1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,000 Welcome to In the Seams, a podcast by Broken and Mended. 2 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:15,360 And now your host, David Heflin. 3 00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:27,160 Well, I want to welcome you back to In the Seams. 4 00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:32,040 It's kind of exciting as we kick off a new year, a new chapter for us. 5 00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:35,560 We're going to try to be a little bit more regular in our podcast postings. 6 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:38,920 And so we've got an exciting interview we're going to be starting off with. 7 00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:43,440 And as you know, many times we've addressed either directly or indirectly 8 00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:48,880 the crossover between mental health and chronic illness conditions. 9 00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:50,680 And there's a lot of overlap there. 10 00:00:50,680 --> 00:00:55,160 A lot of people that listen to this podcast that are struggling with both. 11 00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:57,520 I certainly fit into that category. 12 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:01,840 And I have found the power of being able to speak about it, 13 00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:06,120 the transparency of finding others that share that burden with me. 14 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:10,280 It's kind of that spirit that we have Pierce Taylor Hibbs here today. 15 00:01:11,080 --> 00:01:14,720 And we're just getting acquainted, but Pierce is a writer. 16 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:16,960 He's written pretty prolifically. 17 00:01:16,960 --> 00:01:20,000 He has over 20 books published or at least 20. 18 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:21,880 Is that right, Pierce? 19 00:01:21,880 --> 00:01:24,720 OK. And working on more, I'm sure. 20 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:29,120 And it maintains a really good website that will be in the show notes 21 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:32,000 and also has a YouTube channel. 22 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,760 I'll also link that in the show notes and 23 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:38,920 really write some interesting and a wide variety of things. 24 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:42,880 And which comes out of at least certain in its origin, a place of struggle 25 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:44,600 and in pain for you, Pierce. 26 00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:48,840 And so I want to welcome you, you know, to in the scenes. 27 00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:52,600 And just appreciate you being here. 28 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:53,960 Yeah, thanks so much for having me. 29 00:01:53,960 --> 00:01:57,880 It's all the things that you guys are addressing are things that are 30 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:02,120 deeply rooted in my own spiritual walk with the Lord. 31 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:04,360 So always excited to talk about them. 32 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:06,200 Yes. Well, you know, and that was the thing. 33 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:11,040 And just I could sense that in reading your your biography there on your website. 34 00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:15,240 Listen to a little bit of your YouTube videos and some of your other writings 35 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:17,880 that were accessible online 36 00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:21,200 that it's very intentional for you that what you went through. 37 00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:25,520 You wanted to see God get glory through your struggles and stuff 38 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:26,640 and to be able to help others. 39 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:29,640 And and so that's something that I don't know. 40 00:02:29,640 --> 00:02:34,080 It resonates with me and something that we're we're trying to do with with broken 41 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:37,920 and mended. So I think there's a lot of just sort of common spirit 42 00:02:37,920 --> 00:02:39,800 between us in that regard. 43 00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:43,000 And we know that you've dealt with some hard things in your life 44 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,200 and you've talked about this, I'm sure, in your books as well as on your website. 45 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,200 But you lost your father very young at, you know, 18 years old. 46 00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:53,520 And there was a resulting struggle there with mental health. 47 00:02:53,920 --> 00:02:56,640 I think you particularly mentioned anxiety. 48 00:02:57,240 --> 00:03:00,240 And one thing I was curious about regarding that, 49 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:04,040 it has to do with your relationship with your with God 50 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:05,800 and how it was impacted by that struggle. 51 00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:10,440 And I ask because sometimes our expectations of God are one way 52 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:14,040 before we go through something and then they can be changed by what we go through 53 00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:17,880 and how we see our relationship with God and what we expect from him. 54 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:19,680 And I won't say anything further about that. 55 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:21,680 I'm curious how that experience has been for you. 56 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:25,080 Yeah, well, there's a lot to unpack there. 57 00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:27,960 But, yeah, I would say that. 58 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:32,600 Well, first, I guess people have a little bit of knowledge of who I am 59 00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:34,120 to situate things. 60 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:36,400 I'm a dad of three. 61 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:41,440 So I have a 10 year old, eight year old and five year old and a wonderful wife. 62 00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:46,440 So all of my spiritual struggles have usually been lived 63 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:49,440 and worked out, especially within my marriage. 64 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:53,440 So I'm very thankful just to have a wife who was understanding, 65 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:56,440 empathetic and supportive in all of those things. 66 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:03,440 So I would say that there are maybe two ways I would approach 67 00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:07,440 how my relationship with God was impacted by the struggle that I've had. 68 00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:12,440 And I'll focus on kind of grief and anxiety for this part. 69 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:16,440 But there are many people who have listened to this. 70 00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:19,440 You may be a Christian who was raised in the church. 71 00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:22,440 And that's what I was. I was a pastor's kid. 72 00:04:22,440 --> 00:04:25,440 When you're raised in the church, it can be very hard to figure out 73 00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:28,440 whether your faith is authentic. 74 00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:32,440 Do you really believe this stuff or is it just the most familiar to you? 75 00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:38,440 And there was a sense in which when my father died of cancer, 76 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:43,440 this was a long struggle for him because he had a brain tumor for 12 years. 77 00:04:43,440 --> 00:04:46,440 So he went through three major surgeries. 78 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:53,440 As a kid, I was probably ignorant of what that meant until closer to the end. 79 00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:56,440 But anyway, he passed away. 80 00:04:56,440 --> 00:05:01,440 And that was the first shock I had of, 81 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:04,440 hey, you have this Christian faith that you've been raised in. 82 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:11,440 Is it relevant to the grief that you're now feeling that's very raw and painful? 83 00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:17,440 What is the interface between your faith and this really painful absence 84 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,440 that you now have to work around? 85 00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:22,440 And I was frustrated for a few years. 86 00:05:22,440 --> 00:05:28,440 I think I was just dealing with frustration in that kind of spiritual dilemma 87 00:05:28,440 --> 00:05:31,440 because I didn't know how it really affected me. 88 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:38,440 I was upset and grieving, but hadn't lost the faith in that sense. 89 00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:40,440 But it just was disheartened. 90 00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:44,440 I found a lack of people who resonated with what I was dealing with 91 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:47,440 or who didn't have answers to the questions I was trying to ask. 92 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:51,440 And so there was a little bit of despondency on my part. 93 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:58,440 But in the end of that struggle or frustration, I hit an anxiety disorder, 94 00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:01,440 which my godfather is a counselor. 95 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:05,440 He told me afterwards, you were probably dealing with PTSD 96 00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:07,440 because not many people experience this, 97 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:13,440 but I was physically present at my dad's bedside when his final breaths were given, 98 00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:17,440 which is just a monumental experience. 99 00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:21,440 To watch someone you love literally leave the world 100 00:06:21,440 --> 00:06:25,440 as you're sitting next to them is a haunting experience. 101 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:28,440 And some people have told me in hospice care, 102 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:34,440 it's just an intense honor to be able to be with another human being at that stage. 103 00:06:34,440 --> 00:06:36,440 But for me as a kid, it was just haunting. 