Examine Yourself, Forget Yourself: A Conversation with Scott Hubbard

What does it look like to examine your life without becoming consumed by it?

In this episode, Heather sits down with Scott Hubbard—Managing Editor at Desiring God and lay pastor at All Peoples Church—to explore the tension between self-reflection and self-forgetfulness. Drawing from his upcoming book Examine Yourself, Forget Yourself, Scott shares his personal journey through a season of intense introspection and the slow, grace-filled path toward freedom.

Together, they discuss:

• The difference between healthy self-examination and inward spiraling
• Why Scripture calls us both to look within and look beyond ourselves
• How to move from “being stuck in the room” to walking a road that leads somewhere
• The role of community, clarity, and Christ-centered focus in understanding ourselves rightly
• Practical rhythms for writers, thinkers, and anyone seeking a more grounded inner life

This conversation is both deeply theological and refreshingly practical—offering language and vision for anyone who has ever felt trapped in their own thoughts.

• Crime and Punishment
• The Writer’s Diet
• The Book of the Dun Cow
• The Whole Christ
• Examine Yourself, Forget Yourself (Scott Hubbard’s upcoming book)

Catch more of the story @thanks.for.doing.that.podcast! 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Heather Winchell: Welcome back to the podcast. Today I am joined by Scott Hubbard. Scott currently serves as the managing editor for Desiring God and a Lay Pastor at All People's Church, and I first heard about Scott almost a decade ago when I found myself routinely reading and resonating with his articles. Then one day while talking with some friends about his latest article and how much I appreciated his writing in general, their response was, no way.

[00:00:26] We know Scott. This past summer while camping with some friends, the same friends, I caught wind that Scott was writing a book, and it is my pleasure to have him on the podcast today to talk about his upcoming book and the reason behind it. Scott, welcome. 

[00:00:41] Scott Hubbard: So good to be with you, Heather. Thank you. 

[00:00:43] Heather Winchell: Yeah, it is great to have you.

[00:00:45] So let's just start with a flyover. What does this season of life look like and hold for you? 

[00:00:51] Scott Hubbard: This is a full season of life for me. I am working at Desiring God, uh, full-time Christian publishing platform. Lay pastor, like you mentioned, at a church here in South Minneapolis called All Peoples. And then the real fullness is at home.

[00:01:10] I've got three little boys, six, four, almost two. And then, uh. Another baby, uh, due in two months. That boy or girl, we're not sure we're gonna wait to find out, but that's what life is like at the moment. So the snapshot is very different whether you're looking at work or at home. Both are wonderful. And um, yeah, it's a sweet season 

[00:01:32] Heather Winchell: that is really fun and full.

[00:01:35] Is a great adjective. I have four boys and I applaud you that you are waiting to find out on your fourth. We actually with our third, were surprised. Um, we didn't know for our third, but then when it got to number four, I personally was like, Joel, that's my husband. I have to know if this is going to be another boy.

[00:01:54] I just have to prepare myself and um, 

[00:01:57] Scott Hubbard: yeah, 

[00:01:58] Heather Winchell: either way, congratulations. It was. 

[00:02:00] Scott Hubbard: Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, 

[00:02:02] Heather Winchell: yeah, 

[00:02:02] Scott Hubbard: yeah. The boy life is a ton of fun. Uh, I don't know the alternative, but that would be a ton of fun too, I'm sure. But what we know is, um, what we have and we love it. 

[00:02:10] Heather Winchell: Yeah. Yeah. So well said.

[00:02:12] It's so beautiful and it's energetic and loud and sweet and really, really such a gift, so 

[00:02:20] Scott Hubbard: yeah. 

[00:02:20] Heather Winchell: Very cool. So there, man, there's so many things we could talk about, but like I said in the intro, I would love to talk about the book that will be coming out. But before we get there, I'd like to explore your writing more generally.

[00:02:35] You know, since it's personally impacted me, you've been writing for a while. When did you start writing and what writers have formed you over the years? 

[00:02:45] Scott Hubbard: I really started writing for fun or from a place of. Interest, not just for assignments or because I had to in later high school. I had a transformative experience reading Sevki, the 19th century Russian novelist for school in a world literature class.

[00:03:07] His book Crime and Punishment. It changed my trajectory from wanting to study business as my major to wanting to study literature, English literature as my major. And from then on I felt awakened to the world of words, both reading them. And then writing them as well. A lot of the writing early on was essays and things like that, but then ventured into poetry and my own journaling and, um, attempts at poetic effort.

[00:03:39] So those were some of the early stages. And then writer su shaped me. In addition to that. Sevki, I became a Christian in early college and. At Colorado State University was looking for authors who, um, would even be in the curriculum in my English studies, but who, who came from a, who were Christians as well.

