COMMENTARY
I’ll be honest: I tend to stay in my box.
I know the stories I like to tell.
Jesus transforming lives. Israel’s comeback after October 7th. Muslims encountering Jesus in dreams and visions. The underground church in Iran. Persecuted believers in the Middle East. The miraculous ways God is moving among Jews and Muslims.
Those are the stories I understand.
But Bigfoot? Aliens? Paranormal encounters? The things that go bump in the night? Those topics are beyond the borders of my box. Not necessarily because I don’t believe the spiritual realm is real. The Bible makes that impossible to ignore!
Maybe it’s because I’m uncomfortable with what I don’t understand.
And, if I’m really honest, maybe there’s a little fear of the unknown.
But then again, perhaps the Lord has been using No Longer Nomads to challenge me to step outside my box for quite some time.
Supporting Josh Doyle on his podcast, No Longer Nomads, has become much more than another producer assignment for me. It has been pivotal in my own life.
Episode after episode, I’ve listened to guests share stories, insights, and hard-won wisdom that have challenged the way I think about the Lord, Scripture, spiritual warfare, healing, identity, and what it really means to follow Jesus.
There have been moments when I’ve finished listening to an interview and thought, “I’ve never looked at it that way before.”
And there have been times when I genuinely felt the Lord gave me a breakthrough through what a guest shared. Two guests in particular – Dr. Lee Warren and Dr. Rob Reimer – have deeply impacted me. Side note: if you haven’t listened to Episodes 40 and 70, this is your notice to do yourself a favor and check these out!
Their conversations pushed me to look beyond surface-level Christianity and into the deeper work God wants to do in a person’s heart, soul, and mind.
That is what No Longer Nomads has done for me. It has expanded my perspective.
So when the hosts of the Blurry Creatures Podcast, Luke Rodgers and Nate Henry, joined Josh and Tommy Doyle on the set of No Longer Nomads (and a special guest, but I’m not going to give it away; you just have to watch it) for the 100th episode, I probably should have known the Lord was going to challenge me again.
To Watch the 100th Episode, Click Here:
Because this time, we weren’t talking about something comfortably inside my box.
We were talking about the supernatural.
From Bigfoot to Jesus.
When Nate first reached out to Luke around 2019 about doing a Bigfoot show, neither of them could have known where the conversation would eventually lead.
They started with Bigfoot. As Nate jokingly put it, “Bigfoot’s the gateway drug.” But somewhere around the first ten episodes, the conversation began moving toward Christianity.
Dr. Michael Heiser became a major influence on the direction of the podcast, helping Luke and Nate think through the supernatural world from a biblical perspective.
And something unexpected happened.
What began as a podcast exploring strange creatures and unexplained phenomena became a platform for people to ask much deeper questions about God, the spiritual realm and the Bible.
Luke and Nate have had conversations about dreams, visions, demons, spiritual warfare, paranormal encounters, aliens, Bigfoot and the strange experiences people have had that don’t fit neatly into a materialistic worldview.
And yet, underneath all of it, there is a question that keeps resurfacing: What if the world is more spiritually supernatural than we have allowed ourselves to believe?
The darkness we don’t want to talk about.
One of the things that struck me most during the No Longer Nomads 100th episode conversation with the Blurry Creatures hosts was why Luke and Nate are willing to go into subjects many Christians would rather avoid.
Because people are already experiencing them. They are having terrifying dreams and encountering things they cannot explain.
People are coming out of occult backgrounds.
People are wrestling with demonic oppression.
And people are searching for answers.
Luke explained that they regularly hear from people who discovered Blurry Creatures and subsequently gave their lives to Christ or were baptized.
When you hear that, it’s hard to sit back and casually let something like that pass by. That’s something to celebrate!
Because maybe the question isn’t whether Christians should talk about these things.
Maybe the question is whether we are willing to talk about them biblically.
Luke pointed to Paul’s instruction in Ephesians to expose the fruitless deeds of darkness.
That’s a very different approach from pretending darkness doesn’t exist.
And perhaps that matters more now than ever.
We have entered a new season.
I keep thinking about the world we are living in. Darkness seems to be getting darker. Deception is increasing. Biblical truth is increasingly being rejected.
And everywhere I look, I see reminders that we are living in a world desperately in need of Jesus.
It makes me wonder:
Where are we in God’s timeline?
And if Jesus really is coming back soon, what should the Church be paying attention to?
Perhaps this isn’t a season for Christians to retreat into comfortable boxes.
Perhaps it’s a season to become more discerning. More biblically grounded. More aware. More courageous. Not obsessed with darkness, but aware of it!
Because Scripture tells us that our battle is not merely against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)
There is an unseen spiritual reality behind the visible world. And we ignore that reality at our own peril.
What if we made the spiritual world too small?
This was one of the questions that challenged me most during Episode 100 of the No Longer Nomads Podcast.
Luke talked about how little attention many pastors and church leaders receive in seminary when it comes to angels, demons, and the supernatural realm.
But the Bible doesn’t treat the supernatural as a side issue:
- Angels appear throughout Scripture.
- Demons appear throughout Scripture.
- Satan appears throughout Scripture.
- Dreams and visions appear throughout Scripture.
- Miracles appear throughout Scripture.
- And at the center of it all is Jesus.
- The virgin birth.
- The incarnation.
- The resurrection.
- The ascension.
- And the promise that Jesus will return.
Christianity is not a Western, materialistic story about becoming a better person. It is an incredibly supernatural story!
Perhaps we’ve simply become uncomfortable with the supernatural parts.
The power is not in the darkness.
Perhaps the most important thing I took away from this conversation was that Christians don’t need to become fascinated with darkness.
We need to become more confident in the Light.
Josh shared how, growing up, he was taught that if he had a terrifying dream, he should say the name of Jesus because the name of Jesus carries power.
Others shared experiences involving sleep paralysis and demonic oppression where calling on Jesus became the turning point.
That’s the distinction I don’t want to lose.
This isn’t about becoming obsessed with demons.
It’s not about chasing every strange story.
It’s not about believing every conspiracy theory that appears online.
It’s about recognizing that the Bible tells us there is a spiritual battle – and knowing who has already won the victory.
The answer is always Jesus!!!!
- The name above every name.
- The One before whom every knee will bow.
- The One who defeated death.
- The One who has authority over darkness!
Jesus is coming back.
And until He does, perhaps it’s time for all of us to step outside our boxes, ask the questions we’ve been afraid to ask, and become more willing to engage the world around us through the lens of God’s Word.
So, congratulations to my colleague Josh Doyle and the entire No Longer Nomads team on 100 episodes. Keep running hard after Jesus. Keep asking the difficult questions. Keep going into the places other people are sometimes afraid to go.
And to every guest who has sat behind those microphones and shared the hard lessons, painful seasons, and battles you’ve fought through on the other side of faithfulness, thank you.
Your stories have challenged me, stretched me, and helped me see things differently. And I know I’m not the only one.
And perhaps that’s what being No Longer Nomads is really about.
Not staying where we’ve always been.
Not settling for what we’ve always known.
But continuing to follow Jesus wherever He leads, even when He leads us outside the box.
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