104 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:39,440 I had never experienced anything like that. 105 00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:47,440 And I think as I was processing that, I was dealing with that kind of PTSD response to it, 106 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:53,440 intense fear and reflection over what happened and trying to understand it. 107 00:06:53,440 --> 00:06:57,440 And that kind of rolled into an anxiety disorder, 108 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:02,440 which I think looking back on my life and other people who experience anxiety would say the same thing. 109 00:07:02,440 --> 00:07:07,440 You can almost see a proclivity to anxiety because if you're a highly sensitive person 110 00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:13,440 or things just seem to strike you a little bit harder than they do other people, 111 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:16,440 I had a proclivity to that. 112 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:21,440 And then that was what threw me into the hospital a few times. 113 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:23,440 It just felt very crippled. 114 00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:26,440 And of course, anyone who deals with chronic illness can resonate with that. 115 00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:29,440 But I was homebound for weeks. 116 00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:32,440 I felt like I couldn't get out of my house. 117 00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:39,440 Just to walk down the street 50 yards to the stop sign felt like a huge challenge 118 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:44,440 just because the anxiety that was coursing through me was kind of threatening me every second 119 00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:46,440 by saying you're going to stop breathing. 120 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:49,440 You're going to stop breathing any second now and you're going to die. 121 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:55,440 And I had these paralyzing physical and mental symptoms. 122 00:07:55,440 --> 00:07:58,440 So it was kind of a body and spirit thing. 123 00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:06,440 And the first part that I think I would mention is that that anxiety forced me to commit. 124 00:08:06,440 --> 00:08:11,440 Like do you believe in God and are you going to find hope in this Christian faith that you've raised in 125 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:13,440 or was it just a veneer? 126 00:08:13,440 --> 00:08:15,440 Are you going to look elsewhere? 127 00:08:15,440 --> 00:08:21,440 And I think that was a very conscious decision the night that I was rushed to the hospital by my fiance, 128 00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:26,440 who is now my wife, as we were speeding down these back roads to get to the hospital, 129 00:08:26,440 --> 00:08:28,440 I was all in on faith. 130 00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:33,440 I was like, all right, if I have to choose, I'm going to choose the God that I have learned about 131 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:35,440 and I'm going to go all in on faith. 132 00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:44,440 And that was when that was the first time that I kind of completely gave myself over to reading the Bible. 133 00:08:44,440 --> 00:08:48,440 I had my dad's Bible with me everywhere, in the car, into restaurants. 134 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:50,440 I was reading nonstop. 135 00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:53,440 It was kind of like I'm all in this. 136 00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:58,440 And that was the first major impact, I would say, the grief and the anxiety had on me. 137 00:08:58,440 --> 00:09:00,440 It made me choose. 138 00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:03,440 Are you going to be all in or are you going to go somewhere else? 139 00:09:03,440 --> 00:09:08,440 And by God's grace, I chose to be all in. 140 00:09:08,440 --> 00:09:13,440 The second thing that it did in terms of affecting my relationship with the Lord, I think, 141 00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:17,440 was just reveal my sense of dependence. 142 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:23,440 Again, anyone with chronic mental or physical health understands that so well. 143 00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:30,440 You're so dependent on not just other people, but even the normal workings of your body and mind 144 00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:33,440 that you don't have full control over all the time. 145 00:09:33,440 --> 00:09:42,440 You're so dependent on the sustaining and regular work of God in your life to just wake up every morning 146 00:09:42,440 --> 00:09:43,440 and do normal things. 147 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:45,440 We're fully dependent creatures. 148 00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:50,440 And that's not a bad thing, which is really hard for people in our culture to understand. 149 00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:52,440 They think independence is the goal. 150 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:56,440 You want to be self-sustaining. 151 00:09:56,440 --> 00:10:00,440 And I think, no, God did not make us ever. 152 00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:05,440 Even before sin entered the world, He never made us to be independent, as in apart from Him 153 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:10,440 and not leaning fully on Him and on the church and His people. 154 00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:11,440 So we were never created for that anyway. 155 00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:17,440 So I think those two things were the catalysts that are still at work in my relationship with the Lord 156 00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:25,440 and kind of pushing me all in to actually pursue the answers to the questions I have in the context of my faith, 157 00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:29,440 but then second, to realize that I am fully dependent on the Lord, 158 00:10:29,440 --> 00:10:33,440 and I'm fully dependent on the people that He's put in my life. 159 00:10:33,440 --> 00:10:38,440 And I need to lean into those people and remain humble, 160 00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:44,440 knowing that the progress that I've made is not because I just pulled myself up by my bootstraps. 161 00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:52,440 The progress that I've made has been purely by God's grace and patience with me and teaching me bit by bit 162 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:58,440 how to just walk through life with a debilitating condition at times. 163 00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:00,440 So those are the two things. 164 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:02,440 Those are powerful lessons. 165 00:11:02,440 --> 00:11:06,440 They were hard won, obviously, for you. 166 00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:11,440 And part of what I thought about when you were sharing that, 167 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:14,440 you talked about some time that elapsed from the death of your father 168 00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:20,440 to being able to even gain any kind of perspective as to what was happening with you 169 00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:25,440 and how that was carrying out when you're in a relationship with God. 170 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:30,440 And I think sometimes we want to, I don't know if you've experienced this or not, 171 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:36,440 but there will be people that will pressure you in a time of grief to go ahead and just be okay, you know, 172 00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:43,440 and kind of move on, you know, and especially if you start manifesting something like anxiety or depression, 173 00:11:43,440 --> 00:11:47,440 they may be out of a good place or worried about you, 174 00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:51,440 but they almost try to correct that in your life instead of trying to... 175 00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:54,440 had you experienced any of those kind of attitudes? 176 00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:55,440 Yeah, definitely. 177 00:11:55,440 --> 00:11:59,440 And again, I'm glad that you said sometimes it comes from a place of goodness 178 00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:02,440 and other people who really care about you. 179 00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:11,440 But I think in a few different ways, the grief component, thankfully, I was given space with. 180 00:12:11,440 --> 00:12:17,440 You know, people who loved me were not encouraging me to speed up the grief process. 181 00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:19,440 You know, they had questions that they would ask me at times, 182 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:24,440 but I was blessed by having some people in my life that were just really good listeners. 183 00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:26,440 And that is a jewel. 184 00:12:26,440 --> 00:12:35,440 You know, we really undermine or undervalue the weight and the preciousness of a good listener. 185 00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,440 You know, someone who's not just waiting for their turn to speak, 186 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:45,440 but is actually paused and focusing on you and just letting you talk. 187 00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:49,440 So I had that with grief, but the anxiety was very different, 188 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:51,440 especially within a Christian community. 189 00:12:51,440 --> 00:12:55,440 And for most people who deal with anxiety, they'll understand what I mean by this right away, 190 00:12:55,440 --> 00:13:00,440 but many people that I knew would say, why are you anxious? 191 00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:05,440 Like you have good health, you've got your family, you know, you've dealt with some loss, 192 00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:07,440 but you're okay. 193 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:09,440 You know, why are you anxious? 194 00:13:09,440 --> 00:13:16,440 And I was always so frustrated with that question because I thought, I don't know the answer to that. 195 00:13:16,440 --> 00:13:19,440 And that makes me even more anxious. 196 00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:22,440 Like I know that logically I should not be anxious, you know, 197 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:27,440 and even biblically I have this guilt or pressure telling me I should be okay 198 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:32,440 because of what my Lord and Savior has done for me and who I am in Christ. 