Carrie interviews Greg Atkinson, an entrepreneur, speaker and author, about the power of kindness.
Greg shares his personal journey and how forgiveness and kindness have played a pivotal role in his life. The conversation highlights the ripple effect of kindness and its power to make the world a better place.
Episode Highlights.
How Greg Atkinson’s life experiences, including anxiety, inspired his commitment to kindness.
The importance of forgiveness in fostering a kinder world.
The significance of vulnerability and openness in sharing personal stories and breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health.
Practical ways to incorporate kindness into your own life and make a positive impact on those around you.
Greg’s Book: The Secret Power of Kindness
Episode Summary:
Welcome to the Christian Faith and OCD podcast! I’m Carrie Bock, your host, and today’s episode features Greg Atkinson—an insightful speaker, author, and educator on mental health issues.
Greg recently authored The Secret Power of Kindness, a book that opens with a deeply personal account of his journey through trauma, mental health struggles, and ultimately, forgiveness. Greg shares how his experiences with sexual, verbal, and physical abuse shaped his life, leading to diagnoses of anxiety and bipolar disorder.
The central theme of Greg’s book is forgiveness—a process that has taken years of therapy and personal growth. He emphasizes that holding onto anger and bitterness can prevent us from living a kind and compassionate life.
Greg also discusses the impact of mental health in his life, from the physical symptoms of anxiety to the mental battles of catastrophic thinking. He highlights the importance of understanding mental illness, especially within faith communities, where there can be harmful misconceptions about anxiety and depression being purely spiritual issues.
Through his story, Greg aims to educate and encourage others to approach mental health with kindness, both towards themselves and others. His insights challenge the stigma surrounding mental illness and promote a more compassionate understanding within the church and beyond.
Join me in this episode as we explore Greg Atkinson’s journey of healing, forgiveness, and the power of kindness.
In this episode, Carrie is joined by Jon Seidl, author of “Finding Rest” and president of Veritas Creative. They explore the theology of suffering and delve into Jon’s personal journey with anxiety and OCD, emphasizing the need for a proper understanding of suffering.
Episode Highlights:
How suffering can serve a purpose in our lives.
The importance of empathy, understanding, and a proper theology of suffering in supporting individuals with anxiety and OCD.
The significance of finding rest amidst life’s challenges.
Valuable insights into the intersection of faith and mental health.
More about Pastor Jon Seidl’s book, “Finding Rest.”
Episode Summary:
Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 96! I’m so excited about today’s show because I have a special guest, Jon Seidl, author of Finding Rest and president of Veritas Creative, a digital consulting firm. Jon was kind enough to send me a copy of his book, and after reading it, I realized many of the topics he touches on are things we often discuss here on the podcast.
Today, we’re diving deep into the theology of suffering, something that often gets overlooked in our Christian walk. Jon shares his personal journey with anxiety and OCD, what he’s learned from his struggles, and how suffering can actually serve a greater purpose in our lives. It’s so common to want to run away from suffering, but Jon helps us see its importance in our spiritual growth.
Jon opens up about his writing journey, where he eventually penned a powerful article revealing his struggle with anxiety and OCD. The response from readers, especially Christians who also felt silenced by their struggles, was overwhelming. Jon emphasizes that many people in the Christian community feel shame when it comes to mental health, often being told to “pray more” or “repent.” His own experience led him to write his book and begin challenging these negative messages within the faith community.
Carrie: Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD episode 96. I’m very excited about today’s episode. I have an interview with Jon Seidl who’s the author of Finding Rest and also the president of Veritas Creative, which is a digital consulting firm, Jon happened to send me a copy of his book, so I’ve been able to look at a lot of the topics he covers are things that we often talk about on the podcast.
We’re gonna take a little bit deeper dive in today on the Theology of Suffering and from his own personal story with anxiety and OCD, what he’s learned and the benefits to us suffering, because oftentimes we run from suffering, want to get away from it, and we don’t see how important it is as part of our Christian journey.
