You won't get a big enough paycheck, you won't get a good enough spouse, you won't, get a final degree that will make you happy. You won't drive the car that after a month isn't gonna feel like a used car. the, that's how the world is made on purpose. the Bible is there to teach us how to live well despite and not expect miraculous cures to everything. Because if we got everything. We probably wouldn't reach out to God.

What do a rural library, a boy on a bike in the ancient wisdom of job and Ecclesiastes have in common? Today's guest, Darryl Potter, is a writer who brings biblical truth to life through story from historical fiction about the rise of Herod to deeply personal reflections on grief and meaning. Darrell weaves together history, theology, and memoir in a way that challenges and inspires. in this episode of Seek Go Create the leadership journey. We talk about the power of story, the raw honesty of job, the quiet wisdom of Ecclesiastes, and what it means to live well in a broken world. Darryl, welcome to Seek, go Create.

Tim, it's fantastic to chat with you.

Yeah, it's great to be with you too. are you in Canada? Did I read that right?

I'm in a suburb of Toronto, so, fairly recognizable area of Canada, I think for.

Yeah, it is. I'm just outside of Atlanta right now, and this is for the audience that might be with us every week. I am not anti-American. I had a three part series with a guest from Canada. Then I did some solo episodes. So I've been avoiding Americans and it's not intentional, so please no one hold that against me. It's just, man, I've had a lot of really cool Canadian guests come across my desk and you being

California, so I'm not, unfamiliar with, the American experience.

We may get into that as part of your journey. Darrell, let me jump into, my first question that I like to get started with. Would you rather answer what do you do or who are you? Pick it and go ahead and start answering.

I will go with, who are you because it's dangerous and, and you could go six hours and not complete, something like that. but, one, one, lens on that question might be, I'm someone who loves blank paper. a fair bit of autonomy and agency in how I proceed and people, give me, give me those three together. Now I'm a bit of an introvert by nature. I think all writers are, to a degree. So I like my time alone, but, I can do almost any job. I'm working, in a bank now. But, as you've probably read a little bit in, your reading so far, lots of jobs, but that's the common thread I like to create. I like to be left alone to create even in a corporate context. And I like working with people.

Hmm, that's cool. 'cause that really speaks to a lot of things. Some of those are similar for me except for most of my life. I really have gotten energy from being around people in groups as I've kind of ventured into my sixties. I've gotten a little bit more. I'll call it introspective and just kind of wanting to sit with my thoughts, which I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with that. and it is kind of fascinating.

Inter introspective might be, actually, I use the word introverted, but I think I might just adopt your, that's a better I word. I think maybe to describe me,

I, and you know what, I bet as a writer, words are important to you, aren't they?

words are important and the observation process is important. It's a bit of a stereotype in the writing community that put a writer at a party and he's. Greater than 50% odds, he's just gonna stand in the corner and watch. and it's not so mercenary as taking notes for the next book, but there is a part of the brain that just always is fascinated by how things work

well,

observes it.

One of the things from just looking at you and I, and I want to go ahead and start this. I think I sort of mentioned it in the little intro that I did, but storyteller would be a word that I think fits well for you. I've sort of been calling myself that a little bit and I think I've been hesitant to own it, but I think there is something to be said with that. So there's storyteller. you are writing both fiction and nonfiction, which is a lot of people would say, this is my way of saying it. Pick one or the other and stay in that lane. Right? so tell me about those three words, storyteller and then fiction and nonfiction.

Yeah. So I think first of all, we're story creatures. We remember story. you can have facts all day long, but we only make meaning when it's given a context or when it's given, given a narrative. you know, your, your, your sports enthusiast remembers so many stats, but they're, they're often stitched together with favorite teams, favorite players and and how that season went and the effect it had on them. Like, so I, even in the banking context, I've been 34 years with, one of Canada's largest banks. Just about every type of job you can imagine, corporate, HR and branches and wealth and, and, IT and product management and operations, margin management, whatever. I don't even have a commerce degree. I've got a more literary oriented background, but where I have fit is that I can tell the stories. the finance guy or the IT guy or the operations guy has needs and drivers that I can intellectually understand to the degree that I need to. But what I can do that they can't is tell the story that results in staffing up or getting a project approved or whatever. So getting back to your fiction, nonfiction, to me it's still all story. So my nonfiction, so far has been historical. The next, novel, which is through first round editing is moving into magic realism. but the historical fiction is telling stories from history. But just like sci-fi typically isn't actually about space wars or aliens or whatever, it's typically about something political or economic going on right now. similarly historical fiction. I think when it's well done, it doesn't feel like your history class in high school. instead, it brings to life an era, in my particular case, their first and second century BC Middle East. And it's fascinating. The parallels to today, sorry, first and second century, before Christ, middle East, and, the nonfiction is, is very different, more personally driven. Two very tough books from about a thousand BC that are in the Christian Bible that I wanted to explore. But the material that's largely available to explore it is really dense, really academic, hard to understand. And then once you understand what you're saying, it's like, yeah, but so what, it's, it's almost like, literary schools, you know, debating with each other in subtle ways. and so that's why I've mixed the commentary on those with memoir to try to stitch it to my narrative, which isn't everybody's narrative, of course, but at least it gives a 21st century anchor to interpret some of the things that are trying to be brought across. So to me, it's all the same thing. It's still white paper and communication with people.