199 00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:35,440 So there's guilt that compounds it. 200 00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:38,440 It makes you feel like, oh, I feel this way, but not only do I feel this way, 201 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:41,440 I also feel guilty for feeling this way. 202 00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:48,440 And that was really tough for me to process and led to some painful discussions with people, 203 00:13:48,440 --> 00:13:52,440 and I thought, you really aren't listening to me. 204 00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:56,440 And that's very hard to not be heard is very hard. 205 00:13:56,440 --> 00:14:05,440 And yeah, so I think that there is at least a branch of the Christian community itself 206 00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:11,440 that even out of a sense of wanting to help you, treats anxiety, and in that broader sense, pain. 207 00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:15,440 I hope we'll talk about this in a few minutes, but any kind of suffering or pain, 208 00:14:15,440 --> 00:14:20,440 they treat it as something to be excised or ripped out of your life. 209 00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:25,440 In other words, your goal in living is to pursue pleasure and peace 210 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:30,440 and to avoid pain and suffering at all costs, full stop. 211 00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:35,440 And if you're experiencing anxiety, you need to figure out a way to get rid of it. 212 00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:39,440 So, you know, take your meds, go to counseling, which I fully support, by the way. 213 00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:42,440 You know, I'm transparent with people about the fact that I take meds, 214 00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:45,440 I've gone through counseling, and it's great, you need to do that. 215 00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:51,440 But the main goal of that for a lot of Christians is your goal is to get rid of this thing, 216 00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:53,440 get it out of your life. 217 00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:59,440 And for people who deal with chronic illness, that is horrifically discouraging. 218 00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:00,440 Yeah, it is. 219 00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:03,440 Because it doesn't leave. 220 00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:06,440 And again, the guilt compound comes back in or defeatism, 221 00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:09,440 and you feel like I should be past this, but I'm not. 222 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:11,440 Why am I not past it? 223 00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:13,440 Is there something wrong with me? 224 00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:15,440 You know, why can't I do this? 225 00:15:15,440 --> 00:15:21,440 So I think that that was partly what pushed me into understanding 226 00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:23,440 the place of suffering in the Christian life. 227 00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:26,440 That involves mental, involves physical, and I hope, you know, 228 00:15:26,440 --> 00:15:33,440 we'll talk about that in a few minutes, but completely revolutionized my approach to suffering. 229 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:36,440 And I'll explain how I think that differs from the rest of the world, 230 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:39,440 which sadly is somehow the way the church thinks. 231 00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:43,440 Yeah, you're absolutely right, and those have been my experiences as well. 232 00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:45,440 And, you know, I think about the listening thing. 233 00:15:45,440 --> 00:15:48,440 So for our listeners today who are listening to us, 234 00:15:48,440 --> 00:15:52,440 maybe an encouragement for us all to work on being listeners 235 00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:57,440 and not feeling the need to always intrude or to correct, to just be... 236 00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:00,440 I actually had an experience recently where someone came to me. 237 00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:02,440 He'd lost his son. 238 00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:03,440 You know, horrible thing. 239 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:08,440 And the reason he came, he told me on the outset, 240 00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:10,440 he knew what to do, what to expect. 241 00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:13,440 He says, I just need someone to listen to me because everyone that I try to talk... 242 00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:16,440 They tell me they're going to listen, but they don't listen. 243 00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:19,440 You know, they start trying to tell me, well, this is what you need to do and that, you know. 244 00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:24,440 And so I understood what he said, and I just sat there and I just listened. 245 00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:28,440 And he told me at the end, certainly didn't make everything better, 246 00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:31,440 but he felt better for that day because someone had listened to him. 247 00:16:31,440 --> 00:16:33,440 So much value in that. 248 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:35,440 So I appreciate you sharing that. 249 00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:41,440 Thanks, one, be a listener, but also you need to find someone that you can, 250 00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:45,440 that will listen to you that way without judgment. 251 00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:47,440 It can be tricky sometimes for people. 252 00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:50,440 And I'll tell you one of the tricks I've learned, 253 00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:55,440 and coming mostly from my failure to be a good listener, 254 00:16:55,440 --> 00:17:01,440 is when someone is talking to me, I'm such a problem solver. 255 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:04,440 Like when I see a problem, my goal is like, I want to fix this as fast as I can. 256 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:07,440 So I'll offer some advice or I'll give you a suggestion. 257 00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:11,440 Not helpful, you know, sometimes. 258 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:18,440 But what I learned is if I immediately respond to someone who's trying to get me to listen 259 00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:27,440 by saying, oh, your experience is like mine, let me tell you about mine, then I failed. 260 00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:28,440 Like I've dropped off. 261 00:17:28,440 --> 00:17:31,440 It's like, no, I've made this about me, you know. 262 00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:32,440 And it's hard, you know. 263 00:17:32,440 --> 00:17:36,440 It takes a lot of, you know, failed attempts to listen. 264 00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:41,440 But to be able to hear somebody and not immediately follow that with, 265 00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:46,440 here's how your story is like mine, but instead, let me just go further with you and your story. 266 00:17:46,440 --> 00:17:48,440 Like what was that like for you? 267 00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:52,440 You know, what was, how did you feel, you know, during that time? 268 00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:57,440 You know, how do you feel right now about what you've experienced then? 269 00:17:57,440 --> 00:17:58,440 How have you grown? 270 00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:04,440 You know, questions that keep the focus on the other person and just let them talk and you listen. 271 00:18:04,440 --> 00:18:06,440 Super hard to do. 272 00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:13,440 And I say that as someone who's failed many times because sometimes we just get excited to talk about our own experiences. 273 00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:14,440 Sure. 274 00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:17,440 And we pull other people off and then they say, you know, that wasn't so helpful. 275 00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:19,440 And we think, why? I listened. 276 00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:21,440 Right. 277 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:25,440 A little self-awareness thing we can all work on, I'm sure. 278 00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:26,440 And pray about it. 279 00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:30,440 Pray, ask God to help you be a better listener because it's so important and so needed. 280 00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:35,440 You know, and I wanted to touch on another theme you've actually touched on a couple of times. 281 00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:42,440 So this idea that something comes out of suffering that people, they, if it's this idea, we just want to get rid of it. 282 00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:45,440 Right. And that's certainly a problem for people in chronic illness community. 283 00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:51,440 And it gets compounded because there are those out there and I've dealt with them from a theological perspective. 284 00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:58,440 They will tell you if you don't believe God's going to heal you, now you're failing in your faith. 285 00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:01,440 You're giving up on God. 286 00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:09,440 And they cannot imagine the idea, because I try to explain it, that you would surrender to God and say that if God's not going to heal me, 287 00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:12,440 then I want God to somehow use this in my life. 288 00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:17,440 First of all, to draw me closer to him, to create the dependence that you're talking about, you know, that. 289 00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:25,440 And there are things I've gained through chronic illness, chronic pain, and the resulting mental struggles that I could not have gained otherwise. 290 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:35,440 And if you were to ask me to go back in time and just erase everything I've been through, I couldn't do it, you know, because, you know, it would have saved me some suffering, 291 00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:42,440 would have saved me some pain, would have saved me a lot of money, too, by the way, because there's a lot of big financial costs that comes with all this and a lot of time. 292 00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:51,440 But God is at work, and I don't want to, I don't want to second-guess him in that sense by saying, oh, I'd go back and do it a different way. 293 00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:59,440 And so we have a lot of people in this community, and I'm trying to say this sympathetically, who get stuck with the idea of surrendering, you know, 294 00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:03,440 or the guilt factor, because others are telling them, you know, they can't. 295 00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:06,440 And it's not questioning, I just want to say it's not questioning whether God can heal you. 296 00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:13,440 But it's obvious that God does not choose to heal everyone fully all the time. Otherwise, none of us would ever die, right? 