Carrie: Jon, welcome to the show.
Jon: Thank you so much for having me, and I’m so excited to talk about this topic.
Carrie: You are a writer, really, and have been writing thousands of articles in various formats, and various topics, and one day you just wrote an article and came out about your anxiety and OCD. Was that huge, like sharing that part of your story?
Jon: Yeah, it was one of those where it’s not like I woke up that morning and I said, okay, today’s the day. Right? But at the time, I was editor-in-chief of the non-profit. I’m second, and I was in charge of especially over all of the writing that went out from the organization and I needed an article for our blog.
We had just been dealing with a lot of heavy stuff recently on the blog. I just kind of got that prompting of like, okay, you know, you need an article. And everything that’s been published up to this point recently has been very vulnerable. I was was like, “What is that thing that I can be vulnerable about?” That kind like started welling up and I’m like, no, no, no, no. Anything but that, right? You just kind of step it down.
Carrie: “No, God no. Don’t let me know.”
Jon: Yes. As I went throughout the day, it was like, I need to write about this. It’s time. Then the title of the article ended up being It’s Time to Tell the World My Secret.
I literally just shut my office door and I sat down and it just poured out, and I was like, okay, all right, here we go. And so I published it and wow, the response was just incredible. Overarchingly, I mean, was positive towards the article, but what really took me aback was how many people said, you know what?
I am a Christian and I’ve been suffering in silence, or I’ve brought this to my pastor or my parents, and I’ve just been told to pray about it more, to have more faith to repent. Maybe there’s some sin in your past or maybe you just, you drank too much this past weekend or we’re a little too mean to this person, and so this is just what happens. That was similar to my upbringing and got this kind of righteous anger and just knew that, okay, I need to be talking about this more. That really started the journey and that was the impetus for the book.
Carrie: That’s awesome. That’s very similar to some righteous anger that I had before starting this podcast. You know, I’m tired of these negative messages towards Christians, and I wanna put out something more positive. That’s about reducing the shame and stigma, but also letting people know there’s help and there’s hope, and you don’t have to continue to suffer in the same way that you were suffering before. Not to say that we won’t continue to have struggles sometimes, but with the level of shame, at least that they were dealing with related to their mental health.
Jon: So much that says, again, I don’t know if you guys have covered this, but yes, it’s just about believing more, right?
Carrie: Having enough faith.
Jon: Yes and I grew up in a very charismatic household that was subscribed to a kind of prosperity gospel-type teaching. Your father owns the cattle on a thousand hills. If you just want and claim victory in this area of your life, then it’s yours. And if it doesn’t happen, it’s a problem with you. What we’re gonna talk about today is that is not the proper theology of suffering that I came to learn as a result of my diagnosis.
Carrie: Did it take you a long time to get diagnosed with OCD specifically?
Jon: Yes, only because of the way I was brought up. It was so taboo and so ingrained in me not to get medication, not to go to a doctor for mental health that it’s like I never really considered it growing up. I always knew there was something different about me. I just kind of figured I’m a little high-strung. That’s what I told myself. That’s the term I used. My grandma was high-strung. My mom was a little high-strung, my sister was high-strung, and I’m like, okay, I’m just wound a little tighter. When it finally came to a head, as many people may know, marriage has a way of revealing your blind spots.
Carrie: Absolutely.
Jon: About five years into my marriage, there was an incident and my wife just kind of said, okay, listen, I’m not going anywhere, but I can’t continue like this. You understand this and people listening to you will understand this. It was like the wrong sweetener was in my coffee. We went to a coffee shop.
I told her, “Hey, I’m going to the bathroom. I don’t like Splenda, so make sure that there’s sweet and low in it. I came back, took a sip of the coffee, and there was Splenda in it, and it just ruined our entire weekend.
Carrie: Wow.
