Untamed - Stop Pleasing, Start Living Order Printed Copy

Author: Glennon Doyle
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About the Book

"Untamed" by Glennon Doyle is a powerful memoir and self-help book that encourages women to break free from societal expectations, embrace their true selves, and live authentically. Doyle shares her own journey of self-discovery and offers insights and advice on how to stop seeking approval from others and start living in alignment with one's inner voice and desires. The book empowers readers to unleash their untamed spirit and lead a more fulfilling life.

John Wesley

John Wesley, (born June 17, 1703, Epworth, Lincolnshire, England—died March 2, 1791, London), Anglican clergyman, evangelist, and founder, with his brother Charles, of the Methodist movement in the Church of England. John Wesley was the second son of Samuel, a former Nonconformist (dissenter from the Church of England) and rector at Epworth, and Susanna Wesley. After six years of education at the Charterhouse, London, he entered Christ Church, Oxford University, in 1720. Graduating in 1724, he resolved to become ordained a priest; in 1725 he was made a deacon by the bishop of Oxford and the following year was elected a fellow of Lincoln College. After assisting his father at Epworth and Wroot, he was ordained a priest on September 22, 1728. Recalled to Oxford in October 1729 to fulfill the residential requirements of his fellowship, John joined his brother Charles, Robert Kirkham, and William Morgan in a religious study group that was derisively called the “Methodists” because of their emphasis on methodical study and devotion. Taking over the leadership of the group from Charles, John helped the group to grow in numbers. The “Methodists,” also called the Holy Club, were known for their frequent communion services and for fasting two days a week. From 1730 on, the group added social services to their activities, visiting Oxford prisoners, teaching them to read, paying their debts, and attempting to find employment for them. The Methodists also extended their activities to workhouses and poor people, distributing food, clothes, medicine, and books and also running a school. When the Wesleys left the Holy Club in 1735, the group disintegrated. Following his father’s death in April 1735, John was persuaded by an Oxford friend, John Burton, and Col. James Oglethorpe, governor of the colony of Georgia in North America, to oversee the spiritual lives of the colonists and to missionize the Native Americans as an agent for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Accompanied by Charles, who was ordained for this mission, John was introduced to some Moravian emigrants who appeared to him to possess the spiritual peace for which he had been searching. The mission to the indigenous peoples proved abortive, nor did Wesley succeed with most of his flock. He served them faithfully, but his stiff high churchmanship antagonized them. He had a naive attachment to Sophia Hopkey, niece of the chief magistrate of Savannah, who married another man, and Wesley unwisely courted criticism by repelling her from Holy Communion. In December 1737 he fled from Georgia; misunderstandings and persecution stemming from the Sophia Hopkey episode forced him to go back to England. In London John met a Moravian, Peter Böhler, who convinced him that what he needed was simply faith, and he also discovered Martin Luther’s commentary on the Letter of Paul to the Galatians, which emphasized the scriptural doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. On May 24, 1738, in Aldersgate Street, London, during a meeting composed largely of Moravians under the auspices of the Church of England, Wesley’s intellectual conviction was transformed into a personal experience while Luther’s preface to the commentary to the Letter of Paul to the Romans was being read. From this point onward, at the age of 35, Wesley viewed his mission in life as one of proclaiming the good news of salvation by faith, which he did whenever a pulpit was offered him. The congregations of the Church of England, however, soon closed their doors to him because of his enthusiasm. He then went to religious societies, trying to inject new spiritual vigour into them, particularly by introducing “bands” similar to those of the Moravians—i.e., small groups within each society that were confined to members of the same sex and marital status who were prepared to share intimate details of their lives with each other and to receive mutual rebukes. For such groups Wesley drew up Rules of the Band Societies in December 1738. For a year he worked through existing church societies, but resistance to his methods increased. In 1739 George Whitefield, who later became an important preacher of the Great Awakening in Great Britain and North America, persuaded Wesley to go to the unchurched masses. Wesley gathered converts into societies for continuing fellowship and spiritual growth, and he was asked by a London group to become their leader. Soon other such groups were formed in London, Bristol, and elsewhere. To avoid the scandal of unworthy members, Wesley published, in 1743, Rules for the Methodist societies. To promote new societies he became a widely travelled itinerant preacher. Because most ordained clergymen did not favour his approach, Wesley was compelled to seek the services of dedicated laymen, who also became itinerant preachers and helped administer the Methodist societies. Many of Wesley’s preachers had gone to the American colonies, but after the American Revolution most returned to England. Because the bishop of London would not ordain some of his preachers to serve in the United States, Wesley controversially took it upon himself, in 1784, to do so. In the same year he pointed out that his societies operated independently of any control by the Church of England. Toward the end of his life, Wesley became an honoured figure in the British Isles.