[00:04:03] And so one of those was Flannery O'Connor, the great Catholic short story writer and novelist from the mid 20th century. And I devoured her work. She was hugely formative for me during my college years. And so was George Herbert, the 17th century poet, English poet, contemporary of Shakespeare. He was a pastor, a rural pastor, wrote poetry and handed it over to a friend on his deathbed, said, you know, do with this what you will.

[00:04:35] If it's no good, then get rid of it. And people are still by being shaped by it like me today. So those two authors, Flanner Connor and George Herbert shaped me deeply early on and still do in some ways, especially Herbert. Hmm. 

[00:04:49] Heather Winchell: I know you said something, you, you, I don't remember the specific phrase you used, but you referenced poetry.

[00:04:54] Do you write poetry or do you just play around with that? 

[00:04:57] Scott Hubbard: Don't write poetry. I used to have fun with writing poetry and very, very occasionally will do so. Um, but, uh, one of the coworkers that I have here likes to speak in terms of poetic effort, which is to say that all writing can be. Poetic, even if it's not poetry.

[00:05:20] So I do love to labor at poetic effort in prose. Sure. But I don't regularly write poetry. 

[00:05:28] Heather Winchell: Yeah, I get you. Okay. Do you have any favorite writing tools, rhythms, or practices that have served you Well? 

[00:05:38] Scott Hubbard: I would mention a few things. I think on the real technical side. I love to return to a certain book and to recommend it to those who enjoy writing called The Writer's Diet.

[00:05:53] It's by a woman named Helen Sword. It's very small and simple. Five principles, guidelines for clear, concise writing, and I just dunno anything quite like it. It's um. A, a tremendously helpful book, and there's even a little extension in Microsoft Word that you can run your writing through and it'll just, you know, alert you to areas where you might be, where you should maybe pay attention.

[00:06:19] So that's one that's more on the, you know, technical side. A tool that, that I've benefited from. I've benefit from the common writing advice. This is more on like Abbott common writing advice. If you look at great writers from. All different kinds of writing and all through history. One common piece of counsel is to regularly laude to make it part of your routine to write whether you feel like it or not, to not be driven by whim or only when inspiration strikes you.

[00:06:55] But to be in the chair in front of your computer, whatever it may be, uh, ideally at the same time, you know, by plan and to embrace it. Similar to how an athlete would embrace practice or working out, you know, in order to prepare for. For something or a pianist would embrace, you know, doing, doing her work in order to prepare for a performance, there's something to that.

[00:07:22] There's really something to that. So that's served me well over the years to not be driven by how I feel in my writing, but instead, um, to set the time to pray and then to get at it. And then maybe one more other thing. That has shaped me helpfully. And this is more on like the mental, spiritual, um, posture side of writing.

[00:07:43] I've benefited from a writing newsletter from a man in Nashville called Jonathan Rogers. Do you know him? 

[00:07:50] Heather Winchell: I do. I listen to his podcast. 

[00:07:52] Scott Hubbard: Yeah. And he has this writing newsletter that comes out weekly, and one of them a few years ago was on this distinction between. Hierarchy and, and territory that there are these different.

[00:08:06] He was, he was contrasting two different events that were in Nashville on the same weekend or in a short period of time. One of them was the NFL draft and one of them was a marathon. And in the draft, you know, these players get ranked and they're highly attuned to whether they got ranked first, second, third in what round, who got before me, who came after me, that kind of thing.

[00:08:26] But in the marathon, almost everyone apart, apart from the most. Elite runners, they're just, they're not competing against the other runners, but they're competing against, uh, personal best or that kind of thing. They have, they have something in mind that's more, they have a certain territory as opposed to a hierarchy.

[00:08:43] Mm-hmm. Um, and he makes that analogy to writing that it's really easy to think of writing in terms of hierarchy. Like, oh, am I better than this person? And I'm, uh, is this person better than me? And instead, it's much more helpful to think in terms of a territory that you have a little patch of ground. And it's yours to tend.

[00:09:00] And it's not the same as another patch of ground. You have different experiences, a different background, a different perspective, different um, kinds of suffering, different things that you care about, different people in your life. And your job is to tend that patch of ground, that territory as best you can.

[00:09:15] Just, um, so that, that way of thinking has been, uh, kind of posture, rhythm to think that way in my writing, to approach writing that way. To thank God for the ways he's gifted other people. And to pay attention to the particular things that are set in front of me and, uh, labor to do them as best I can without wondering too much about where I end up in any kind of hierarchy.

[00:09:40] Heather Winchell: Yeah, I think that is such a helpful distinction because I mean, even.

[00:09:47] Even in the podcasting world, I, I've spoken, um, on occasion to how it feels like if you decide to do a podcast, there's just kind of this trajectory that everything is telling you you need to get on and get to. Right? So there's all of this. Um, influence saying, okay, if you're going to start a podcast or if you're going to write this, these are the things you need to do to get it to this particular place.