Jon: I could not stop ruminating on that. I think that when the person you love is broken down in front of you saying, this is not working, that’s when I finally decided to get help. That was in about 2014, I believe. I went through my whole life up until that point just thinking, eh, okay. It’s a little annoying. I’m a little high-strung like I said, but not thinking that anxiety in OCD.
Carrie: What was that journey like for you? I know you talked in the book about telling your mom like, Hey, I’m taking medication now, and there were some struggles there.
Jon: That was not a fun conversation and it wasn’t what my mom said because I think my family has gone through an evolution since the way that we were when I was younger. She didn’t say like, “Oh my gosh, you’re sinning. How dare you.” It was the dead silence on the other end of the phone. It was the, well, I just don’t know what I did to raise you kids wrong.
She started inter like, “Oh my gosh.” Again because there’s always someone at fault in that type of theology. It’s like, what did I do? Right? Then you get into things about generational curses and this is her. “Did I not pray hard enough for you?” I think I remember getting off the phone, I talked about this in the book, and I just cried like a baby in my wife’s arms.
I just wanted some acknowledgement and it just didn’t end well. I mean, since then, listen, my mom and I, it’s not like we had to reconcile because I think by God’s grace there was a grace that he gave me for her, but yet even in that grace, it can still be heartbreaking. We’re in a great place.
She had to sign a release from the publisher to be featured in the book. It’s nothing that she didn’t know was gonna be in there, but God has, like I said, not quite reconciled. I think that’s too dramatic of a word, but we’re in a great place. But it was still hard.
Carrie: Talk to us because we have other people, like family members and friends who listen to the show as well, that are trying to help someone. What was it that you really wanted to hear, whether it was from your mom or somebody from the church?
Jon: I think for me, from my mom, even just more of the bare bones of, I’m so sorry you’re going through that.
Carrie: Yes.
Jon: Because of the theology and the way that we were raised, like her mind immediately went to, “Okay, I did something wrong, or this isn’t right, or What’s going on?”
There wasn’t a,” just sit with me in this for even just a minute and acknowledge that this is hard.” This has been that point of 20-something-odd years of struggle that I’m just now starting to unpack. I’m looking back at things when I was 8, 9, 10, and I remember that. My mind just starts getting blown in so many ways.
I think for me, I wasn’t even looking for her to be like, doing an about-face on mental health medication. I was really even just looking for a bare minimum of, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I can only imagine how tough this is. And so that is my encouragement to family members. You don’t have to promise the world.
You don’t have to say, okay, I’m gonna drop everything and just fly to you right now if you live across the country or something like that, but just acknowledging that this is tough and everything that they may be going through is a bare minimum and yet can go a long way.
Carrie: Talk to us about what you’ve learned through suffering with anxiety and OCD, whether spiritually or other things.
Jon: I think for me, and this goes back and you had asked that earlier question like. How long did it kind of take me to realize adopting what I call a proper theology of suffering wasn’t an overnight thing? The origins of it were, that I grew up in Wisconsin, went to college in New York City, and I live in Dallas now.
I was back home in Wisconsin for Christmas break, the DJ came on the Christian radio station that my stepdad and I were listening to and said, “We’re big Packer fans up there, right? I’m a Packer’s owner. ” I got their fake Super Bowl rings behind me. And he said, “Reggie White who had this title, minister of defense,” He was a preacher. He was evangelizing in the locker room, like you talk about a godly man and the DJ comes on and says, “Hey, Reggie Whites died of sleep apnea.” And my stepdad looks at me and goes, “Hmm. Well, that’s sad because Reggie must have had an unrepentant sin,” and I was like, “What?” And he’s like, “Yes, the bible promises us 70 years. If that doesn’t happen, obviously there’s an issue there.” I just remember getting so upset in like this righteous anger. That really started my journey, because I know there’s something inside of me that says that’s not right, but I don’t know why. Over the next few years, I started really absorbing the book of Job and so it was the book of Job that really, I would say is the first domino in my understanding of a proper theology of suffering.
