How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack
Sep 23, 2026 · 29 min · 10 segments
How does a new Tim Keller book come out years after his death? In this episode, I sit down with Tim Keller’s son, Michael Keller, to talk about "The Stories We Live By": a book he began writing with…
Michael KellerGuest
Faith WomackHost
What do you find there? You find all things were made good, but now all things are fallen.
And that marred nature is still with us, is that there's something good about society, there's something good about culture, but there's also something that's n- that's not as well.
And we can kinda hold those things, and I think we get in trouble culturally when we think something's all good or all bad.
... politically, if you have, if your hero is all good, you're not recognizing the bad.
Or, or that your enemy's all bad, you're not recognizing the good, and I think there's a lot of Biblical wisdom about that, that we are good but fallen.
You start with that premise, and then you start with the idea that nobody can live life without answers to certain questions, and those questions are, who am I? What's the point of everything? Why am I here? What went wrong? What's gonna put things right? Most of us don't actually think of that cognitively because we don't have to-
... because the stories around us, the culture's already answered those questions for us.
Follow your heart is not just a throwaway platitude you find in Disney movies.
They're, they're caught in our stories, in our music, in our movies, and things like that.
And we don't know it, but whether you're a Christian or not, we, we still live out that, like, follow-your-heart mentality.
And there's something good about your heart, right? That there's, there's something about emotions and about relationships that's good, that being in touch with yourself, introspection's good.
But there's also something fallen about, you know, sometimes your heart doesn't go the right direction, so maybe you shouldn't always follow your heart.
We're not asking them because our culture answered them in the stories, and we try to i- go through in the book identity, freedom, happiness, power, progress, truth, morality.
... those things and try to show what's good, what's fallen, and, and then the true and better story that actually we can get into.
Yeah, I think y'all do a really good job of giving the reader discernment to kind of rightly divide.
Yeah, where have I let feelings, for example, rule over my walk with the Lord? Like, I imagine the person on the other end listening to this podcast, like, they probably really wrestle with, well, I wanna feel God while I also have the mental conviction.
So, how do I, you know, Michael, how do I separate my feelings from, like, the spiritual desire for feelings-
What do you find there? You find all things were made good, but now all things are fallen.
And that marred nature is still with us, is that there's something good about society, there's something good about culture, but there's also something that's n- that's not as well.
And we can kinda hold those things, and I think we get in trouble culturally when we think something's all good or all bad.
... politically, if you have, if your hero is all good, you're not recognizing the bad.
Or, or that your enemy's all bad, you're not recognizing the good, and I think there's a lot of Biblical wisdom about that, that we are good but fallen.
You start with that premise, and then you start with the idea that nobody can live life without answers to certain questions, and those questions are, who am I? What's the point of everything? Why am I here? What went wrong? What's gonna put things right? Most of us don't actually think of that cognitively because we don't have to-
... because the stories around us, the culture's already answered those questions for us.
Follow your heart is not just a throwaway platitude you find in Disney movies.
They're, they're caught in our stories, in our music, in our movies, and things like that.
And we don't know it, but whether you're a Christian or not, we, we still live out that, like, follow-your-heart mentality.
And there's something good about your heart, right? That there's, there's something about emotions and about relationships that's good, that being in touch with yourself, introspection's good.
But there's also something fallen about, you know, sometimes your heart doesn't go the right direction, so maybe you shouldn't always follow your heart.
We're not asking them because our culture answered them in the stories, and we try to i- go through in the book identity, freedom, happiness, power, progress, truth, morality.
... those things and try to show what's good, what's fallen, and, and then the true and better story that actually we can get into.
Yeah, I think y'all do a really good job of giving the reader discernment to kind of rightly divide.
Yeah, where have I let feelings, for example, rule over my walk with the Lord? Like, I imagine the person on the other end listening to this podcast, like, they probably really wrestle with, well, I wanna feel God while I also have the mental conviction.
So, how do I, you know, Michael, how do I separate my feelings from, like, the spiritual desire for feelings-
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