[00:10:14] Whether it's like a certain number of sales or whatever. And not that that doesn't matter, but I think, I think it is far more fruitful and probably orienting to not care so much about. Maybe like the formula or even like the outcomes that other people say, make something like this worth it, but instead to look at your little plot and say like, how do I just faithfully steward what I have?

[00:10:39] It doesn't need to look like that garden. It doesn't need to. Um, I'm, I'm thinking in my mind of actually another Nashville native Andrew Peterson, talking about how he went to a concert and started thinking like, wow, I don't play at venues like this, and why don't I play at venues like this? But then being reoriented to like, but actually the garden I've been given, you know, the local churches, things like this, that's actually the garden that I've been given to tend, and so, yeah.

[00:11:07] Um, yeah, so I think it's, I think it's really important to keep that in mind because maybe what I'm trying to say is I think culturally there's a lot of emphasis that can draw the attention away from the territory and put it into the hierarchy, or even put it into measuring success on where you end up versus how well you tend what you have.

[00:11:30] Scott Hubbard: Yes. Yes, that's right. The image of the body that the Apostle Paul gives in, um, the New Testament is, I think getting at something like this too. There's, it's easy to try to imagine yourself in other people as more or less the same kinds of thing, given the same kinds of work, and therefore in competition with each other.

[00:11:54] But if you instead view yourself as. A particular member in a body, an eye or an ear or a hand, and others as particular members in the body, each with different strengths, different weaknesses, different jobs to do, then I think it can free you to be able to recognize, oh yeah, they, they do that thing amazingly well and I maybe I'd like to get better at that, but maybe also that's not.

[00:12:26] The main thing that God has given me to do. And so I'm going to focus on the, on the main thing he's given me and seek to be as faithful in it as I, as I can be. We're not all the same thing, we're not all given the same work. We each do have different plots of ground to tend. And, um, faithfulness is, is the measure, uh, rather than measuring ourselves by others' success.

[00:12:53] Yeah. The kind of thing we can see on the outside. 

[00:12:55] Heather Winchell: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm just thinking about the, the fact that I have four children, four boys. You have, um, you will have four children. Not sure if they'll all be boys or not, but, but the way we bring up our boys is going to be so unique to the ways that the spirit is working in us to shepherd their hearts.

[00:13:12] Some of it will be similar, right? Commonalities, but it'll also be very specific. And so, yeah, I think there's just a lot of wisdom in Yeah. In, in understanding how. God works uniquely through different parts of the body and even through, um, similar scenarios but different human hearts on the other side of that.

[00:13:32] So 

[00:13:33] Scott Hubbard: yes, 

[00:13:33] Heather Winchell: um, I do, I do wonder. Um, so for Christmas I got a really fun new riding toy or tool. I shouldn't call it a toy, but I'm just having so much fun with it that I call it a toy. Have you heard of the free write? 

[00:13:46] Scott Hubbard: No, I haven't. What is it? 

[00:13:48] Heather Winchell: Okay, so have you heard of the remarkable. 

[00:13:52] Scott Hubbard: No, I don't know 

[00:13:52] either 

[00:13:53] Heather Winchell: of these things.

[00:13:53] Okay. So, okay, so Remarkable is a distraction-free writing tablet. So it's for people that, um, that like the tactile, like handwriting 

[00:14:02] Scott Hubbard: Yeah. 

[00:14:02] Heather Winchell: But want to do so on a tablet, um, to capture and then convert to text. And so it's it, but it boasts distraction free, right? Um, the free write is like a little typewriter, but distraction free.

[00:14:17] So picture, I mean, I have it sitting over there, but it's, it's like an e ink screen, so it's a really, um, high resolution, but. Low interest screen that's just capturing what you type, sending it to the cloud. But it's just a way to free write, um, to kind of get your thoughts out without getting stuck on editing while you're writing.

[00:14:37] 'cause I've, I've heard a lot of people talk about how that can really hang writers up to be put on the editing hat too quickly. Um. But it's just, it's just cute and it makes a really satisfying little clickety clack sound, you know, like a typewriter. So, 

[00:14:53] Scott Hubbard: yeah. Yeah. Oh, those are great. Both of those are great.

[00:14:56] Yeah. 

[00:14:56] Heather Winchell: Yeah. 

[00:14:57] Scott Hubbard: Yeah. You, you gotta figure out the ways to block out the world and just go ahead and write. So if those help, that's amazing. 

[00:15:03] Heather Winchell: Totally. Are you more of like, do you enjoy writing by hand? Do you enjoy typing or a little of both depending on what you're doing. 

[00:15:10] Scott Hubbard: Yeah, I really used to enjoy writing by hand, and then something physically happened to my wrist that keeps me from writing much by hand.

[00:15:19] It's, it's uncomfortable and, uh, painful if I do it for too long. So I do still jot down notes here and there, and I say something I'm, uh, I, it's a little bit mysterious because it's mysterious to me. I don't know exactly what happened. I, I think I held a pencil in the wrong way for far too long. And it just caused some long-term damage to my wrist.