I think we need to bring that perspective of your story, your personal story, and your journey in just a moment, because I think it's significant with, books of the Bible that you've chosen to go into depth when you know Joe Ecclesiastes and it looks like your next one is the Song of Songs. So, that's, you're kinda hanging out in a section of the Bible that not a lot of people hang out there.

Yeah.

I wanted to mention one thing though, when it is something triggered in me when you were talking about being in the banking world. But yet being a storyteller, and I know a lot of people are in their minds going, whoa, does not compute. We've got a lot of business leaders that listen in. A lot of people with spiritual background and all, but a lot of people have trouble with that. And I wanted to say, this is kind of fresh in my mind, you'll probably get a kick out of this. in our, in my role as COO, now we're in the process of doing a manufacturing. We we're starting a manufacturing armor or company here in the United States, which is fascinating. It's been kind of fun. So we're going through the banking process, we're talking to a few bankers, and I had one recently request a business plan. I've been in business for all, all my years. there's traditional business plans. But I told him, I kind of blurted it out without thinking it. I said, okay, I'll put together my business plan for you, but just know it's gonna be more of our story. That's exactly what I did. I wrote this business plan, and when I looked at it, it has some numbers in it, but it's not like heavy. They could look at the projections. we've given them all of our numbers, but I told the story of how we've gotten to where we are and the story of where we believe we're going with all of our people, our leaders we're attracting and all that. And you know what, I'm kind of pleased with how it turned out. So as a banker, I know you may not be a funding person for, you know, manufacturing the guy looked at it and said, man, this is great. Perfect. Thank you.

Yeah,

I do think that's powerful. I think everybody needs to consider being a storyteller in their own way. Would you agree with that?

A hundred percent. I can remember a, for confidentiality reasons, I can't, always, you know, explain the project in detail, but I can remember one project I wanted to spend over a hundred million dollars That's not a small thing at the bank to try to get approval on. it had political and other implications as well, and we'd done business case work. So you still gotta do the math. Even if you're telling a story, you still gotta do the math. We did business case work to such a degree that one of my analysts was in dialogue with Stats Canada, with, federal government, explaining to them how they got their cross border, stats wrong because he'd gone so deep into the business case, he could tell that there were logical disconnects and he got them to correct their data but it was the story that sold the case, not the numbers, It should have sold like two years before I finally got approval. The numbers were easy, but nobody could wrap their mind around the crazy thing I was trying to do. And it wasn't till I started telling a story about grandparents and their kids. And what has happened over that generation, over those generations. and then positing a question about what that meant for their grandkids. That suddenly light bulbs went on. I remember, one of the executives of finance came to me a few months later and he said, you've got me going around this organization selling your case. And that is not my job. I am supposed to be resisting you. because story is what got people. We make decisions on emotions, even banks do. we need to justify it after the fact with numbers, but we decide on emotion. even hardcore finance bank people.

Yeah. And I guess for the business person leader that's listening in, we're about to dive into background and some other things, take that message to heart. Now, I will often challenge say, Hey, listen, yeah, you're doing great things, but you need to communicate it a little bit better. I've done this as a coach, and storytelling is a great way of doing that. And sometimes you have to tell that story over and So let, let's go back in, in the intro. I started, you know, with this little tag that I read about you, that, you know, a rural library and I was sort of chuckling as I read through it. you rode your bike. 10 miles to you, you were homeschooled and I'm sure it was uphill both ways, probably. You probably made sure you

country.

I'm kind of e exact, I mean, it kind of had a little bit of that story tone to it. give me a little glimpse of that. you're growing up and I also saw somewhere where you, early on in your life, you decided to become an atheist. So let's tie that in. I'm always intrigued by what that looks like. It's like, I'm committing to atheism. That's what I'm doing. So, tell me what you want to about, Daryl, the early years before we jump ahead to all that's going on with you now.

So I'll give you the, the rapid fire version.

Yeah.

I'm gonna be a rat here 12 years old. there was a particular assault that was ugly, rural California, rice farming country, northern part of California, a thousand miles from la. So it's not the California people often think of, Haldeman Mennonite community. Largely we were Baptist, but Haldeman Mennonite community, that's the caps and gowns and, and so on in the farming country. great, great community, but a little bit insular. at least it was back then. That's decades ago now. And, so isolation, no, no, you know, homeschooled, as you mentioned, no, no TV at home. obviously long before the internet was invented, And one of the results of that assault was I think my, my, my parents may have had some difficulty wrapping their minds around it. So trial occurred, perpetrator went off to jail. Not always the end result of those sort of things. but I got moved outta the house six months after the trial. So 13 years old. moved a couple miles away to be a night nurse to an elderly couple in their nineties, brother and sister duo. was on my own kind of from 13 on in many respects. and it really tainted my view of Christianity of the world. we were, you know, Christian family, but, but you know, you shouldn't leave any 13-year-old on their own to raise themselves, nevermind one who's just been traumatized by an event and then a court hearing. so at 18 I moved out of the house officially, although I'd been gone already for years. then at 19 immigrated to Canada. hundred bucks in my pocket. I arrived at noon on a Monday and I was working as a cook on a Tuesday They figured out I didn't know how to cook, but by then I'd learned enough that they kept me. the, next few years those are my atheist years, I went to UBC, university of British Columbia, chemistry to become a good atheist. I slept on the street now and again, did the. Poor immigrant thing got ripped off by more than one employer. it really sobered me to realize, hey, of a six foot tall, white, English speaking male, can be so abused by being an immigrant. how much more so someone who had a different skin color or an accent, or lack of education or other things. so even though I'm 34 years career banker on Bay Street equivalent in the states of saying Wall Street, I still feel very connected to another reality, farming, isolation, immigration, and poverty. And so, it's funny, I sometimes look around my household now this is a real backdrop. and I think, you know, how did I get here? 'cause I think we all carry a certain self-identity that, Persists even when present reality changes.

