It's a simple concept, that when we experience seasons or days or hours that make us uncomfortable or are filled with pain of some kind we have two choices: we can run and medicate, or we can press in and grow. Easier said than done. Where are you taking your pain these days?

This week: a sneak peek into the young men's session at the February 2018 Boot Camp in Colorado. It's the And Sons message all in one place: naming things about our world and experience, offering some counsel on the day to day, and inviting you to come journey with us.

We go a little deep this week, into the roots of why we are the way we are as a social media society, what philosophies got us there, and how our world is effecting us. Inspired by Matthew Crawford's book, "The World Beyond Your Head," Sam and Blaine dive into how we understand ourselves, how we experience the world around us, and how technology has grown and changed for the worse. Hold on to your seat belts.

John Eldredge, also known as "Padre" around the And Sons world, joins Sam and Blaine as they begin the conversation around masculine spirituality. Why are so many men struggling with the typical "church experience"? Does there seem to be more women than men in most faith settings? Why is that? Finding God in the things you love, in adventure and in battle, are some of the ways to step into a fuller spiritual experience.

It's the phone call, the text, the "mayday" from a friend or family member that changes everything. You jump in the car to meet them, or sit down to talk on the phone and wonder, "What do I do now? What do I offer?" Dan Allender is back on the podcast to offer some simple counsel on how to engage those in your world who have recently experienced trauma of some kind, and how we can learn to walk alongside them.

This episode is not an advertisement. Money and budgeting are usually more complicated than issues of dollars and cents, there's often shame and personal growth right in the middle. In our conversation with Jesse Mecham, founder of YNAB, we get to explore what motivates someone to think about budgeting, and what Mecham would want to change about the way people think about money. While there are lots of budgeting programs, styles, and apps out there it's probably best if you stick to the one you've committed to, and if you haven't committed to one, maybe it's time to think about why.

There are many things that we need in life, Maslow's Hierarchy and all that, but some things stand out on their own. Initiation is one of the big ones. It's something that probably most of us haven't experienced in our life, either in the small and specific or in the sweeping narrative of our stories. Morgan Snyder, of Ransomed Heart and Become Good Soil, takes us in to the ways that it is needed and offered.

After the triathlon nerd-out episode, we realized nobody's story of adventure and exercise begins at the starting line. For most of us, stepping out into adventure means working through sometimes decades-long stories of opposition. We asked Luke to come in and share his story of longtime injury, eventual achievement, and overcoming shame. Enjoy a conversation on starting places, breaking agreements, and entering into an embodied life.

There’s an old line in Tozer we’ve come to appreciate a great deal. It’s this: “God is speaking. He is, by His nature, continuously articulate. He fills the world with His speaking voice.” But the layers in and through which He is speaking aren't always obvious on first glance. Mandy Nelson and Scott Morin have spent their lives teaching and learning more about these layers and the implications for our lives.

To find our more about Nelson and Morin you can go here: http://www.empoweringranch.com

There’s nothing like the guys on your own team—Allen Arnold founding the fiction division at Thomas Nelson Publishing, published between 500 and 600 novels as VP of that division, and has a better grasp on story than most people earn in their lifetime. Blaine and Sam jump in to ask about engaging story, how to create while inside conflict, and what it takes to set good stories, lived and read, apart. We like to say that we need to learn to read our lives as stories; that’s well and good, but to be able to do that, we need to learn more about the odd animal that story is.