[00:15:37] That's my best guess. But yeah, writing by hand isn't very feasible for me anymore, so I'm thankful for a keyboard. 

[00:15:42] Heather Winchell: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Alright, so kind of getting back to your actual writing, you have published over 200 articles. How do you generally decide what you will write about and is it typically directed?

[00:15:58] Something that's assigned to you? Um, or do you write from more of a space of your own observations and convictions? 

[00:16:06] Scott Hubbard: It's a mixture of both, and I really appreciate both. There are times when at desiring, God, we're aiming to publish his series of. Articles on a topic and are trying to coordinate those together so that the whole package builds or works together well, and someone will be the main architect of that and will propose assignments for different people.

[00:16:32] Some of them who work full-time for. Desiring God, others who are guests who write for us. And so some of those come my way and it's an opportunity to dive into a topic that I haven't given much attention to sometimes. And I've really benefited a lot from that and appreciate that. And then more often it has been from the other side, something bubbles.

[00:16:57] In life something I read something in a book or in the Bible, I am having a conversation with someone. Notice a need in my church. Just something that seemed, that is provoking, interesting, personally meaningful, or an area of growth, personally. And it's a spur to learn about it, dig into it, read more about it, think more about it, meditate on it, and.

[00:17:26] Try to put something into article form that might be helpful for others as well. So yes, it comes from both sides, I would guess. Of those 200, you know, 130 or 40 are self-directed, and then the others were assigned. 

[00:17:41] Heather Winchell: Okay, cool. Does it have any bearing on your motivation to get it done if it's an external expectation versus an internal um, desire?

[00:17:51] Scott Hubbard: You know, both have deadlines. 

[00:17:54] Heather Winchell: Okay. 

[00:17:54] Scott Hubbard: So, uh, for the work that I do, so the motivation feels similar for both. One of them, the assignments are often more time intensive because they maybe requiring me to learn about something, do more research on something if it's not a topic that I've explored deeply already.

[00:18:14] So. Those maybe carry a little bit more pressure to them, but, uh, yeah, both have deadlines, which is on the whole a gift. Yeah. I like deadlines. They, I don't, don't always feel like a gift, but just to the point of with a, I was talking about earlier of writing by routine rather than by whim. Deadlines will help to do that.

[00:18:37] So they're, they're a gift to me. 

[00:18:39] Heather Winchell: I. I can understand that. I was actually just telling some friends that I've really struggled in my routine of writing lately because I'm just so, it, it's such a benefit to me personally to have some kind of external deadline. Um, so in the absence of like a particular piece, um, 'cause I, I've written for a local, um, publication and so in the absence of that it's just really difficult for me too.

[00:19:05] On my own, just decide. Yeah. So I kind of just need to tell my friends to give me deadlines for things, but, um, yeah, 

[00:19:12] Scott Hubbard: exactly. 

[00:19:14] Heather Winchell: Okay, so now I would like to kind of pivot towards talking about this book that you will be releasing. Um, I'd love to just get an introduction to the book and maybe hear a little bit of why this book and why now.

[00:19:30] Scott Hubbard: The book is called Examine Yourself, forget Yourself. Uh, Christ-Centered Guide to Self-Examination. That's the subtitle, and it came from, probably fair to say, three different places. 

[00:19:48] Heather Winchell: Hmm. 

[00:19:49] Scott Hubbard: First is a personal place, and this goes back quite a ways. Early in my Christian life, I found myself unexpectedly. And mysteriously thrown into a kind of inward tailspin of introspection.

[00:20:13] I don't think I had been a overly introspective person before that time, but for whatever reason. As I was reading a book, that was the trigger that was asking some pointed questions about your own motivation, so inviting you to look in for a minute, but not in any kind of unhealthy way for whatever reason.

[00:20:34] I had this inordinate response to that and struggled to not think about myself, not analyze and engage in a kind of morbid introspection for a long time. I would say maybe two years of real, real darkness where I was living with a kind of split attention, always it seemed with one eye on my inner life or one, uh, eye looking, you know, standing outside myself, looking back at myself, analyzing, uh, not only, you know, speaking and talking to others and doing my work, but analyzing me, speaking and talking to others, and doing my work and all this.

[00:21:15] Kind of stuff hypersensitive to my own heart motivations and, and those kinds of things. And I found a lot of freedom by God's grace through a variety of means. No silver bullet. And over the years since then, and especially in the last few years, one question that I've been considering is, how do you do this?

[00:21:38] Well? How do you have a healthy habit of self-reflection? And then that comes into the, the second stream for this book. Then, so there's that personal experience, but then a second stream is that scripture I think really moves this toward asking that kind of question because on the one hand you have this.

[00:22:01] A significant body of passages that call us to look out, to look up, to look forward, to get our eyes off of ourselves and to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love our neighbor as ourselves. Those two great commandments. To, um, set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, or we might add things that are within.