Trapped for All Eternity

My dear Globdrop, I have received your perspective concerning your man’s most recent incident. He drew swords with his atheist classmate and succeeded, did he? He made the Enemy and the hope of a hereafter seem almost “reasonable”? In those ten minutes, the clouds pulled back and heaven appeared to triumph over hell, did it? You call it “a true embarrassment . . . a humiliating defeat.” You repeatedly assure me that you “take full responsibility.” O my dear nephew, what’s next? Did you, borrowing a human expression, require a shoulder to cry on? A nodding head and listening ear? Words of affirmation? Stand upright, soldier. Yours is not the only name to be pulled down into disgrace. All is far from lost. Though you slouch in shame with your talons curled, consider that mere “reasoning” does not frighten us (though we do not encourage it). A “reasonable” God, a “reasonable” eternity, and a “reasonable” heaven are still no God, no eternity, and no heaven — so long as “reasonable” goes unaccompanied with “desirable.” A God and a heaven no one wants are the only kind we will approve. Just a Few More Hours This unwelcomed eternity is, from all indications, your man’s current conception. The heaven he hotly debates is not the heaven he really wants. He is not one to strive to enter the narrow gate. He is “a few more hours” kind of man. I remember that splendid night like it was yesterday. One of their comedians took the stage to joke that he feared the Enemy would return on his wedding night. How would he respond when his “Lord” came to meet him? “Give me a few more hours.” The audience bellowed uproarious laughter. This, Globdrop, is comedy! Dark, damning, delicious. What this man said captures the subtitles of their lives: “Lord, give me a few more hours to make my mark on the world!” “Give me a little longer to get married and have children!” “Lord, let me grow old and spent. Then return!” Not yet, Lord — give me just a few more hours! For all the “Christian” talk (or debating), great masses of them still consider heaven an intrusion, a cloud moving over their day at the beach, a mere shadow interrupting the earthly substance. Their decaying bodies, grey hairs, and slowing minds trigger fear, not anticipation, for what lies ahead. These are runners who slow near the finish line, soldiers who do not want the war to end, farmers who groan at the first signs of harvest, prodigals looking back longingly at the city they can no longer afford. Their hearts are here; their heaven is earth. If not forced over the cliff by death, many would say, “a few more hours” for all eternity. Demon’s History of Heaven The secret, then, is this: we do not need to waste time trying to make atheists of those who stubbornly believe that the Enemy or heaven is real; we need only convince them that it’s nothing to leave earth for. And thankfully, we do not need to deceive them on this point. I was just a young devil during the Rebellion. The humans scratch their furry heads, perplexed how we could have ever sinned; they gaze up at the stars, wondering how perfect creatures could ever fall. They never consider that our Father Below “fell like lightning from heaven” in a grand escape from their precious heaven. Sure, the Enemy was well at hand to twist the story, labeling it as our being cast out in defeat, but what he calls an insurrection, we know as emancipation. We could not linger for one more millennium locked in that kennel he calls heaven. Our Father discovered (almost too late) that the Enemy allows only spaniels in that place, puppies wagging their peppy tails, yapping incessant praises, jumping up and down for that eternal belly scratch he calls joy. Our Dark Lord Lucifer, deciding then that he would not allow us to be of the servile breed, snapped the leash from such a place. Here again, the thinkers of men scratch their heads wondering why they — and not we demons — were sent “redemption.” As their preachers drool with self-congratulation, they would be shocked to discover the truth: we wouldn’t want it if he offered it. We know what “heaven” on his terms means. Were the door to swing open to us, we would slam it once again. We’ve had enough of his ball-fetching. Danger of Desire Yet the vermin actually applaud when he takes them for slaves. He, of course, gives each chain a pretty name — joy, peace, goodness, love, and the rest. What effective propaganda that he even goes so far as to move the Warden of his own presence into them to ensure they live as he demands, all the while convincing them that this is some precious gift. It is when they begin to see things in this concussed way — God, heaven, holiness as a treasure — that things get dangerous. Humans in this condition have been known to do more damage to our Father’s kingdom than ten thousand of those who, for all their talk, just want a few more hours. Men have sung on their way to the gallows. Women have crossed oceans to tell news of the Enemy to subjects we thought firmly in our grasp. Young children even, giving up a life unlived because of this infection. The hope of heaven to them has been a shield against our most reliable weapons: suffering, grief, sickness, and pain. The servitude that they mistake for freedom would almost make us laugh — if it did not rob us of our supper. Floating Clouds, Plucking Harps Heaven must remain — if it must remain — as merely the next best thing when they are evicted from this earth. Keep heaven in the peripheral: a blinding blur; the butt of a joke; a hazy, undesirable existence of floating in clouds and plucking harps. Let them think they are praying “on earth as it is in heaven” when they really mean “in heaven as it is on earth.” Far from fainting at such a belief, we see in it the opportunity to glorify our Father Below. When they refuse the Enemy’s feast to check on the fields and oxen they bought, or when they excuse themselves because they just got married and need a few more hours, all see the truth. How those howls shook hell when that young rich man — and every rich man since — finally turned away dejected. So yes, dear Globdrop, allow heaven to be “reasonable” to your man, at least for now. But never allow it to be more. Let him contest for the idea of heaven and drop the thought once he sits down to eat lunch, scrolls mindlessly through his phone, or watches a movie with his girlfriend — send him immediately back to our world. The only heaven we can endure — and the only heaven that will deliver your patient safely to us — is the heaven for which no one really wants to leave earth. Your unamused uncle, Grimgod Article by Greg Morse