I’m sure your listeners know the story of Job. There’s a little detail in there that I think a lot of people missed, and it’s this. It’s that Job is called a righteous and upstanding man. There’s this conversation that opens the book of Job between the devil and God, and I think a lot of people and me too, right?
You kind of assume that “the devil goes to God and asks God if he can inflict all this stuff on Job. God says yes, just as long as you don’t kill him,” but that’s actually not the story. The devil and God are having this conversation and God brings up to the devil. Have you considered my servant Job? Wait, so God is the one that kind of, Hey, bad job. Sometimes God is the one that’s allowing these things to happen. Now, he didn’t cause it. The devil was still the causer if you will. Right? He was still inflicted, but God is the one that kind of allowed us. He could see that in the end. This was a story that needed to be told that needed to happen why?
Well, you get to two reasons for the job’s good and God’s glory, and that starts to form the basis of a proper theology of suffering, knowing and understanding that our afflictions are mental health situations are allowed to happen for our good and his glory. That’s the basis, right? And then we can just take off from there.
Carrie: Yes. One of the things you talked about was losing some family members pretty tragically, and the pain and the hurt that you went through for that. I really appreciated what you said about your mom saying, are you believing for healing for your stepfather? And I just want you to kind of talk through that response because I just feel like, oh, this is so powerful.
Jon: Yes and it was the middle of Covid and I was helping my church. We had gone completely online because of my digital media background and the consulting work that I do. I was in charge of filming capturing and editing and posting our services. There we were doing the Easter service and we’re getting ready to film it and my pastor’s giving the message and I get a call from my sister.
My mom is not in great health. Whenever my sister calls, even if I’m just like, Hey, is everything okay? Yeah, great. Okay. I’ll call you back. I answer, I answered it and she goes, “Hey, have you heard?” And I said, “Heard what?” She said Mike, who is our stepdad, collapsed at home. He came home from work early. He wasn’t feeling well. He started vomiting, and he collapsed. He’s in the hospital, but he’s unconscious and it doesn’t look good. Long story short, my stepdad, who, one of the healthiest people I know, the guy who said we’re guaranteed 70 years died on Easter Sunday within two days, and he had a massive stroke in his brainstem and went brain dead and that was it.
Ironically died before he was 70 years old. Again, one of like, you talk about prayer warrior, you talk about the guy who every time the church doors were open, my stepdad was there. TYhe most generous person too, sometimes my mom chagrin, my mom’s like, “Hey, we need that bread. I could use that bread.” He’s like, “Ah, they need it more.” When I’m sitting there, this was right before he died, my mom pulls me aside or we’re sitting at my brother’s kitchen table, I guess, and she said, they called me Johnny growing up. That’s my name. Everyone back home in Wisconsin calls me Johnny. She looked at me and she said, “Johnny, are you believing for a healing?”
It was one of those kind of out of body experiences that came out of my mouth? I knew it was me talking. I’m not saying I was taken over by the Holy Spirit, right? Or something like that. But it was definitely the holy spirit in a sense, giving me that. And I said, mom, listen, I do believe that Mike is gonna get a healing.
What I don’t know is if it’s gonna be on this side of glory or on the next, and if he doesn’t get it here, I know that the Lord is still faithful to give him a healing because he will wake up next to Jesus tomorrow, being able to talk and dance and all the stuff that he’s wanted his whole life. It was just kind of this seminal moment between my mom and I.
I’m not saying like right then and there, she’s like, oh my gosh, that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard because she lost her husband the next day. But I think we lose sight of that sometimes. We say I’m gonna claim my healing. I’m gonna be healed now here when I want. And the Lord is saying, maybe I wake up every morning, I say, Lord, like please take this from me, and he hasn’t. So then what? That’s where the proper theology of suffering comes in. What I would say is, and I’ll expand on what I was saying earlier, is you look at Job, but then you look at Paul and you look and you see the story where Paul talks about the thorn in his flesh, and I think there’s some important words there where he says, to keep me from being conceited, if you just stop there.