[00:22:28] So there's this real rich call in scripture to be, to be looking outside yourself, but there's, there's also this. It's thread that calls us to look in, you know, keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life, or Jesus a handful of times tells us, be on your guard, watch yourselves, pay attention to yourselves.

[00:22:50] And there are others that we could mention as well. So there's these dual emphases in scripture to examine yourself on the one hand and to forget yourself. Be others oriented, Christ centered on the other hand. And so how do you do? How do those two relate to each other? How do you do both? And then the third is a more objective reason to write the book, which is that someone asked me to, so I wrote an article on it, and then that just flowed into someone saying, Hey, would you consider putting this into short book form?

[00:23:25] So that kind of objective outside myself. Uh, request was also helpful to say, oh, someone else thinks that this might be a needed topic for others today. Yeah, that's 

[00:23:39] Heather Winchell: great. 

[00:23:39] Scott Hubbard: So I'd say those three themes. The, the personal, the scriptural, and then the request. 

[00:23:44] Heather Winchell: Yeah. One of the nuances that you address in the book is, and you kind of spoke to it just now briefly, is the difference in healthy and unhealthy self-examination.

[00:23:54] And I really loved the way you phrased this because you advocate that the goal isn't to think about yourself less, but to think about yourself better. Would you be willing to share any specific realizations or truth in your own life that have been especially helpful or fruitful in thinking about yourself better?

[00:24:12] Um, or in orienting you to the deeper and truer story? 

[00:24:17] Scott Hubbard: Yes, so that was a significant realization for me is that. I think these calls in scripture to pay attention to yourself, to be on guard, to keep your heart. They are a call to think about yourself, but to do so in such a way that doesn't leave you stuck inside yourself.

[00:24:37] So an image that I think distinguishes, um, you know, pe you can define your terms differently, but we might think of simple introspection. As like a room where the door is closed, the curtains are drawn, and there's no movement. You're there. You're looking inside yourself and it's not leading you somewhere else.

[00:25:04] But biblical self-examination, we might use that term, is more like a road that is. Has progression to it. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's leading you somewhere. I, I love the end of Psalm 1 39, which captures both elements. I think of the, examine yourself and forget yourself. David says, he prays, search me, oh God, and know my heart.

[00:25:34] Try me and know my thoughts and see if there'd be any grievous way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting. So there's a prayer, a request to see himself, to look inside and see some, anything that he needs to see, any grievous way, anything that might be in the beginning stages of something that is gonna lead him away from God, something that is going to bring damage to other people.

[00:26:05] He wants to see those. But the reason he wants to see them is that last part of the prayer lead me in the way everlasting because I really wanna be walking on the way everlasting. And so if self-examination doesn't lead to self forgetful love for God and others, if it doesn't lead to a clearer grasp of God's grace for us in Christ, if it's saying centered and stuck on self, then something.

[00:26:33] Isn't right. Then there's some misfire somewhere, and I think just having that framework in my head of self-examination is meant to lead somewhere. That's just conceptually a. A help to me to be able to evaluate, oh, am I, am I just circling here? Am I just stuck here? Because if I am, then it's not, it's not what God expects me to do.

[00:26:58] Um, yeah. You know, I can be, I can be clear about that. Okay. God may expect me to look within, but not in a way that keeps me locked within. It needs to lead somewhere else. And so, to that end, maybe one other small thing to mention is I think self-examination becomes unhealthy when it moves from. A, a practice that you do to more of this pervasive atmosphere that you live in.

[00:27:27] You're just kind of always walking around, assessing yourself, like I was describing myself during that two year, two year dark time, kind of, kind of always in and out of self-examination, always in and out of this inward look where instead. Scriptures calls are specific and they, they have us do something pointed and time bound, you know, keep your heart with all vigilance.

[00:27:55] There's this prayer that David prays, but then they're moving on. And so that le leads me to think, okay, self-examination is, it's more of, it's more of this practice, more of this thing that you. Under God with his help decide, I'm going to do this now, and there's going to be an end point to it, and when I'm not doing it, I'm going to resist the urge to be sucked back into it as if that's an O that's the right thing.

[00:28:22] That's the obedient thing to do because you know there are all these scenarios. You're eating dinner with your family, you're driving in a car with a friend. You're sitting on Sunday morning in a worship gathering and there's this pull in. And for me and for others, it can sometimes feel like the obedient thing in that moment is to heed that pull, to follow it.

[00:28:42] To say, oh, there must, I've gotta, I've gotta think about this. I've gotta track it down. Not only is that usually unfruitful, in other words, it's, it's usually doesn't lead to any clear sight of ourselves when we're trying to do it, while also trying to do something else. That more atmospheric self-examination.