297 00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:17,440 And there is a resurrection where that's going to be taken care of for good. 298 00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:20,440 So I appreciate you really touching on those things. 299 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:24,440 And you mentioned Tim Keller, or maybe that was in our prior pre-conversation. 300 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:32,440 But I just think he's a guy that's made a big impact on me in that regard, too, in talking about these issues, trying to think what that book was called, 301 00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:39,440 something like Walking with God and Suffering. Anyway, it was a great book and so helpful to me. 302 00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:41,440 And yeah, go ahead. 303 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:48,440 I think if I can just interject a little bit for some people, I think most people are familiar with the prosperity gospel. 304 00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:49,440 Yes. 305 00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:53,440 You know, prosperity gospel meaning, you know, God wants good things for you and good things only. 306 00:20:53,440 --> 00:21:00,440 And so if you have your faith in him and you don't doubt, you are kind of manifesting your good life. 307 00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:03,440 That's what God wants for you. He wants good things. 308 00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:08,440 And a lot of Christians who are familiar with the Bible will say, well, that's not true. 309 00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:12,440 You know, I don't think the prosperity gospel is true. 310 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:19,440 But then there's another version of the prosperity gospel that deals with this thing that we're talking about, 311 00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,440 because it doesn't say, well, God only wants good things for you. 312 00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:31,440 But it does say that the main point of suffering in your life is to be gotten rid of. 313 00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:36,440 And when I listen to that, I think that's a form of the prosperity gospel. 314 00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:39,440 You're telling me that God only wants good things for me. 315 00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:45,440 And the way that I've tried to teach other people about the importance of suffering in a Christian life. 316 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:51,440 And this is stuff that I've learned from others, especially Richard Gaff in an article called The Usefulness of the Cross. 317 00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,440 And I'll try to send you the info so you can link to it for people. 318 00:21:55,440 --> 00:22:03,440 But looking at passages like, you know, 2 Corinthians 4, 7 through 11, or Philippians 3, 10, 319 00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:13,440 or passages where Jesus talks about taking up your cross and following him, you know, or Romans 8, 28 and 29. 320 00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:16,440 Most people love Romans 8, 28. They don't like 8, 29. 321 00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:19,440 8, 28 is, you know, God has good things planned for you. 322 00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:22,440 They don't read on until it's just 29. 323 00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:25,440 It says, well, what are it? What's the end goal? 324 00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:31,440 Well, the end goal of all those good things that God has for you is conformity to the image of his son. 325 00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:35,440 And so here's how I usually phrase it when I talk to people. 326 00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:37,440 Biblically speaking, let me ask a question. 327 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,440 What is the best possible thing that could ever happen to you? 328 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,440 You know, you could probably get lots of answers from that. 329 00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:45,440 You know, I'm close to Philadelphia right now. 330 00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:48,440 If I went on the streets of Philadelphia and said, what's the best thing that could ever happen to you? 331 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:55,440 I'll get tons of answers. You know, people will be like good health, you know, money, you know, meaningful relationships. 332 00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:57,440 You know, these are all the things. 333 00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:03,440 And then people sometimes think that scripture must have a less exciting answer than that. 334 00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:06,440 You know, maybe it says something about holiness or, you know, that's what God wants for you. 335 00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:08,440 And I think, yeah, that's fine. 336 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,440 You know, but I really just want the health and the money. 337 00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:13,440 That's the way that people think of it. 338 00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:20,440 Scripture actually has an answer that is mind blowingly better than what other people are asking for. 339 00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:22,440 And the answer is in 829. 340 00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:31,440 It says that the best thing that could ever possibly happen to you is that you be made more and more like the son of God. 341 00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:34,440 Like that is ridiculous to even imagine like that. 342 00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:40,440 I would be called to more closely image the son of God. 343 00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:49,440 Like when you think about it, it almost seems blasphemous in a sense that you're like, is this really possible that I could look more and more like Jesus Christ? 344 00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:58,440 And yet that's what the scriptures teaching is that your God's plan for you is to conform you more and more to the image of his son. 345 00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:06,440 And if that's true, if that's the best thing that could ever possibly happen to you, then the question becomes how? 346 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,440 How is that going to happen? 347 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:27,440 And the answer that I found from Jesus Christ, from the Apostle Paul, and from people who have exposited the text pretty clearly has been the mechanism that gets you from who you are to who you are in Christ is suffering. 348 00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:29,440 That's the road, you know? 349 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:30,440 Yeah. 350 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,440 And suffering comes in many forms. 351 00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:38,440 I can remember struggling in my probably my 20s in prayer, you know, praying that prayer from Philippians 3. 352 00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:41,440 I expressed it as a prayer anyway. 353 00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:54,440 And getting to that part where, you know, he says, I want to share in the fellowship of his sufferings, you know, and thinking, I don't know about that, you know, because I wasn't suffering anything like that at the time. 354 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,440 And I think, you know, suffering can come in many forms. 355 00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,440 There are some forms that we may choose on behalf of Christ. 356 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:12,440 And there are some forms that come to us in different ways where we might have suffered, whether we knew Christ or not. But the point is that Christ will do something redemptive in our suffering for a greater purpose. 357 00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:14,440 And I also, you mentioned a lot of great passages. 358 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:25,440 I'll throw in Romans 5, 1 through 5 there is, you know, one that talks about, you know, the development ultimately of character, you know, which I would relate also to, you know, fruit of the Spirit. 359 00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:31,440 I do want to talk about transparency for a moment just because you've chosen to be very transparent about your struggles. 360 00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:34,440 I don't think it would be possible for you to do what you do if you didn't. 361 00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:38,440 And I'm so glad for that because it's still kind of rare. 362 00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:42,440 And I want to know, was that an intentional decision? 363 00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,440 Is that a gradual decision or that, you know, that kind of come naturally to you? 364 00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,440 And I think we've touched on this other one. 365 00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:53,440 But if you need to, you know, it was kind of have you experienced any blowback from speaking out about mental health issues. 366 00:25:53,440 --> 00:26:00,440 So you can expand on that if you want, but especially just curious how you really came to that decision to be transparent with your struggles. 367 00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:01,440 Yeah. 368 00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:07,440 Well, I will say that I wrote quite a bit before I wrote my book on anxiety. 369 00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:13,440 So coming out and being fully transparent about my mental health was not the first thing I did. 370 00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:31,440 But once I decided to do it, it felt so freeing to actually be an open book and say, you know, I've had conversations with other people where I've said what I think I should say. 371 00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:43,440 But I haven't really laid out like the rawness of the pain and the anxiety that I dealt with and then made the connection to how that functions in my faith. 