Let me, I wanna fast forward because a couple of questions that popped into my head.

Hmm.

In the environment that you grew up in? I know a little bit of that, I guess is anaba and some of that world, you know, where they, and I admire the kind of denial of maybe modern conveniences and some things like that.

Yep.

I recently spent some time, I had a client up in Amish country of Ohio, and it's just fascinating, you know, see him driving around with the carts and all that. I don't know if you were that way, but was your. I don't wanna use the word deconstruction, that's not the correct word, but that's one that's thrown around a good bit today. Was your backlash or your, your movement away from that faith, was it a backlash to some of the, I'll just call it maybe the religion of how you grew up? And this is not a time, I'm not looking to throw people under the bus or anything like that, but, but, but was it more of like, Hey, I needed to purge some of that stuff because I'm about to ask you about where you're at now, and I'm probably guessing where we're headed, but,

Sure.

Was it just like, Hey, I don't want anything to do with that. I need to get rid of it, or what?

I'd split it. 60 40, I'd say 60% was a desire for honesty. There was a, an unhealthy dynamic that I was experiencing, you know, the dynamic that would move a traumatized 13-year-old outta the house as a solution. and I wasn't acting out. I was just. You know, wide-eyed trying to figure out what just happened and how do I navigate socially like any other 13-year-old, there was a feeling of I'd observed a Christianity of appearances and rules, not a Christianity of honesty and enjoyment. so that would be the 60% that I was looking for. And then the 40%, motivation factor would've been, you know, to be, to be candid, I'm in another country. I'm 19 years old, and girls look good. you know, I got drunk twice in my life. Discovered both times I can't handle the, the aftermath. So, I haven't even been buzzed since like that, even as an atheist, you know, drinking, never, I didn't have the gene apparently to be an alcoholic. but there were other aspects of, you know, worldly freedoms, in air quotes for anyone not looking at the screen that, were attractive to a 19-year-old in another country with no supervision. in some ways the poverty saved me from some troubles I could have gotten in. 'cause I didn't have enough money to get into some of them. but those were, more motivating than theology or something like that at the time.

Yeah. And especially when one's been in what I was probably a restrictive environment growing up, all of a sudden that liberty, that freedom. it is fascinating that you say if you had had more money, you could have probably gotten in more trouble.

just to be clear, the community was Haldeman Mennonite, which meant 80% of the population around was that our specific household was Baptist. Uh, so I just wanted to, I just wanna make sure

Sure.

confusion in that regard, but the, the, the conversation still a hundred percent applies. Yeah.

yeah. and so that feeds into what I was about to say. I grew up in the deep South you know, the Bible belt, religious, but we didn't really go to church. I wasn't that committed or anything like that. I mean, but we had it baked in around us just because of the culture, which you probably did too. You know, even though you weren't, quote unquote that group, you were, this group, you were still collectively, because that stuff permeates. And so when I grew up, it's interesting you talk about, you know, you discovered females. I discovered females really at a young age. And the one that drew me towards deeper spiritual was the attractive, beautiful one that I've now been married to for, we've been around each other for 40 years. Yeah. And it was like the Lord said, all right, I know how to get his attention and I'm gonna use her.

Missionary dating.

Halle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hallelujah. it's worked out well. one of the things I want to get to is, I think I heard you describe kind of where you are now, what's going on with your family, because I think that feeds into what you've been writing definitely from a nonfiction and probably from a fiction standpoint. so let's fast forward to wherever we need to set a foundation for beginning to discuss job and then Ecclesiastes.