[00:29:03] Um, but it'll, it's also not, I think the pattern that we see in scripture of where saints, you know, like David are in a moment in time asking for God's help to see themselves and then they're moving on. 

[00:29:17] Heather Winchell: Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like maybe a word to kind of capture what you're saying is maybe it's an indicator that there's some unhealth, if there's a preoccupation.

[00:29:27] With the self, like an inability to be present and engaged where you are, because there's this, as you said, kind of turning in, um, turning in with whatever's happening in internally as opposed to maybe having the muscle to recognize like, Ooh, there's something there. Um, so I'll just kind of like put that to the side and Jesus and I can talk about it later.

[00:29:48] Something like that. Does that Yes, does that, yeah. The other interesting thing. The other interesting thing about what you, um, what you shared, and I, I would submit this to you because I, I wonder what you would think about it. I, I think it all, I would agree that it does not sound fruitful to be sitting in a dark room by yourself and just stay there.

[00:30:09] One of the ways I've been thinking lately though, about, um, just sitting with the Lord, thinking like, man, my, my mind feels cluttered and, and just kind of thinking about that in terms of a room that feels cluttered. And, and just kind of like thinking, you know, in giving some time to kind of putting things in order, not living in the room, but giving some time.

[00:30:36] And honestly, I think most helpfully with another person like yeah. In community kind of sorting out and putting things in their proper place. Again, not to the purpose of staying in the room, but but actually more for the purpose of like, when you come across people and they might have a need or they might have an experience, you're like, oh, I have something I can contribute and I know exactly where it is.

[00:31:00] 'cause I've like done the work of, um. I hope I'm not overusing the analogy, but like internally organizing. Yeah, so I think the distinction I'm making is just kind of like introspection that leaves you just like stuck by yourself in a dark room or the kind of introspection that helps you understand I.

[00:31:20] The experiences you've gone through, the ways the Lord has taught you, um, having community walk with you in those things and helping like bring understanding definitely from the word so that the introspection does actually eventually lead to a place of giving and, um, and companioning others. 

[00:31:40] Scott Hubbard: Yes. Yes. No, I like that.

[00:31:42] That's a different use of the room image. And so you could change the image from room to road to instead. A room that's dark, that has the blinds drawn, that's cluttered, where you're just kind of stumbling about and not able to see what's going on, and versus a room that has the. Curtains open that has some windows open that has another person in there with you that you're trying to do some intentional organization and cleaning and looking around, that kind of thing.

[00:32:16] That's very much what I have in mind when I say right with a kind of healthy self-examination, is because what, what you're doing there is you're seeking to let in light from outside yourself. Sometimes that's gonna be from another person. In various ways, it will be through what God himself says about us in his word and your.

[00:32:37] You're not just kind of aimlessly stumbling about on your own, but you're, you're seeking with prayer, with clarity of thought that comes from other people helping you, scripture speaking in, you're seeking to make sense of something and you're doing it in relationship with God, you know, with kind of eyes upward, even as you're trying to understand something inside yourself.

[00:32:59] You're doing it. Um, in community. And that's, that's so, yeah, that's exactly right. Because the, the end of that then is there are tremendous benefits that come with seeing ourselves a little bit more clearly. You know, we're, we are mysteries unto ourselves. We're, we're not gonna understand everything about ourselves no matter how hard we look.

[00:33:22] But with the help of. Scripture with the help of the Holy Spirit, with the help of other people, we really can see some, some things a little bit more clearly that can help us live better, that can help us love better help to be a guide to other people a little bit better. So yeah, there are tons of benefits that come from, uh, a clear, sober patient, uh, look at yourself that has a lot of light streaming in from elsewhere.

[00:33:48] Heather Winchell: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:33:52] So if you, if you kind of take a step back and think about your intended audience, the people that you're, you're hoping will hold this book, open it, read it, cover to cover, what is, what do you hope they take away from this book? I,

[00:34:13] Scott Hubbard: I hope for a few things, I'll maybe mention three here. One would be. You know, there's, like I said with myself in the journey that I was on over those two dark years, there was not a silver bullet. And I think there very rarely is for people who deal with crippling inward thoughts. There's probably not, for most people who are morbidly introspective, a single breakthrough moment.

[00:34:41] Sometimes perhaps, but probably more of the time it's gonna be this process. Little insights here, little. Small steps forward here helps from other people, from a book, from something else, and I hope that this book might play one small role for some people to free them from crippling inward thoughts that God would use it as one means among others to bring some people outside of the.

[00:35:13] Of the seller. That's another image to use outside of the cellar of the soul and out into a, uh, the outside world, a brighter world. So that's one. A second would be to offer clarity, that someone would walk away with clarity about what it means to examine yourself or to think about yourself. Well, so one part of the book.

[00:35:40] Just seeks to draw several scriptural principles about how, how do you do it? How do you examine, okay, there's the call in scripture to examine yourself. What do I do? How do I do that? So a part of the book dives into that. So I'd love to offer some clarity there so that it's not just a vague haze. And then third, the.