372 00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:50,440 And if I'm going to show how it functions in my faith, I have to be really open about what the experience was like. 373 00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:56,440 So did I would say that resonated with people in ways that I didn't imagine. 374 00:26:56,440 --> 00:27:06,440 And they'll say in God's providence, I published my book on anxiety called Struck Down But Not Destroyed two months before COVID hit. 375 00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:16,440 And I had no idea that COVID was coming and that all these people were going to then get surges of mental health issues from isolation and a whole host of other issues. 376 00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:23,440 But then people came out of the woodwork to just thank me for being open about it. 377 00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:33,440 And I thought, well, it was easy to be open because it felt so good to finally voice things that were buried inside me for so long. 378 00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:37,440 So, yeah, it was a conscious decision to be transparent. 379 00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:39,440 And I wouldn't go back on that. 380 00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:44,440 I think, you know, if people think less of me for being transparent, that's OK. 381 00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:48,440 I don't really spiritually I don't need people to think better of me. 382 00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:53,440 You know, I might want that, you know, my sinful self wants that, but spiritually I don't need that. 383 00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,440 You know, so people think less of me for it. Go ahead. 384 00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:57,440 You know, that's OK. 385 00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:02,440 I'm it feels like, you know, God sees all of me anyway. 386 00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:10,440 So, you know, I can hide things from other people, but he knows what I've experienced and he knows the struggles that I've had and he knows the mistakes I've made with it. 387 00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:16,440 So I might as well lay things all on the table and then maybe that'll help other people be more open and lay things on the table. 388 00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:19,440 And I think that has happened to a certain degree. 389 00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:26,440 People have felt more encouraged to just be open, especially in the context of faith. 390 00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:31,440 You know, there's still a fairly strong stigmatism on mental health in the church. 391 00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:39,440 And I say that as someone who experienced it within my family, because, you know, my mother has dealt with anxiety and depression as well. 392 00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:45,440 And my father was a pastor at the time, treated that as a faith problem. 393 00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:49,440 And I think he frankly I think he just didn't know any better. 394 00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:54,440 He wasn't you know, he died when he was 47. 395 00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:59,440 But just in his own context and setting, you know, mental health was not talked about very much. 396 00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:12,440 So he solved it the way that he knew how to solve it, which was to say this is a faith problem and you need to get your faith built higher and stronger so you can defeat the anxiety and the depression. 397 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:19,440 And again, that leads to huge amounts of guilt for Christians because it's not a simple fix. 398 00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:24,440 But as I've learned and tried to articulate a little bit, it's also completely unbiblical. 399 00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,440 Like my job is not to eliminate suffering. 400 00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:36,440 My job is to walk faithfully through it and to be looking all the time for how God is conforming me to the image of Christ as I go through it. 401 00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:45,440 And that and that sense, I think I'd talk about anxiety and other kinds of chronic illness as a bitter medicine. 402 00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,440 You know, when I was younger, we took cough medicine. 403 00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,440 It was this nasty red syrup. 404 00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:52,440 Oh, I remember. 405 00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:57,440 You give our doctors these names and it tastes like, you know, grape punch or something. 406 00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,440 But when I was a kid, it was disgusting. 407 00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,440 This stuff made you spit it out of your mouth. 408 00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:04,440 And yet you took it anyway. 409 00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:05,440 You know, why? 410 00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:09,440 Well, because you knew that that bitter thing was actually meant for your good. 411 00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:13,440 You know, it's similar with, you know, a lot of other treatments you get when you go to the doctors. 412 00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,440 It might be painful, but it's actually for your good. 413 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:31,440 And I think that that was what I needed to learn and voice more loudly in the Christian mental health community is there were tons of people who thought, oh, I struggle with anxiety and God's going to help me defeat it. 414 00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:37,440 And I thought, no, how about you struggle with anxiety and you're going to hold Christ's hand as you walk through it? 415 00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:39,440 Because he's got a lot of teaching to do. 416 00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:40,440 And guess what? 417 00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:44,440 That teaching probably wouldn't take if you didn't have the anxiety. 418 00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,440 So I can look back on my life now and say, you know, did I want that? 419 00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:50,440 Did I want my dad to die early? 420 00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:52,440 Did I want an anxiety disorder? 421 00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,440 Like, no, you know, I'm not a lover of pain. 422 00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:58,440 You know, I don't enjoy that experience. 423 00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:07,440 But I'm also fully convinced that if those things didn't happen, I would not be conformed to the image of Christ in the way that I have been so far. 424 00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:09,440 Like, I just can't see it happening. 425 00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:18,440 So in other words, if I'm comfortable and I'm living a life that is fixated on pleasure and peace, not a lot of Christ conforming is going to happen there. 426 00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:20,440 You know, I'm just going to stay the same. 427 00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:31,440 And I think that that can be detrimental to people's spiritual lives because they get stuck on that and then they look at everyone else around them and they say, oh, why are you still battling anxiety? 428 00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,440 Why are you still battling this chronic illness thing? 429 00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,440 You know, doesn't your faith want to take you away from that? 430 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,440 And I always think, no, no, no, your faith takes you right in there. 431 00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:44,440 Like, there's a sense in which we experience pain. 432 00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:46,440 I was thinking about this as I was driving to work today. 433 00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,440 Our immediate response to pain and pleasure is revulsion and repelling. 434 00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:52,440 Like, get this away from me. 435 00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:53,440 Right. 436 00:31:53,440 --> 00:32:06,440 And the most encouraging thing I learned from Christ and the Apostle Paul and theologians like Richard Gaffin, who wrote the Use from the Cross article, was that you have a lot of encouragement to go through those painful experiences. 437 00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,440 And yes, you'll feel that reflex of like, oh, I don't like this. 438 00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:10,440 This doesn't feel good. 439 00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:11,440 I don't want this. 440 00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,440 And yet, instead of saying no, I can say yes. 441 00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:20,440 And there's profound power in that because suffering is not going to go away. 442 00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,440 And I've talked with some people who read my book on anxiety. 443 00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:31,440 I remember one person who was actually kind of frustrated that I wrote a book that suggested that anxiety is a tool that God can just keep using. 444 00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:35,440 And he said, no, you should be able to conquer it and get it out. 445 00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:37,440 And I said, what happens then? 446 00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:38,440 And he said, what do you mean? 447 00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:45,440 I said, well, let's say you take all these medications, you go to counseling, which are good things, and you eliminate your anxiety. 448 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,440 It's gone. 449 00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:49,440 Now what? 450 00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:51,440 And he said, I don't know. 451 00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:56,440 And I said, do you think that some other kind of suffering is not going to take its place? 452 00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:58,440 Like, you're going to have to work through this. 453 00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:06,440 And I feel like it can be super defeating to look at these hard experiences and think, oh, my goal is to get rid of this. 454 00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,440 And it's almost like Christians in that frame of mind are working toward this weird sense of nirvana. 455 00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:17,440 Like, I'll get to a place where I no longer experience pain because I have no desire. 