That’s all you need to hear. I mean, it gets better, but to keep me from being conceited, I was given this thorn in my flesh. That is the summary of a proper theology of suffering because he was given a struggle that made him better and glorified God. I mean, I love Paul. You should be on the Mount Rushmore of faith.
Honestly, you know what I think, and if you think about Paul’s past, I think Paul had a proclivity to be a very prideful person, and that’s not me saying that I’m literally just using Paul’s words to keep me from being conceited. Here you have Paul. He says, to keep me from being conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh and goes on to talk about how it does glorify God.
I think what we have lost in the church is the idea that our suffering, while in an unfallen world, God wouldn’t need to use suffering for our good in his glory, but we do live in a fallen world. Now, when you look at Job and you look at Paul, it’s like the Lord is saying, listen, I love you and because I love you, there are times that I’m gonna allow you to go through things.
Sometimes maybe it’s a day, maybe it’s a week, maybe it’s a month, maybe it’s five years. Maybe it’s your entire life because I know that I need to keep you from being conceited because pride is much harder and is gonna lead to much worse things than if I allow you to go through this and you have to trust me.
Carrie: Wow, that’s good. Obviously, like really being able to lean and depend on the Lord every single day. When you have a condition like anxiety and OCD and you don’t know how that’s gonna impact you, sometimes people can get really worked up when they just wake up in the morning, like, what’s it gonna be like today? And to be able to bring that to God and say, regardless of what happens today, I know that you’re with me and I know that you love me and I know that you’re for me, and somehow you’re gonna work this situation in my life for good.
Jon: Here’s the thing, like someone once told me, they’re like, I was kind of talking on this and they pushed back, which I was grateful for, and they said, is that the same message to someone who loses a loved one tragically, or whose husband cheats on them and lives the family. And the way I respond to that is a, I’m not like out here rooting for you to go through bad things. I’m not out here saying that. I hope that you go through some of the worst crud in your life. I’m giving you a framework to make sense of it. Then I tell people, listen, I can’t make sense of my mental health struggle without that. I can’t make sense of it without the idea. And this is, I borrowed this from a pastor out in Phoenix and I name him in the book, can’t remember it off the top of my head, but where I get to a place where I don’t judge God by my circumstances, but I judge my circumstances by who I know God to be.
I know he’s good. I know he will work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Now, I grew up in a tradition that claimed that if you like, needed a good parking spot at Walmart, but I think it goes much deeper and it’s much more comforting than that.
Listen, the only way that any of this makes sense is by adopting that framework, that proper theology of suffering and knowing, okay, God, kind of those baseline problems that you do in like Philosophy 1 0 1 in college. If I know A to be true, and I know B to be true, I know A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C.
Carrie: Yes.
Jon: I know God is not bad. He can’t be bad. I need to start there and then work backwards in my circumstances, right? Okay, well then I know that God is gonna use this for my good and his glory.
Carrie: That’s so good. I was thinking about my mom. She died of pancreatic cancer last year and it was tough because, kind of similar to your stepfather, she had been very healthy and was walking and she wasn’t overweight and she was eating right and doing the things. That was a big struggle for me because I said, God, I prayed and I said, God, I don’t understand. She literally served God her whole life was in church and involved in everything. I said, why did she have to go out like this? Because if you’ve ever watched somebody die from pancreatic cancer, it’s a very painful and very awful way to go, probably any cancer, but that one kind of hits you hard and hits you fast and really what God showed me through prayer in that situation was how much opportunity my mom got to witness to people in the hospital. Because if you’re on your deathbed and you know the Lord, you know what is holding you back at that point.
