite humans. If you've ever sung a worship song of any kind, you've sung about 50 of his, or listen to the radio, you've heard about 50 of his. He is just a prolific writer, but a great human. And he and I have written a lot of songs together, including the song that we're praying this week called No Other God.

Tim: So get ready next week is really, really fun. And since we're just starting this podcast, would you actually subscribe to it and just give us a chance for a few episodes? Would you like it? Would you even rate it if you thought it was good at all? That would be helpful. And then if you want to get two free text messages, just text 10K, 1-0-K, to the number 55678 10K to 55678. And you'll get two free encouraging texts this week. And you can always go to 10000minutes.com. 1-0-0-0-0minutes.com. All right. See you then.