456 00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:19,440 It's very strange. 457 00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:27,440 And I think biblically speaking, you have to look at suffering in that lens of how does Jesus talk about suffering? 458 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:28,440 How does Paul talk about suffering? 459 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:30,440 What's it doing? 460 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:38,440 And then look at your experiences of suffering through that lens instead of looking at it through the kind of natural worldly picture of, oh, I don't like this. 461 00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:39,440 I should get away from it. 462 00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:43,440 I should run from it because the Christian message is much more encouraging. 463 00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:48,440 So it's like the thing that everyone else in the world is afraid of and is running from and is trying to get out of their lives. 464 00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:53,440 You run right into that and you will be immensely blessed by it. 465 00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:58,440 You know, that's a huge encouragement, I think, because for people in chronic conditions, that's kind of like saying, 466 00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:02,440 you're on the Christ conforming road right now. 467 00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:03,440 What's God teaching you? 468 00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:04,440 Yeah, that's you. 469 00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:06,440 You've got examples all around you. 470 00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:07,440 That's so powerful. 471 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:15,440 You know, and I was wondering if there could be some in people's minds, some some category confusion over some words I give you. 472 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:24,440 You know, somebody might quote to an anxious person, don't be anxious about anything, you know, cast all your, you know, and I'm thinking, OK, but what Peter is talking, I think it's Peter. 473 00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:26,440 You can correct me if I'm wrong. 474 00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:29,440 I think it's Peter talks about casting your anxieties on him. 475 00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:34,440 James, I think Peter anyway, whoever it was, was an inspired author. 476 00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:42,440 And, you know, he was talking about what I think is a type of obsessive worry, you know, kind of over worldly things. 477 00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:48,440 And you see that go on to what Jesus is addressing that not not worrying about all these things that the pagans run after. 478 00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:53,440 He's not talking about a mental health issue in that in that sense. 479 00:34:53,440 --> 00:35:03,440 That's that's something going on inside of you that it's the same as if something was going on inside of your heart or, you know, or a chronic illness. 480 00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:09,440 I mean, it's something that needs to be addressed in as many ways as possible and certainly spiritual seeking God's help. 481 00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:10,440 And that well, that's the main thing we want to do. 482 00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:11,440 We want to seek God's help. 483 00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:17,440 We want to see it not necessarily, like you said, just to remove it, but to walk with it, walk with us through it. 484 00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,440 So that's and I think I'll go ahead. 485 00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:30,440 I think that the question that people can ask in those situations is, you know, how does God want to conform to Christ in this situation? 486 00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:35,440 And that, I think, is a better approach to certain kind of often referenced text. 487 00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:46,440 So to take anxiety, for example, Matthew six, probably the most abused text, you know, comes to anxiety and people say, well, Jesus said, don't be anxious. 488 00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:50,440 So don't do it. And it's laughable. 489 00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:51,440 You know, if you have kids, you understand this. 490 00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:59,440 But if your child is feeling something and you just shout, stop it, what does that do? 491 00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:00,440 It does nothing. 492 00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:05,440 You know, like God is not in through Christ and scripture saying, like, just stop it. 493 00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:12,440 Just stop. You know, that the whole context of the passage is actually about what your primary focus should be. 494 00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:14,440 And it's the kingdom of God. 495 00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:18,440 So he's saying, don't worry about these other things that the rest of the world is chasing after. 496 00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,440 Make your priority the kingdom of God. 497 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,440 You know, as a text that virtually has nothing to do with mental health. 498 00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:30,440 But people see the word anxiety and they're like, oh, look, there's a passage about anxiety. 499 00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,440 And you really have to, first of all, understand the text in context. 500 00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:35,440 That's right. 501 00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:37,440 So look at what's actually being said. 502 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,440 And people love to cherry pick verses, which is a horrible strategy for applying scripture. 503 00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:49,440 Look at the context, but then also understand the spiritual purpose that God has for your pain and suffering, 504 00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:55,440 which is something you can extract from Genesis to Revelation, but especially in Jesus and the Apostle Paul. 505 00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:59,440 And say, OK, you're experiencing anxiety, but what's the purpose of that? 506 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:03,440 And again, you can't have that answer of like, well, the purpose is to get rid of it. 507 00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:10,440 I think that's that undercurrent of the prosperity gospel telling you that your whole Christian life should be about pleasure and peace. 508 00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:15,440 Yeah, absolutely. So it's it's there's those extreme forms that so many of us recognize. 509 00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:20,440 And there's almost subtle forms that really have infected most of the church here in America. 510 00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,440 And so it's a that's that's a good point. 511 00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:34,440 So I'll let our audience know here that part of my preparation for an interview like this is I lay out multiple questions that we like to go through and talk about. 512 00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:37,440 And I think we just finished the second one. 513 00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:43,440 And so we're but that's fine. I'm glad that I'm glad the way the conversation has has has flowed today. 514 00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:48,440 There are a couple of things I do want to touch on because I want our readers to know about it. 515 00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:54,440 And we talked about this book. You mentioned finding hope in hard things. 516 00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:59,440 And I'm just going to say that you got all your books less list on your website 517 00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:04,440 and people can go and they can find maybe which one that they think fits them the most. 518 00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:15,440 Is that the best one for those maybe initially struggling with anxiety and wanting to know how it kind of mixes with their faith or connects with their faith? 519 00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:19,440 Yeah, I would say for people looking at anxiety struck down but not destroyed. 520 00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:23,440 OK, that's the one that focuses really on anxiety. 521 00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:32,440 But I have had people tell me that after reading that they thought it gave them a good kind of template for dealing with any kind of hardship. 522 00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:40,440 But yeah, the one that deals with more with with suffering in general, including grief, is finding hope in hard things. 523 00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:45,440 And then I am a human was really kind of a memoir about my my father. 524 00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:51,440 So, yes, it's meant to give some kind of hope and meaning in the midst of the grieving process. 525 00:38:51,440 --> 00:39:00,440 That's so that's that's important, you know, because grief, you know, well, and that's a different, you know, thing for me, Chase. 526 00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:18,440 Yeah, as you know, as a writer, I think that I am a human is the book that probably has gotten least attention and it's probably the book that I'm most proud of because it took so many years of emotion and turmoil and finally put them down on the page. 527 00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:19,440 Yeah. 528 00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:31,440 Said this this has to come out. And yeah, when I read through portions of it, sometimes I think like, wow, I can't even remember fully writing some of this down, but it was stirring in me so much. 529 00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:41,440 So, yeah, all that to say as a writer, sometimes the books you think are your best are the ones that people don't even look at and the ones that you think, OK, you know, some of them will benefit more from that. 530 00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:46,440 So, well, maybe people don't have control over how good yes, that is what we do. 531 00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:51,440 That's true. And maybe there will be a season where that gets a little more attention. 532 00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:58,440 I just say for people dealing with grief, and there are a lot of people you can have grief over more things just loss of loved ones, including loss of your health. 