So early twenties figured out, hey, this, uh, this wild man in the world thing is not fitting me well at all. went on a bit of an existential quest to figure out, what I would believe decided I wasn't just gonna adopt my parents' version of Christianity, or any religion. Studied Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, wound up, Christianity. CS Lewis was quite a help in that regard. then proceeded to cycle through just about every denomination I could find within bus travel of where I lived. have moved around a bit over time. But, did I become a Christian, when I was seven years old and prayed a prayer? I certainly thought so at the time, did I become a Christian when my dad baptized me at 13? I kind of thought so at the time, I think I really engaged in my early twenties when I actually was making real heart level and not just, cultural ones. I was, you know, single guy for over half a decade. Met my wife in the church. we got married four years, uh, uh, uh, as a, you know, double income, no kids traveling Hawaii and Mexico and wherever. And then, our daughter was born and the bottom fell out of the world for me. She was 10 days old when we realized we had a problem and she became a medical crisis 10 days old onwards. we popped in for a one hour clinic to follow up on a symptom that wasn't good and we didn't go home for 10 days the longest stretch in hospital was 30 days, but we basically just lived in and out of emergency rooms and hospital rooms Canada's west coast. And, my wife went through some medical stuff at the time as well, where it looked like within that first year of my daughter's birth, I was gonna lose wife and daughter. that. a crisis of faith for me because I, unbeknownst to myself, had a bit of a transactional of how Christianity worked. it's kind of like the, Western logic of, I go to university, I'll get a good job. Right? That's how it works. you know, it was like, I follow God to a certain degree and he, he blesses me to a certain degree. That's how it works. and so I studied job as a way of, wrapping my mind around that. read it first. got nothing out of it. as I've said elsewhere, I kind of thought it was useless. and I was in a. Spiritual and crisis with what was happening in my family. So I read it again and determined that it was not only useless, it was also boring. if God wrote a book in the Bible on suffering, that doesn't help somebody who's suffering, that's a problem. how good is he at his job? and embarked on a 10 year quest figure out the Book of Job. 'cause as you say, it's not the place most people camp. And holy cow, the literature written on it is dense. and I don't just mean a lot of it. I mean, like. What are you trying to communicate in these three sentences that I've read three times and still don't know what you're saying? and so it took 10 years, maybe a slow student for me to really finally feel like I understood job. And, that's what led to writing the first of the nonfiction books, even The Monsters, which is a mixture of memoir and commentary. And it follows my journey of studying job and then slowly un unveiling, kind of in real time through the course of my study. When it finally clicked for me what this book was trying to teach, which for the reader, that's the first time through reading for me. It was probably year seven or eight and, the 10th time through the book with commentaries and translators, handbooks. and then from there moved on to Ecclesiastes, which is the God's Book of the Bible on, meaning of life, if you will. and, again, mixture of memoir on, commentary on, again, another very. to follow. Intriguing, but what in the world are you talking about? Kind of book and lot of people call it their, I've heard, I've had a lot of people say, Ecclesiastes, it's their favorite book, but I don't understand it.

Well, most people, I don't want to get sidetracked on this. Most people, my, introduction and. Probably Foundation of Ecclesiastes was a song from the mid to late sixties

Yeah.

that was taken totally in context by the way, and set to music and, and, and does have kind of a fascinating haunting even sound to it. And, and you know, I guess there's a lot of wisdom there. I don't, I don't want to say it's taken out of context because, but, but so one of the things, let me see here. I've got two questions. Let me see which direction I want to go. I wanna also get a, an understanding of where your family is now, because what you just described, I believe is 20 something years ago.

Yep.

And so hold that thought because then I also want to. Talk about the context of both Job and Ecclesiastes, but WWI tell you, why don't we, go ahead and give us a, tell me about your family today,

sure.

and then I got a lot of questions I wanna start tying together with this because there's a direction I think I want to go and I think we're gonna have fun with it. And it's gonna be deep. So let's, let's get ready.

Fantastic. So, 28 years married, my wife worked in a law firm. As I mentioned before, uh, our daughter was born, hasn't worked outside the home since, just because of the medical challenges. The, reality today is our daughter was not expected to live past age three. Once she finally had a diagnosis, definitely would not live through the teen years. she was formally given palliative care status at eight years old, although she'd been a medical crisis for eight years already. And, we were basically instructed to prepare for the end. she's 24 now, so she's a medical miracle. she's got two extraordinarily rare conditions, neither one of which has a proper name or even acronym. And she's the only human on the planet with both. And so she's just unique in every possible way. we've got 10 hours a day of nursing, seven days a week. that's has to be registered nurse or above because of the meds and procedures that are required. And then we're the night shift from 7:00 PM till 9:00 AM So we haven't, we don't go away together. you know, it's $400 to leave the driveway to go out to McDonald's for dinner. not that we would choose maybe fast food if we did spend that $400, but, but the point is we have done that and we have been in a steakhouse and we have left halfway through the meal because the ambulance was called and you know. so much for that. and there's no refund on the $400 nursing when, when, when that kind of thing occurs. our son, we, we've got a son. He's, he's 21 third year uni, going into fourth year university. And, engineering student, he's super healthy. We joke that whatever his sister left behind, he picked up on the way out. 'cause he's, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and always, he's just like a total joy. I think God was like, Hey, we gave you Mackenzie, your daughter, to torture you 24 hours a day. so we're gonna give you Jackson, your son and and he'll balance things out. So he's a superstar. if our first child had been Jackson, we'd have been naming for 10 kids. he's a joy. So that's us. we're all back home right now since he's home for the summer An amazing family dynamic despite the fact that a medical crisis is a multiple times a day, seven days a week thing. we adapt to a bizarrely non-standard lifestyle because that's the row we've been given to hoe. the only option is for one of us to ditch the other which either one of us has done.

So you're, yeah, I wanted to kind of. Clarify that many marriages don't make it through that type of situation. Many families are broken and splintered and, you know, Jackson could easily become bitter and angry or, you know, your wife could, and, you know, a lot of things could go on. How would you, and this is gonna feed into my additional questions that we're about to have. I use the word fun as a sort of a light to say we're about to go really deep 'cause I'm excited about this conversation.

you.

But, how would you assess where you're at today? I mean, you're in a nice office, things look good, but,

Yeah.

you still have this probably constant, thought of a medical emergency or, or. worse. I think I heard you say somewhere that because of your daughter McKenzie living to this age, there's a good chance she could be in that condition now for many years. There was a deterioration for a while, but so, give me a current real world maybe with a little spiritual aspect assessment of the Potter family.