For her to give little informational tracks to people and different things and just say, Hey, this is what I believe, and I hope that you read it and take some time to consider it and think about it. That was the good that came out of that ending and probably a lot of things that I may never know on how God was glorified because I didn’t see everything behind the scenes and how he was working in other people’s lives who interacted with my mother.
Jon: I talk about my stepdad, but I also talk about my sister and it was a very similar situation. My sister was, did lead a very troubled life. She was an addict. She was in and out a rehab. She was in and out of jail. And she was going to pick up a part for her car. She had a retired mechanic who was helping her out.
They were in a van driving down the interstate and one minute they’re driving down the interstate. The next, someone from the other side of traffic going the opposite direction, crosses the median, hits some head on, and all three of them are killed instantly include my sister, who then left three kids.
Without a mom and looking at that funeral, I grew up in a smaller town in Wisconsin. We had to rent a local junior college auditorium for that funeral because so many people attended. And what that meant is so many people heard the gospel of Jesus and more people than I know that my sister ever told in her life because she was struggling.
In her death, more people were witnesses to Jesus than ever in her life. And again, we live in a fallen world. I’m not saying “Oh, that’s great.”Well, no. I mean, her kids now don’t have a mom and I don’t have a sister. yet the Lord takes what’s meant for evil, and I think that’s a good distinction too.
Well, I think the Lord allows things, right? There is also a prowling lion out there trying to seek, kill, and destroy. We can’t discount the fact that the devil is at work as well. There is spiritual warfare. There are things that he is putting into place, and yes, I guess we know that God could stop anything at an instant.
He doesn’t. Again, that’s one of those things that we know about God. We know that he’s good. We know that he can, but he doesn’t stop every tragic thing. What are those ultimate conclusions that leads us to, and so for me, it’s like seeing how many people were introduced to Jesus at her funeral was just mind-blowing.
With my stepdad and my sister, let me put it this way, those deaths broke certain people in my family. I’m not gonna say who but there’s a lot of hardship that has come from those deaths. And in God’s grace, Well, I’m still navigating there. I’m still in therapy for staff. My sister still comes up and my stepdad still comes up in therapy, but I was able to navigate those deaths in a way that a lot of other people in my family were not.
I don’t say that to bolster myself, but I say it to bolster God because the only way was because I had gone through this suffering. I had gone through these trials of like being undiagnosed in my mental health and then getting diagnosed and then doing that work of Paul and all those things that then when those tragedies struck, I was in a much better position to acknowledge that I serve a God who allows things for my good in his glory. And my wife sometimes jokes. She’s like, why aren’t you more messed up? You know? Like, only by Jesus.
Carrie: Absolutely true.
Jon: I’ve actually now gotten to a place where I thank God for my mental health struggle, and it’s in the sense of like, it’s in looking at what Paul said, That’s really got me there is that like if I didn’t have my mental health struggle, who knows?
Maybe I’m the most maniacal, prideful, arrogant, conceited, mean nasty. I don’t know, fill in the blank with whatever adjective you want. But because Paul can say to keep me from being conceited, I can say, Lord, obviously I’m still struggling with this because I need to still be struggling with this. Maybe there is humility and grace that I can give to other people not just in mental health situations. but to my wife and my kids in certain situations because I’ve struggled and know what it means to be in the depths of despair. And by the way, it still happens, right? I just got out of a depressive episode that happened over the fall that I can say, you know what, God, thank you. I thank you for my mental health struggle because obviously, I’m a pretty rotten person without it even more rotten than I already.
Carrie: Yeah, and just thinking about it, you’ve had a lot of success in your life. You’re the president of a company, you’ve written a bunch of articles, you’ve had your share of accolades on your book, finding rest and other things that you’ve written, and I could see that. I could see how you could kind of lean on that and say like, “Okay, well look at me. I’m successful.”
Jon: If you’re watching the video version, you can see I always have a CS Lewis book behind me. He has done so much great writing on pain and suffering. He has that really popular quote, and it’s popular for a reason that basically like God shouts to us in our pain. It says, megaphone to rouse a dead world.