533 00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:05,440 But I would also mention, you know, people that are going through a recent loss that might be a good one for them to check out. 534 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:20,440 And I know several people we've had in my church and some people in church are also in broken amended just had immense amount of loss of people losing their parents lately, even siblings, people losing in few cases, their children. 535 00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:26,440 And so grief is a very real. And it's kind of, you know, when you're dealing with chronic illness, it doesn't mean the other things don't come to you. 536 00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:30,440 You're going to come to you as well. You're going to compound. You know, you're going to lose loved ones. 537 00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:35,440 You're going to go through grief and you're going to have to process that. So that's just a few of the books you've written. 538 00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:39,440 I'll just save time. Just mention they're all they're all there. 539 00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:47,440 And but we just will highlight those. And I know for myself, I'm probably going to start with that finding hope and hard things. 540 00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:55,440 And that other one you mentioned, what was that again? Yeah, that one. Yeah, I'm going to start with those two. 541 00:40:55,440 --> 00:41:01,440 But those that's great. I did want to just touch. I know we're running out of time. I want to touch on poetry for a minute. 542 00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:06,440 Oh, yeah. I can go further. If you ask me to talk about poetry, I'll just keep going. 543 00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:14,440 Well, I'll tell you, I'm a major. So yeah, this last year I read more poetry than I ever had. 544 00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:23,440 And I've never considered myself a good poetry reader. Just I would just my mind would wander somewhere and I'd get back, you know, and it just was hard for me. 545 00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:30,440 But I ended up reading Lost in Paradise or Paradise Lost. I'm sorry. Lost in Paradise. 546 00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:37,440 Paradise Lost by John Milton. And it kind of changed me. 547 00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:44,440 I mean, the way that I thought about, you know, you know, creation and Adam and Eve and the war that was going on behind the scenes there. 548 00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:51,440 And I realize a lot of that's imaginative, but that's that's kind of the point because it becomes evocative and it and it becomes something that just sticks with you. 549 00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:56,440 Even though I was reading in this ancient kind of old English, you know, that I had to struggle through. 550 00:41:56,440 --> 00:42:04,440 Eventually, I got used to the rhythm of it and it wasn't it became I couldn't wait to get back to reading it because, you know, Paradise Lost is pretty long. 551 00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,440 But so I had this tremendous experience with that. 552 00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:14,440 And every time now I'm preaching of things related to the Garden of Eden or creation, it's always there with me now, you know, and I'm always. 553 00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:19,440 And so I've learned from a personal experience just recently how powerful that can be. 554 00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:24,440 And you kind of mentioned that, you know, obviously, you got a lot of theology books, a little bit dry. 555 00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:32,440 They might be interesting for those that are interested in that subject, but, you know, they don't exactly evoke a lot of emotion as you're going through it. 556 00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:36,440 You know, and so just want to get your take on that and how this really brings up. 557 00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:41,440 You can bring something to the table and helping to write more poetry and verse. 558 00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:46,440 Yeah, yeah. So a few things to say. 559 00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:50,440 So I was a nerdy English major. I love to write. 560 00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:59,440 I had actually planned to and had started a writing program before God redirected my path and sent me to seminary. 561 00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,440 So then when I was reading a lot of the theology, I think. 562 00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:10,440 Of course, it doesn't have to be emotionally evocative all the time and clarity and simplicity is a form of beauty. 563 00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:21,440 So I'm appreciative of that as well. But I would say that because human beings are body, spirit, image bearers. 564 00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:26,440 We have a, you know, we have a heart and the heart is always the central issue throughout scripture. 565 00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:31,440 You know, God is looking at the heart. He's trying to lead his people to get a new heart. 566 00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:36,440 You know, as Ezekiel talks about, you know, you get a new heart through Christ, through the life giving spirit. 567 00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:41,440 The heart is always central. And when you ask most people, most theologians, what is the heart? 568 00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:46,440 They'll say the heart is the seat of the emotions. 569 00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:55,440 Something like that. And that is pretty provocative because it means that, oh, all the things that I feel 570 00:43:55,440 --> 00:44:01,440 that my faith might have told me to not listen to because those things, feelings can be dangerous. 571 00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:06,440 They can be unstable. I don't want to trust my feelings. Actually, I can't discount those either. 572 00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:12,440 God has a plan for those worked into my life as well. He often talks about the heart. 573 00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:21,440 And so it's good and right, I think, to want your heart to be drawn into what you're reading. 574 00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:25,440 And I think especially now that I'm doing a lot of reading with my kids, 575 00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:33,440 I want their imaginations to be captured by the biblical story, not just their minds, 576 00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:41,440 their imaginations and their longings and desires to be wrapped up in that biblical narrative. 577 00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:49,440 And I think that maybe because some people are afraid of the emotions, and I'm fully open about how, 578 00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:55,440 with anxiety, for example, I can feel certain emotions that I know are flat lies. 579 00:44:55,440 --> 00:45:00,440 I have thoughts during anxiety that say you're going to die, you're going to die, and I think that's a flat out lie. 580 00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:04,440 So you can't just unabashedly listen to every emotion that comes into your heart. 581 00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:08,440 There's biblical filtering that needs to happen. 582 00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:17,440 But when you're reading theology, I want not just to understand the gospel. I want to feel it. 583 00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:22,440 I want to imagine it. I want it to permeate my whole person. 584 00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:29,440 And so when you read poetry and you get the sounds of the words and you get the imagery, 585 00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:36,440 it starts to do things in you that just a flat explanation would not do. 586 00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:39,440 It doesn't mean an explanation is not good or appropriate or needed, 587 00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:46,440 especially in areas of scripture where the passage is already super symbolic and full of imagery like Revelation. 588 00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:53,440 But it does mean that you should be heart drawn to the truth of scripture. 589 00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:58,440 And I think some people were especially concerned about doctrine, which is a good and right concern to have. 590 00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,440 You need to be concerned about the doctrine. 591 00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:06,440 But you can be so overly concerned about the doctrine that you actually neglect the heart. 592 00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:13,440 And that leads to people, you know, I work at a seminary, so I work around people who study theology all the time. 593 00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,440 Not all those people are kind and warm and loving. 594 00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:23,440 You know, they know a lot of theology, but sometimes it hasn't permeated the heart. 595 00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:28,440 You know, so sometimes people get very focused on, you know, well, theology is where I get the truth. 596 00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:34,440 And it needs to be plain and simple. And I can't have my feelings contaminating it. 597 00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:38,440 And I think, you know, first of all, you don't have control over that anyway. 598 00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:40,440 You know, no one has full control over their feelings. 599 00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:50,440 But second of all, even the story of scripture and the way scripture is written is very evocative of the imagery that's all there. 600 00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:56,440 And you want to be able to make connections between the life that you experience and feel and live every day 601 00:46:56,440 --> 00:47:00,440 and the life that you are living in the context of scripture. 602 00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:02,440 So I'll give you an example. 603 00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:06,440 Ever since COVID hit, my wife and I have loved gardening. 604 00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,440 You know, so a lot of other people do the same thing. We all have these gardens. 605 00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:11,440 We have this elaborate garden. 606 00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:15,440 Every year we go through catalogs with our kids. We pick out these seeds we're going to plant. 