Yeah, so the Potter family now is, in a situation where our friends are all becoming empty nesters. and we are now beginning to think we might never be, because our daughter, her condition is degenerative and one of the two diagnoses she has is that if she makes it to 24, she could make it to 60. now, as I mentioned, she's got the two, so she's not even supposed to be here at all, but it's in a reduced capacity. So She can't anymore. 12 years old, she said her last word, daily seizures fed through a tube. she can still hug, she can still interact, but very limited. And so there's a, we're in the process of actually quite a life adjustment as we think about, we never planned to do this when we're 70 or 80. And I don't think we'll be able to. And not only that, if she's gonna outlive us, which she's, again, she's not supposed to, she's already 21 years past her supposed expiry date. and by the way, that's kind of a crude way to say it, but when you live with it so long, you can kind of develop a black humor. so the, you know, we don't wanna leave her to our son to be his problem when we finally pass on. she's our child. So we're in the process of exploring options, but there are really, are no long-term care options for someone like her. They don't design those sort of facilities for a 24-year-old woman. they're either a hospital where you're in a coma, you know, given her level of high intensity, one-on-one needs, or, it's a geriatric, convalescent hospital situation where they can either manage themselves with a bit of support or, again, they're just sitting in a chair all day and they're not, you know, so interactive anymore. She needs to be gotten out of her chair. She can still scoot around the floor. She's a 21-year-old with a personality and a bit of feistiness. We joke that if she was healthy, she'd be the biker chick in the family. Like she's, she's just got a bit of a rebel personality. She's got some of her mom in her. not that my wife was ever a biker chick, but the point being that, she doesn't fit housing models. You know, the ideal would be a halfway you, not a halfway house. that means different things depending on the culture.

Adult care, like adult care. We have some friends that run an adult care and they have five young men that are in their twenties, thirties that live there. And it's a, it's a beautiful thing, but these young men have to do some things on their own.

Exactly.

some of the attendance,

We need that with 24 hour one-on-one nurse or a hire care attendant. And that's not a model that exists in Canada or Western world really.

so you're considering that, and that's where you're at currently. Okay. I want to jump back to something you said and add some thoughts into it. shortly after I came to know Jesus Christ, I moved into denomination belief system, whatever that would be termed Prosperity Gospel in most circles. the reason I bring that up is that in many ways I believe that most Christians in first world settings are prosperity gospel. I know people will get mad when I say that, but you mentioned that you were transactional

Yeah,

which meant I've given my life to Jesus. Everything's gonna be awesome.

yeah.

that correct?

Yeah. that's, you know, I likewise don't use the Prosperity Gospel, partly because I didn't think that way at the time. and it wasn't a label I had for myself also because, was, just an instinctive give, get, you know, kind of selfish and shallow and didn't require much faith. You know, when I look back on it.

Yeah. I'm kind of calling all of us out here that we live in extreme comfort and we believe that everything should be excellent all the time, which is where we're moving here to talk about job and then Ecclesiastes. But, this is what's fascinating. When I was looking at your life, Darryl, and I want to bring this up. You have what many would consider to be the contrast. In your household,

Right?

would be what many would consider to be the ideal perfect child situation.

Yeah.

And then McKenzie would be one of many parents' worst nightmares.

Yeah.

and so you have that contrast that many of us would say, well, and this is Christianese. I went to Bible school and this, and I heard this. Hey, hey, brother Darrell, you just need more faith. She could be healed. She could be, you know, what, what are you doing wrong? I mean, Jesus, Jesus. Hill people dealt with this.

yeah,

tell me about the spiritual journey as you've been along, and then this is gonna lead into the job conversation, but tell me about where you've landed and you don't have to get into denominations or anything like that because I'm sure you found the perfect one and it works perfectly with Jesus and all that. But anyway, just, what's it been like as you, as this has spilled out with you, other than maybe just the job conversation that we're about to get into?

So what I would say is, that. Brand of thinking that you described. The what did you do wrong? Obvious job connections. But, uh, if you ignore job just for a minute, it raises a question about what did just about every follower of God in the Bible do wrong? and as a matter of fact, the Apostle Paul was told at the beginning, this thing's just gonna go horribly sideways for you forever. Here's a preview of heaven, you know, so bonus for you. most of us don't get that. but in the meantime, it literally says that he was informed right up front how much he was gonna suffer. the transactional, assumptions I think are are human psychology and wish fulfillment versus substantiated anywhere. you know, there's certainly proverbs that give general principles that are true. if you don't drink, you will get home safely. that does not mean that every non-drinker will never have a car accident in their life, but it's a pretty good, modern day proverb to say, lay off the booze when you get behind the wheel and your road trip will be solid. except for the exceptions. I think we take Proverbs and other places in scripture and act like they're ironclad guarantees of cause and effect in, even the monsters. The Joe Book, I say it's like we're trying to do math that we expect if I do add one-on-one, I will always get two. And that's not how Proverbs work. That's not how spiritual principles work. you just get cancer, happens. Businesses go bankrupt and you didn't do it. Maybe there is a villain somewhere, but it's not you.

Yeah, and I guess where, this is where I'm at, maybe this is getting my age starting to show too. is that it? We have inserted our own expectations of the way things should be,

Mm-hmm.

and it filters into our faith. I don't want to get into this conversation, into eschatology and in times thinking, you know, we believe that there is this perfect situation that we will eventually be in and be again, raptured to it or whatever. And I'm like going, I don't, I don't know that I totally read that, but, you were driven as you were going through this process to job.

Yeah.

