Do you know I work for (probably) the best podcast on planet earth?

You should listen.

One of my jobs is manuscript editing for the podcast Holy Ghost Stories. It’s the best podcast I’ve ever heard. Yes, my husband is the writer/director/producer/creator. What of it?

Trying to explain Holy Ghost Stories can be difficult, because it’s unlike most podcasts. It’s fully scripted not conversational. It’s narrative but nonfiction. It’s dramatic, but it’s not “acted.” It’s Bible Stories but for adults not kids. It’s Bible Stories, but it’s not preaching or teaching or moralizing. It’s Bible Stories, but it’s not PG. It’s not feel-good content, but it is earnest and hopeful. It may make you cry (odds are high), but you may not understand why.

It’s a bit like trying to describeYahweh—it’s what you expect and what you least expect…

Here are six reasons I think it’s the very best way to use 25 minutes in your podcasts app (This is not an ad btw—the podcast is free. It’s more of a benevolent rant.):

1. It’s full not empty.

I am so decidedly sick of people talking about nothing. The proliferation of podcasts may be the cause of climate change—so much hot air.¹ Many of the many, many words thrown into the air these days are repetitive, shallow, overwrought, undercooked, boring, sensational, or otherwise lacking in substance or gravity.

Holy Ghost Stories is not that. Every word is carefully chosen, every bit of music considered. There’s both nothing wasted here and nothing spared. Each episode takes between 40 and 60 hours to create. The research is meticulous. The writing is gorgeous. It’s like every sentence is a glass of really good wine—you want to smell it and swirl it and let it sit on your tongue. There’s something to experience here. Healing water to soak in.

2. It’s beautiful not chaotic and messy.

If one more person yells at me OR takes me on a wild goose chase of a conversation with no real destination and no actual wisdom OR refuses to do the simple work of choosing a good microphone before they launch words into the ether (like a person refusing to wear hard pants to work), I might scream. I won’t scream—you don’t need that. I’ll just quit listening. The world is chaotic enough. We don’t need more stirring. We need sorting. We need someone to do the work of making things as they should be. We need order and (boy do we need it) beauty. Real beauty. Not shallow, empty beauty. We need a glimpse of Heaven. That’s what an episode of Holy Ghost Stories feels like. You feel safe inside it—like your time will be stewarded in a way that leads to peace and harmony and life. My pulse changes when I listen to Holy Ghost Stories.

3. It’s true not true-ish.

The idea behind Holy Ghost Stories is to tell God’s stories the way He told them—as stories. We do that (Justin does that) partly because stories are better vehicles of complex truth than sermons, classes, conversations, essays, or debates. Not surprisingly, narrative text accounts for 43% of the Bible (almost double the amount of prose teaching). If you think of God as good at telling the truth, consider how He does it.

It’s interesting to me that Jesus calls Himself The Truth and reveals that Truth to perpetuity through the story of His life. Jesus’ story is told four times in Scripture—over and over and over and over again.

This is not how we usually think. We think truth travels best in lists and arguments. We’re wrong. When I listen to Holy Ghost Stories I find God revealing things I’ve never seen, teaching me things I didn’t know, casting light on the dark places in my heart, casting light on the dark places in this world. Holy Ghost Stories does the unimaginable—it changes my mind.

4. It’s not trendy or even trend-conscious.

I am aching for timeless these days. I don’t need another take on the election. I don’t need another reminder that shiplap is out of style or that I need to switch my skinny jeans for wide legged ones. I just need something that’s always been true, something good today and good next year and good for the grandchildren I don’t yet have. I want to listen to a story like Crime and Punishment or Beloved or Romeo and Juliet. Good for all of us. Good for always. That’s Holy Ghost Stories.

5. It feels new and fresh.

Which is bananas, because I’ve read most of these stories twenty or thirty times. I’ve heard them told. I’ve heard them preached. I’ve seen flannel-board versions and animated versions and VBS skit versions. I’ve read commentaries and other kinds of Biblical scholarship. I have a minor in Bible from Christian college. I write about the Bible for my job. And still, somehow, I can listen to the story of Yahweh calling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and feel something I’ve never felt before.

I can’t explain why Holy Ghost Stories feels like something new. It is inarguably old. There are no “reimagined” details for dramatic effect. Still. The reviews agree—this feels fresh.

6. I meet Yahweh there.

This is the reason I love Holy Ghost Stories. For me, it’s a portal into another world. Every single time I listen, I encounter Yahweh. I see Him more clearly. I feel empathy for Him. I like Him. I long for Him. I’m moved to surrender or holy fear or love. These episodes fix my eyes on my God. They pull me away from the distractions creating distance and suck me into intimate encounter. Sometimes I put off listening to an episode because of the intensity of the experience, because I’d rather not swim in water so deep. But then I remember how good it feels—how when I’m listening I don’t think of anything else in the world, how my self awareness disappears inside His memories. So I pick up my phone and put on my headphones and walk through the veil…

Listen to Holy Ghost Stories wherever you listen to podcasts.

Oh—one more thing. We have live shows coming up. A Holy Ghost Stories Live show is an opportunity to encounter Yahweh in one of His stories alongside a hundred or two hundred other people. And here’s the thing about crowds of Spirit-bearers—they carry the Spirit with them into the room and when the worship starts it’s like everyone’s little spark meets up in conflagration. These shows have me in tears every single time. I love the stories. I love the cello and violin—heartstring music. I love the voices lifted in worship. And I love Yahweh—always at the center of the gathering.

Join us for a Christmas show in Bella Vista, AR on December 12th or in Nashville, TN on December 17th. Get info and grab tickets here.

Thanks for indulging me, friends. Have a beautiful week.

-JL

P.S. This is my beautiful husband. He’s a modern day Bezalel. I can’t believe God chose Him for this work. And also, I kinda can.

1. Apologies for the climate change joke. It’s serious. I believe it’s happening. Also, can we all please stop talking so much about nothing?