607 00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:23,440 And sometimes I'll hold the seeds in my hand and how tiny they are and weird, you know, shaped and different colored. 608 00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:34,440 When you read Genesis, there's a line that talks about how God made the plants with all the seeds in them, you know, and fruit bearing seeds. 609 00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:39,440 A lot of times we just skip over that. We're like, OK, yeah, you know, it's plants and seeds to grow. 610 00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:41,440 You know, God mentions that in Genesis. 611 00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:43,440 Why did he mention it? 612 00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:49,440 Because when you look more closely at scripture, you see that that seed, that physical seed that Adam and Eve could touch 613 00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:57,440 that we can see and touch when we plant seeds in our garden, that actually is much more meaningful and is tied into a whole theology. 614 00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:04,440 Because the same Hebrew word is used for Eve's line of children. 615 00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:10,440 The seed is going to be the one who fights against the seed of Satan. 616 00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:18,440 And when you look all throughout the Old Testament, you have these prophecies of the seed of Jesse or the seed of David. 617 00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:26,440 And then you get to the New Testament, you have all this language that's that's garden like talking about God planting Christ inside you. 618 00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:34,440 You know, Paul talks about how God planted and I watered, but you know, or Christ planted, I watered, but God gets the growth. 619 00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:41,440 So all I'm saying in that example is you don't ever get theology that's disembodied. 620 00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:49,440 It's always in a form and poetry and poetic expression tends to focus on that form. 621 00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:54,440 And I think that you can't sacrifice that because when you do, you're giving up something in scripture. 622 00:48:54,440 --> 00:49:07,440 Scripture blends together in a way that you can't take apart the physical, experiential things that you have at your fingertips and the broader, deeper theology that then God weaves through those things. 623 00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:11,440 So I think in one sense, you know, it's dangerous. 624 00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:17,440 And I always do this to myself when I read a theology book, I get to the end and I think, how have I changed? 625 00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,440 Because my heart changed at all. 626 00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:28,440 Am I thinking a little bit more sensibly about something? Because if there's no heart change, I might have wasted my time. 627 00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:31,440 You know, because my heart is meant to be developed and pulled. 628 00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:42,440 And a lot of times it's that imagery and poetic sensibility and imagination that really starts to pull the heart in and educates both the heart and the head. 629 00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:53,440 So I'm a huge advocate of fiction, poetry, and part of that, I think, goes back to the truth that we're body, spirit, image bearers. 630 00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:58,440 We're in our body and our senses, our experiences, we're meant to interact with the world. 631 00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,440 And so we want that from the theology that we read. 632 00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:06,440 And of course, there's much more theology now than, you know, I went to seminary in 2008. 633 00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:09,440 I started and I'm sure there was poetic theology then too. 634 00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:17,440 It's not like it was a Genesis after I was at seminary, but there was definitely a lot less of it in terms of what I was given in the curriculum. 635 00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:22,440 Yeah, you know, I was speculating without researching, which is always dangerous. 636 00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:31,440 But I just wonder about the impact of modernism on, you know, the prolificness of theological poetry, you know, 637 00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:37,440 and because I think probably in church history, it's always been important, as art has been as well. 638 00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:43,440 And if some of those things kind of got de-emphasized with the advent of modernism and maybe postmodernism, 639 00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:47,440 that'll be a good thing about it that I know not everything about postmodernism is good, 640 00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:53,440 but maybe, you know, it will kind of help bring back the value of arts, the value of poetry. 641 00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:55,440 Obviously, the Bible is huge on poetry. 642 00:50:55,440 --> 00:51:03,440 So, you know, and I think even some of the people like I love, you know, Dutch theologians, one of them is Gerhardus Vos. 643 00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:08,440 He taught at Princeton for a while, and you can read his dogmatic theology stuff, and it's pretty dry. 644 00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:12,440 You know, it's just explanation and stuff like that. 645 00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,440 He gets to the end of his life, and what does he do? 646 00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:18,440 He has a collection of poetry. 647 00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:25,440 That's like the culmination of his, you know, his theological insight is like worshipful, expressive poetry. 648 00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:27,440 And I love that. 649 00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:29,440 You know, that's actually what you're driving to. 650 00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:34,440 Like your theology actually needs to come out of the heart, not just the head. 651 00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:38,440 And I think a lot of people are focused on the head and not the heart. 652 00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:42,440 And I think there's no question in my mind that in Scripture, the heart is primary. 653 00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:45,440 Head is critical, and the heart feeds the head. 654 00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:53,440 But you've got to have some kind of poetic, imagery-driven, creative sensibility just from reading Scripture. 655 00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:54,440 Sure. 656 00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:55,440 Because that's just useless. 657 00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:58,440 Well, we'll kind of close with that. 658 00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:03,440 I do want to ask, so I know you have some of your poetry available online on your website. 659 00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:06,440 Have you published any books of poetry? 660 00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:07,440 I have. 661 00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:08,440 Okay. 662 00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:09,440 Just two. 663 00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:16,440 So one is called Borrowed Images, and then the other one is called Word by Word. 664 00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:17,440 Okay. 665 00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:23,440 And so some of those will probably deal with a little bit of grief, but also elements of faith. 666 00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:28,440 So yeah, I love those two, and I think my next writing project, 667 00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:35,440 I've now made a promise that I have to finish this before I do anything else, is a fiction project. 668 00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:37,440 Oh, that'll be very interesting. 669 00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:42,440 So yeah, it's called The White Door, and I could talk more about it. 670 00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:49,440 But I think that's, it takes a lot of creative, I have such an appreciation now for Christian imaginative artists, 671 00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:56,440 because it takes so much to put together a gripping fiction story. 672 00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,440 So yeah, I'll be doing that, I hope, next. 673 00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:05,440 And then after that, maybe a short book on what we call autonomy, 674 00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:12,440 which is going to be a kind of flat-out biblical assault on the idea that you should be independent. 675 00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:16,440 And it's going to focus much more on the goodness of relationships. 676 00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:22,440 Well, maybe when you finish those, or I'll have to have you back, because obviously we could talk longer. 677 00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,440 And it's a sign of a good conversation when we go over time a little bit. 678 00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:31,440 But Pierce, I want to thank you so much for being with us today, 679 00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:36,440 and so many insightful comments, and your story, your experience, 680 00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:41,440 your insights on how poetry can bless us, and your theology of suffering. 681 00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:48,440 It's all very, I think, fitting and fits well with what we're trying to emphasize in Broken and Mended. 682 00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:54,440 So it's been a very good conversation, and I think a blessing for those that will be listening to this. 683 00:53:54,440 --> 00:54:00,440 And so with that, I want to remind our listeners they can find links to a lot of the things we talked about, 684 00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:03,440 unless we forget it, but we'll put it in the show notes. 685 00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:09,440 And also go to brokenamended.org for more information about what we're doing there, 686 00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:15,440 and support groups and other resources, including this podcast will be there. 687 00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:21,440 But we're glad that you were here with us, and until next time, we hope that you are walking with God. 688 00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:40,440 All right, God bless. Thanks.