And so, and Job is one of these places. I mean, the thing that fascinates me most about Job is the early, like that first chapter, maybe one 16 or something. And I just turn my head every time when it says, and you know, God was sitting around with his council, his group, his. Posse is people, and Satan came in and they had this conversation. I'm going, wait, what? and then it kinda launches into this suffering and things like that. What, I wanna jump to the something more book, but just give us a brief, what do you want to share about those 39 plus plus chapters of job? in just a couple minutes before we move into Ecclesiastes, where I want us to spend a little more time with.

Yeah, let's focus on Ecclesiastes. But the brief thing on Job, I would say is that Christians tend to know the first two chapters, the whole Satan, you know, trouble conversations and the last one, they know, one, two, and 42, the 39 in the middle are the mystery. and it just looks like a bunch of friends arguing. And what I would say is most people know if Job had three knucklehead friends, a lot of people miss the fact that there's a fourth friend because he's got the name similar to the first one. he's the one that God doesn't have an issue with. He's the one job doesn't have an issue with, and he's the one who has really great things to say from his limited human point of view of not actually knowing what's going on. And says, I don't actually know what's going on, unlike the others. and says, but God does things for a lot of reasons. He does things preventatively, he does do something, some things, sometimes punitively, as punishment. but sometimes he does things for reasons that have nothing even to do with you. one of the things I've, I really became conscious of through my study, and it's not the main output of the book, but is that what's going on with my daughter and the complete derailment of my wife and i's life, her career, double income travel, the world plans and everything else, might have nothing to do us. This might be a crucial, so important step a grandchild or a great-grandchild. Somebody that I've never met through some roundabout circumstance is going to tap into this in some way. Like, I mean, say we're Christians and we say we follow the Bible, but what we seem utterly clued out to the fact that there are stories in there that take hundreds of years to come true and to come to fulfillment and so many lives were bit characters in something glorious and amazing. And we all kinda act like I am the hero of the only play happening right now on the planet. and failing to account for the fact that God has God and he thinks big. And the odds of me being the lead actor in any of this are. Small.

is.

not the main point of the book, but it's one of the subpoints that really helped me a great

Well, but it's so powerful because, as I've spent quiet time and, journaled and time with the Lord, I often get something to the effect of, there's always a bigger picture. You know, your situation, you're looking for a miracle by next Friday. And let me take you back to the Old Testament where they were given promises that took 400, 600 plus plus years. And so, you know, Joe and Sally living in the Southern Kingdom, or had been transported to Babylon are being told, yes, you will be reconciled, redeemed. there's a savior coming that was still 600 years later,

Yeah.

and we're going, but what about their life? You know, what's going on with them? They're always the bigger picture. So I love that this sort of ties in a little bit with your fiction.

Hmm.

I wanna say first and second century, but BC or what's the right?

C,

B, C, yeah. Be Sarah.

whatever the name is.

Yeah. So that, you know, I'm actually writing some fiction from the first century.

Oh,

From about 30 to about one 15 ad

Good for you.

because I believe that we are missing a lot of context on what was going on. I wanna move to Ecclesiastes. And having said that, I'm real big now on understanding context, who the audience was, who wrote things. And we know that the preacher Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes. But give us the context before we dive into a few things with the Ecclesiastes.

Yeah. So you've got a, you've got a character who's ultra rich, measures his gold in tons, ultra, wise, God blesses him with, exceptional wisdom. ultra talented, royalty, and royalty. Not like a US president or a Canadian Prime minister, but like thousand bc. You know, we would say dictator today, you know, like they were king, you were seriously king and your word was. power, who was unsatisfied life and went on a quest to figure out to live the good life. And not for a decade, but a lifetime. And, he went through a period where he thought, let's party, you know, maybe I should be enjoying myself more. So he did it for a decade. Like he didn't do things small. you know, he did the sex, drugs and rock and roll thing. And he didn't just do it a couple times, like he had a thousand women. Uh, the, uh, but he wasn't just, know, that he decided that didn't work. Actually, I will say this, one of the things I love about Ecclesiastes is he reflects on it and he says, I enjoyed that that's a bit alarming, I think for your typical conservative Christian to realize. There's a place in the Bible where some guy goes through a decade of hedonism and comes out the other side and says, there were actually some fun nights. but then he goes on to say, but I'm emptier than when I started. I've just exhausted an avenue and gotten nowhere. And so he goes on to healthier things. He goes on to music and art and, and science. he gets into botany and architecture and landscape design and, writing. and each, he keeps pausing through the book. It's a pattern through the book. he takes a course, so to speak. comes out the other side, It didn't work though. Goes off on a totally new tangent. And again, he does it serious. He does a decade. He does two decades. he's the king. there were no big wars in his lifetime. he didn't have to, be leading an army or anything. He got to just screw around with his life for his whole life. And, uh, um, love how he went after everything and then reminds us, I had the resources to do this. I had gold measured in tons. If I liked the band, I bought it. Nobody had invented CD players yet. and he really helps. I think for, your audience often executive or business community people. He really helps with some ahas that guys our age and younger need to hear and learn. Because those psychological, you don't have to even be a Christian. Those psychological report cards come due in your seventies and eighties, and there is nothing you can do in the business world that will stamp that passport as satisfied.

Hmm.

will just be sent out to pasture one day, potentially even if it's your own company by the board of the company you founded. it's cool, just like that decade of partying was cool, but no, not really.