[00:36:02] Final part of the book on forgetting yourself. Forgetting yourself is one way to say it. Remembering Jesus is another way to say it. You know, forgetting yourself is just a negative. In order to forget yourself, you have to think of something else. You have to have your mind full of something else. And other people are some part of that, something else.

[00:36:22] But I think the freedom to turn your focus to other people really comes most deeply, most profoundly from first turning your focus to Jesus, who he is in himself, who he is for you to cover up and close and forgive anything sinful or unworthy that you find in yourself through self-examination. To offer a different, better way for anything that you seen yourself that you want to be free of, but find it hard to be, because there's an allure end and attraction to, to what you see.

[00:36:57] So I wanna lift eyes to our savior, Sinclair Ferguson. In his book, the whole Christ just talks about how the deepest need our, our deepest need, regardless of all of our various struggles. Is really just to have a larger and clearer view of Christ. And so the book seeks to do that too, and I would be delighted if God would use it to that end.

[00:37:20] Heather Winchell: Hmm. Can I ask you, what are your, what are the ways, like if you, if you're kind of sitting there, maybe it's early morning, you've got your coffee or tea and you're just like, man, Lord, like, help me get my eyes on you. What are some, what are some like pathways that you've explored that really help you in that?

[00:37:39] I. 

[00:37:39] Scott Hubbard: To get eyes off myself onto the Lord. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. 

[00:37:44] Heather Winchell: Yeah. Like for example, one of the ways I do that is like just looking at encounters with Jesus in the gospels. Just like a moment where he's encountering somebody in a healing or at the well or whatever. Like that's something I do.

[00:37:57] I'm curious if there are like go-tos that you have for, for that. 

[00:38:01] Scott Hubbard: Yeah. Some things in the past that have been helpful and still today, one is. You know that prayer acronym, A CTS acts? Mm. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Mm-hmm. Adoration Confession, Thanksgiving supplication. And there are probably parts of that that come more easily, uh, to us than others.

[00:38:28] Adoration. Is one that I think for a lot of people, including myself, probably comes a little bit harder, not a little bit less naturally. And so sometimes coming to my Bible only with, with the express intention, I am here to adore you, God. And so I am on the lookout here for, for whatever is um oh. For whatever this passage says about you.

[00:38:58] And I'm gonna take that and try to think what, what about this makes God so worthy, so worthy of my adoration? And just try to, try to, you know, turn the diamond a little bit so. Yeah, the focus here is, uh, for, for right now, I'm not even gonna, you know, intentionally think about confession or Thanksgiving or supplication.

[00:39:23] If those come, then that's great, but I'm just focused on adoration. What do I see about you? And, um, that, that practice when I've done it, has been really helpful. 

[00:39:35] Heather Winchell: Actually, that reminds me of a, of one of your articles that, um, that I read recently that. I don't remember the title, but the, the emphasis was actually like when going to, the word isn't like stoking affection and you actually encourage people like, look out, look up, look at the world.

[00:39:52] And it just reminds me that, um, this morning as I was sitting down before I even opened my journal to write, I heard birds. And that was itself like its own thing that really brought wonder and adoration because. A bird song at like five 15 in the morning when the world is still sleeping is just such a beautiful thing, you know?

[00:40:16] Scott Hubbard: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. 

[00:40:18] Heather Winchell: Yeah. 

[00:40:19] Scott Hubbard: Yes. Whatever, whatever practices might help us to slow down and notice, um, whether over scripture or in the world God made and the people around us, um, are so valuable. 

[00:40:33] Heather Winchell: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, what else can you leave us with today? For example, where can people find more of your work and where could they get updates on the book?

[00:40:49] Scott Hubbard: Everything I do in terms of writing is@desiringgod.org, and the book also will be there. Updates on the book will be there in time. It's winter. Slash early spring of 2027 is the published date right now. So if anyone is able to remember it till then and you go look on desiring god.org, it should be there as, uh, an update there.

[00:41:21] Heather Winchell: Very cool. Thank you so much for sharing about that. And I do look forward, uh, to when that does come out and, um, yeah. So we're gonna transition to some kind of more fun, playful questions to end our interview. If you could become proficient at a hobby that you don't currently have, what would it be and why?

[00:41:43] Scott Hubbard: I would be proficient at playing the piano? 

[00:41:46] Heather Winchell: Hmm. 

[00:41:48] Scott Hubbard: Because one, we have a beautiful piano that we inherited from my grandmother when she died a few years ago, and I would love to be able to play it. Two. I think it brings such warmth and beauty to a home, especially, I like it in all sorts of settings, but in a home it's just, it's just gorgeous.

[00:42:12] So, um, I would play piano. 

[00:42:15] Heather Winchell: Very cool. Um, I would agree that it does bring such a beauty and glorious sound to home, maybe a few exceptions, when somebody younger than three is banging on it. Yes. Which you've no doubt experienced. 