Guess what? You and I are really hard of hearing how many times, I mean, I’ve fallen into this trap a lot when things are going well, in my spiritual life. It’s way more easy for me to set that on cruise control. When things are going well, I am nailing it since. This is awesome. My kids are behaving. I haven’t had a depressive episode or an anxious thought or an OCD thought cycle and whatever, and that’s when I really easy for me to put my spiritual life on pause, I’m good, but it’s in those times where man, I just can’t get out of bed. Then I’m like Lord, I need you. My prayers become shorter during those times, but man, they become a lot more desperate and I think that’s when we crawl up into his lap and find that comfort. At least I have.
Carrie: One thing I like to ask all of our guests who are sharing a personal story towards the end is, what would you tell your younger self who is going through anxiety or OCD?
Jon: That’s a good question. I’ve thought about this. There’s a lot of things. First of all, like I think back to my first intrusive thought episode, and it’s even more scary for a reason. I’ll get to you in a second, but. I was going to get the mail. We lived in the country in Wisconsin and so we had this long winding gravel driveway past a couple of old barns and it’s an old farmhouse.
I remember we would always basically draw straws for who had to get the mail at the end of the driveway. And because in Wisconsin, like nine months out of the year, it’s like 30 degrees. I remember my sister and I drew straws and I got the short draw. And so I get out there and I go to get the mail and I look through it.
Never thought about this before, but it’s like there’s nothing for me in here. Not even a piece of junk mail. And I just could not get that out of my head. I tell you that because that’s set in motion. Way more of that kind of intrusive thoughts and I think, I thought I was. When I said I knew there was something different about me growing up, I think a lot of times that ended up being I’m just like, shame. Not shame in the sense of, I knew what it was, but just frustration. Maybe that’s the better word. And so I think I would tell myself, it’s okay, you can’t control this. And in the end, my anxiety in OCD I talk about this as in the book, is like there’s a physical component. My brain is broken, but there’s also a spiritual component. I’m willing to recognize that now the church has historically treated it only as a spiritual issue. While the world has historically treated it only as a physical issue. it’s both and, but in the end, it’s a pride issue. It says I can control everything, not just I want to, but I can. So then in my OCD all the stuff that I do, the rituals and all that, it’s a fight for control.
I think I would tell myself, listen, this is not something you can just control. I think I would tell myself, you’re not alone. I remember growing up in the household that I did that they said like, my mom would say live like all the people at school wanna, would want what you have. And I remember thinking this was in my high school, ninth grade, freshman year hallway.
I remember walking and doing classes and like someone had said something in class and looking back, it was pretty innocuous. I just was ruined. And I remember thinking, walking down that hallway, why would anyone want what I have now? Even at the time, I didn’t know I had it. I just like, whatever this is, no one would want that.
What I’ve gotten to the point of is I’d say, you’re not alone. You can’t control this, but then I would also say, you are broken. One of my favorite messages of all time from a pastor here, we went to the church for a long time, Matt Chandler, who said, I was talking to someone the other day and they said Christianity is a crutch for the week.
I told them, absolutely, it’s a crutch for the week. You just don’t realize that your legs are broken. My legs are broken. Your legs are broken. It would be to rest in the fact that, yeah, you are broken. And to the conversation I had with my mom, we’re not gonna be fully healed of anything until the next side of glory. Our bodies are gonna continue breaking down. Right?
Carrie: Right.
Jon: You can probably hear my voice right now. Allergies here in Dallas area and it’s just like we’re gonna suffer from that kind of crap. Tell kingdom come so long answer. You got me on a good day when I’m just nice and long winded. Those are what I would tell my younger self.
Carrie: I think that’s great and I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today. Everyone, find the book Finding Rest and there’s also a workbook companion to go with the regular book, however, you say that, but the first book and the workbook both called Finding Rest. Just so we’ll put the links in there to Jon’s information for you if you are looking for him.