And especially if that's what you're. Tied up into, listen, everything in me just boggles. I'm boggled by, you know, a thousand women and all that. first of all, the logistics of it. I mean, my wife is incredible. I can barely, I don't know if handle is the right word. I can't even picture that. But I mean, is it safe to say that Solomon was searching for the meaning of life or looking for love in all the wrong places? If we wanna quote some country music song, and you know, he even used his words in my New King James here. Vanity is used quite a bit, but he, I believe is the word there. was he looking for the meaning of life and he actually was able to have all the resources to look everywhere.

one of the things I talk about early in the book is, man, if you're looking for a guide for this topic, you want a guy from that era because there were no rules. And you want a guy with those resources, intellectual, financial, and other political, He was looking, I'm glad you brought up that word, vanity. Vanity. Everything is, vanity is, you know, roughly how it goes. I tended to, have the NIV in my head, so meaningless. Meaningless, utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless.

Yeah.

that.

And there's one other thing I did. I wanna bring this up and you could keep going. in chapter two, and this is, I obviously did this years ago, not this morning. When I was reading through this, just to prep for this, I went through and highlighted every time the word I was listed out in chapter two, I will test you. I searched my heart, you know, a lot of eyes there

Mm-hmm.

and I counted like 13 or 20, and then he goes into more vanity and all of that. I mean, this is, this is everything that we are looking to do in the world system. It seems as if Solomon is laying it out for us here in this book that a lot of people avoid in the Old Testament.

Yeah. And the, is pursuing a very eye centered, let me build off with what you just said. as the book goes on, he straightens his game out a little, he starts getting into philosophy. He starts getting into politics, he starts getting into economics, he starts getting into sociology. he even gets into social justice, which is, surprising to a modern audience to realize that he was concerned about sexism and, classism and other things. he expressed a great deal of frustration that even as the king of a kingdom where he had absolutely power over, to use a modern American phrase church and state, he was powerless to actually create the things he wanted to create. he talks about there's injustice, to use modern language injustice in the church and injustice in the courts. it was a game of whack-a-mole, even for someone with his wisdom, wealth and power, over his kingdom. some of your audience will probably recognize, it's like, yeah, I hire good people. And then one guy goes nuts and I get him straightened out and then the lady over there goes nuts. And then there's a whole division that's like, what are you people doing? and, you know. The whole world is ve but here's where I wanna really anchor your audience, because it changes your reading of Ecclesiastes. That word does not mean meaningless or vanity. It's a metaphor. And, if, if your audience is like, okay, English, slit, what's metaphor again? it's just a symbol that's supposed to stand for something. So in the book, I, I say, you know, if I say my wife is a rose, you know, you're guaranteed to understand I didn't marry a plant. So it's a metaphor. He means she's beautiful. Or if somebody was of a poetic mind, they might think, ah, maybe she also smells nice. if somebody was even of a slightly subversive, poetic mind, they might think, Ooh, she maybe has a few thorns as well. you know, so there's, that's the beauty of a metaphor. you can put it out there and then people need to engage intellectually to figure out through the rest of the poem. What does he mean by this? And it's a rich, you know, the word is breath, breath, breath. Everything is breath. Utter

poof, poof. I mean, at one point someone said more like a, just a, or almost like not descriptive.

well, yeah. So that, that's good. and that's where I would say you, you, that's where you grab your liberal arts majors or your poetry friends or whatever, and start to

Engineer. I can't grasp that.

so you, you've thought of one aspect of it, which we could say, okay, temporary and ephemeral, you know, but what else? You know, you have kids, right?

Yeah.

what's

kids.

before you even counted fingers and toes, what did you look for?

Hmm.

breath,

Whew.

you wanted to hear them. And man, the cortisol level starts dropping in your bloodstream. it's essential to life. It's precious. It's kind of mysterious. We know more about it now with our understanding of biochemistry and stuff, but, man, you can go look up the Wikipedia on how breathing works and then walk away and it's still pretty mysterious and magical it's also gives you the illusion that you can control it, but not really. You go sprint three times around your block and try to maintain the breathing you've got going on right now, and it's not happening. you know, you can, hold your breath and if you are of an exceptional amount of willpower and can go two minutes, three minutes, you know But you're gonna pass out at some point. Start breathing again. so it's not really in your control. Even if it gives you the illusion now and again that it is, it's also repetitive in the book. I can't remember the number, but the billion plus times you are going to take a breath in your life are just written, you know, uh, it's really satisfying, except it's not, uh, you know, you dive in a pool and you come up, oh, that's great. But you can never, ever, ever, no matter how pure the mountain air or whatever, you can never have one really, really good breath and be like, ah, I'm done for the day. That was awesome. there's just so many, that's such a rich metaphor. Um, but it's such a positive metaphor. Life is like that. Beautiful and smells nice, and probably thorns too. temporary, repetitive, mysterious, fragile, essential life-giving, hard to control. That's life.

Hmm.

that. Uh, and

Uh.

illusion when we're on top of our game career-wise or physically or, you know, won the girl's hand that we were chasing or had the perfectly healthy baby or whatever you're gonna run around a block or something here in this life of yours and discover you're not as in control as you thought.

I think that control word is good. It almost is for an entirely other episode. 'cause I'm watching our time here. the subtitle of your book, let me see if I can get a copy up here to the camera for those that might be watching is, this is on my Kindle, living Well in a Broken World, something More Living Well In a Broken World, and it's a journey through the Book of Ecclesiastes. Tell me quickly, we're short on time here, almost living well in a broken world. What were you, what were you looking to share there?