[00:42:30] Scott Hubbard: I have, yes. Most of the sounds that come from our piano are something less than gorgeous, but, uh, the, the, the possibilities are there.

[00:42:39] So maybe in fine. 

[00:42:41] Heather Winchell: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Um, I. Actually, it's really fun, my husband, so there's an app called Flow Key and it teaches piano. And so this summer our whole family is going to, well, my husband and I have taken lessons. Our kids haven't had like an instructor, but they use Flow Key last summer, and so we're hoping this year that the whole family can kind of get back up to speed by using this app.

[00:43:02] We'll see, but it should be fun to try. Nice. Yeah. 

[00:43:05] Scott Hubbard: Yeah. That's great. 

[00:43:07] Heather Winchell: Okay. If you could spend, if you could meet and spend a day with a character from any work of fiction, who would it be and why? 

[00:43:14] Scott Hubbard: Yeah. This question is so hard. 

[00:43:17] Heather Winchell: I, yes it is. 

[00:43:19] Scott Hubbard: I will say right now and then five minutes later think of a different answer, probably.

[00:43:25] Heather Winchell: That's fair. 

[00:43:27] Scott Hubbard: Brodo Baggins. Mm. I would like to spend a day with him. I know a lot about him. I've heard his stories already, some of them, but I imagine there would be many more. And I really appreciate stories that have heroes where their weaknesses are very pronounced in the story and the possibility of things going all wrong for them was really there and.

[00:44:02] Yet things didn't go all wrong and their weaknesses didn't have the final word. So would love to sit and talk with Frodo a wise man, no doubt on the other side of all his adventures, and especially learn about carrying a heavy burden and leadership from him in light of our own profound weaknesses and how to, how to do those things well under great pressure.

[00:44:30] Heather Winchell: Hmm. Very cool. I was just trying to picture the table you would sit at, it would need to be small for him, large for you. Um, 

[00:44:40] Scott Hubbard: yeah, that's right. That's right. 

[00:44:42] Heather Winchell: What are three things in this season that bring delight for you?

[00:44:50] Scott Hubbard: My three boys bring delight. They are so much fun. And watching our older two interact with our youngest one who's coming up on two years old is, is one of the sweetest things in life right now. So that's one. I guess that's three, but I'll package them together as one. 

[00:45:13] Heather Winchell: Okay. 

[00:45:15] Scott Hubbard: Time alone with my wife is scarce and precious, and whenever it can happen.

[00:45:25] Delightful. So love to get away with her, or a coffee or a meal or a walk. That would be number two. And then number three. Ever since reading Dust iev in high school to now, I think my reading life is at its lowest ebb in terms of the time I have available to read. But when I do, sitting down. With a book that is more beautiful than it is useful is, uh, another delight.

[00:46:03] So right now I'm rereading the book of the Dun Cow by Walter Longin Jr. Is how I think you say his name. And it's just wonderful. So that's, that's bringing delight to me. You haven't read it? 

[00:46:17] Heather Winchell: No. I'll have to put that on my list. 

[00:46:19] Scott Hubbard: You should. It's talking animals, so it's not everybody's thing, but uh, it's a great book.

[00:46:24] Heather Winchell: Okay, great. Thanks for the recommendation. 

[00:46:27] Scott Hubbard: Yeah. 

[00:46:28] Heather Winchell: Okay, Scott. Now I'd like to invite you to give your own shout out. Who would you like to say thanks for doing that and why?

[00:46:38] Scott Hubbard: Well, I just mentioned my wife and my shout out would be to her. She is an amazing woman and. It is amazing for me to think back on, um, especially pre-children. What I didn't know was involved in a woman carrying a baby and then delivering that baby, and then raising that baby and doing it again with children outside the womb.

[00:47:17] As she's in her third trimester of pregnancy caring for three boys. You know what that's like, Heather, you can probably remember 

[00:47:25] Heather Winchell: I do. 

[00:47:26] Scott Hubbard: Um, and doing it with God's help in such a cheerful and enduring way in, in the midst of just not feeling good, I'm just. Amazed. I'm in awe. It's not a site that will turn heads to people who, who walk by, but for me, uh, it's, it's the best thing in our home.

[00:47:47] So I'm very thankful for her. 

[00:47:49] Heather Winchell: I love that. I love that, Scott. All right, well, we're gonna wrap up our time with a haiku that I've written for you. It's a gift I give at the end of each episode, so I'll read it for you now. Your words pave a path to the treasure without price. Thanks for doing that. 

[00:48:09] Scott Hubbard: Thank you so much, Heather.

[00:48:11] That was very special. 

[00:48:12] Heather Winchell: Yeah. I appreciate 

[00:48:13] Scott Hubbard: you having me on. 

[00:48:15] Heather Winchell: You're so welcome. Glad to have you.