Well, the, the, the genesis of it was I felt like my world was broken, with my daughter's situation. And, you know, we live like it's COVID-19 lockdown because we're just not allowed to leave. One of us can leave, but, you know, as a couple, it's kind of COVID, 19 lockdown. so my world was kind of broken, working on Bay Street, but handicapped as though I'm on house arrest. the, but in studying Ecclesiastes, observing the lives of those around me, recognizing that in every other way the world is set up deliberately. Broken and it says Cle Ecclesiastes, that God did this on purpose. We are going to always want more. You won't get a big enough paycheck, you won't get a good enough spouse, you won't, get a final degree that will make you happy. You won't drive the car that after a month isn't gonna feel like a used car. the, that's how the world is made on purpose. And while we may have a lifetime spent trying to fix our corner of the world, and it's good to work for progress, and I think the whole planet has progressed in many ways. I'm glad for my electricity and running water and antibiotics, but, the Bible is there to teach us how to live well despite and not expect miraculous cures to everything. Because if we got everything. We probably wouldn't reach out to God. He's wired it this way on purpose.

Yeah, in Ecclesiastes, I love the way it unfolded, you know, sitting here listening to the person that's why I love the context. We need to get the context right. We will often pluck these scriptures and attempt to make them apply without looking at who wrote it and what was going on there. I mean, this is someone who had, from a world system. Everything. I think that is incredible. Darrell, let's do this, man, I hope, have teased someone to know they need to get some of your stuff. I'm actually just a little ways into your book here, because when I was going through it, I wanted to jump over to Ecclesiastes. But, you've got this, something more living well in a broken world, and then you also have some fiction. Just give a quick blurb on that and where people can find that. I think you're working on a project that heads into the song of, song of Solomon, talks a little bit more about, sex and romance. So that will be, something that many people will want to look forward to. But tell me a little about where people can find your stuff and a little bit about the fiction. And then I've got one more question before we wrap up.

Fantastic. So you can find me@darylpotter.com. That's, one R-D-A-R-Y-L potter.com. I've got buy links and book descriptions and, a few reviews and so on and everything there. you can, read hard book, Kindle, ebook, whatever platform, great narrators, different narrator for the fiction versus a nonfiction, but it's an audiobook and I made sure they're in libraries. So if you've got a library membership and your library supports audiobooks. Download away. I want to get them out there. the novels, so far have been, historical fiction, first and second century bc. and, I won't, bog you down with the details, but it's basically backstory to the gospels. third book in particular is, the story of Herod the greats mother. Herod's, still a preteen in that book, but, tells the story of her role in bringing the Roman Empire into Israel. she was a formidable woman with, an Arabic woman, which makes, some interesting nuances in the context of ancient Israel. and like you mentioned, I've got a couple books in the works. The, next, will be stepping out of historical and into, modern day magical realism. for those who don't know what that term is, think life of pie or something like that. It's, along those lines. And then, I'm still, I haven't started writing yet. I'm still, deep into the research phase for the Song of Songs book. That's, such a fascinating but hard to understand book because of the nuanced nature of the poetry. So, I've tackled three complicated books of poetry, but, they're a fun challenge to get into. I hope to make plain, although, song of Songs is gonna be a beast, it's a tough one.

Interesting. Well, we'll look forward, maybe we'll circle back and have another conversation then. I did that. we've gone a little bit over the time. I feel compelled nudged. Maybe we'll say it's the Holy Spirit to have you say a word of encouragement possibly. As we finish up here, I'll mention a few things after you're done and I hate to say do it quickly, but I'm gonna ask that for someone. Who has special needs in their family? For someone who may have, I know every situation's unique, but may have listened in because they saw the title or saw some things, say something hopeful. It's encouraging to that person that's listening in that just might need a good word at this time. I'll just let you finish with that and then I'll come back in and finish this up.

What I would say is that the history of Christianity, the content of the Bible and the experience of your fellow humans your situation while yours is very unique to you, not unprecedented on the planet, and that's not to downgrade your stresses, but to say your God knows and there is material. Written thousands of years ago for you. And there are modern tools to help you understand it. 'cause sometimes just picking up that new King James version or whatever, translation trying to get it yourself, you're encountering centuries of culture being culturally removed, translation removed and writing styles removed. So there are modern tools in, in, podcasts, in, in books, in good sources out there to meet your need. There's a proverb that says each man, know, each heart knows its own sorrow. So there is a really real sense where we are all kind of alone, but God knows, cares, and he's God as the, as the title says of even the monsters. So don't. Let go of the story until you've stayed in the story long enough to see how it ends. He

knows what

he's doing.

Excellent. Darryl Potter. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm glad I asked that. That was very good. the book to check out something more Living Well in a Broken World will include down in our notes or if you're on YouTube will include how to get to Darrell's stuff. I appreciate this conversation. It kind of feeds into a lot of things that we've been doing just about how our expectations probably need to be adjusted about the world and about our situation. And we still serve a loving living God, but maybe the way we look at, I don't know, prosperity and different things in the world, we need to readjust that. Check out all of his stuff, go read his books. We're seek Go Create here. We've got new episodes every Monday that drop on YouTube and all the platforms, I appreciate it. We've just busted over a thousand subscribers over on YouTube and it has all of a sudden just rapidly increase. So thank you all for that. I appreciate you joining us. We'll see you next time on Seek, go, create.