Jon: Well, thank you so much for having me. The book has been such a great conversation starter. I just got back actually from a luncheon that we were talking about offline, the opportunities to talk to people who even aren’t Christians, because I think so many people are struggling with this, right? And if you can bring up that proper theology of suffering that we were talking about, here’s the beauty of that.
It doesn’t just apply to mental health. It does apply to the person who’s lost their job. And again, I’m not saying you like, if someone comes to you tomorrow and says, I lost my job, or my husband or my wife just walked out on me, I’m not saying that you go, okay, I wanna show you in job one, one this really cool thing. No, sit with them for a little bit, but as long as you have that understanding, pray for the right time to bring that up and to engage people in those type of conversations. But Yeah, it can apply to mental health. It can apply to so many other things, and that’s the beauty of the gospel. It’s not just a one-trick pony. It answers everything.
Carrie: Yes. Very good.
I love podcasting because I have gotten the opportunity to interview some wonderful people with amazing stories. So thank you for tuning in and listening today. We will be back with you in a couple of weeks for a compilation of some of our stories of hope episodes. We’re going to do a couple episodes on that as we get prepared and ready for our 100th episode that will be coming out, which is going to give you a hundred tips on managing anxiety,
Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee.
Opinions given by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the use of myself or By the Well Counseling. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum. Until next time, may be comforted by God’s great love for you.
We are privileged to have Pastor Mark Smith from Refuge Church on the show today to discuss the topic of healthier theology surrounding healing and suffering.
Episode Highlights:
Why God doesn’t heal everyone who prays for healing
The struggle between relying on God’s control and the reality of coping with pain and suffering in this world.
Pastor Mark’s personal experiences about how he has learned to depend on God through difficult times.
The need to address mental health and counseling in the church and finding a healthy understanding of emotional health and spiritual health.
How Christianity is unique in its approach to suffering and death.
Scripture verses mentioned in this episode:
Mark 9:14-29 – Jesus Heals a Boy Possessed by an Impure Spirit Luke 9:46-47 John 14:2-3 1 Timothy 6:5 John 1:14 Isaiah 53:5
Summary:
Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD, Episode 95. Today, I’m joined by Pastor Mark Smith from Refuge Church in Nashville, a bilingual congregation where Pastor Mark preaches in both English and Spanish. Steve, my husband, actually attended this church before we got married, and while we now go to a church closer to home, we loved visiting Refuge, especially during COVID when my regular church was closed.
In this episode, we revisit an important topic: healing. It’s something that keeps coming up in my work as a therapist and on the podcast. Many people ask, “If God can heal, why am I still struggling with anxiety or OCD?” We dive into the deeper meaning of prayer and how it’s not just about getting what we want, but connecting with God. Pastor Mark shares insights on the spiritual tension between trusting God’s sovereignty and grappling with pain. Together, we explore how God’s plans often unfold behind the scenes, even when we can’t immediately see the results.
If you’ve ever wondered why healing doesn’t always come in the way or timing we expect, this conversation is for you. Don’t miss the rich discussion on how suffering can deepen our relationship with God and reveal His glory in unexpected ways. Tune in now!
Welcome to Christian and OCD episode 95. Today on the show I have with me Pastor Mark Smith with Refuge Church in Nashville, which is a bilingual congregation and Pastor Mark preaches in English and Spanish, which is pretty cool. This was a church that Steve was going to prior to us getting together and getting married. Since you guys are so far away from us, not too far, but you’re far enough that it’s hard to get there. We made the decision to go closer to home, but enjoyed coming quite a bit during Covid, while the church I was attending was shut down because they were meeting in a school. So it was a joy to be with you guys during that time.
We, on the podcast, had a very early episode on Unanswered Prayers for Healing. One of the reasons I wanted to do that episode was because so many people were coming to me and saying, I’m praying and my anxiety’s not going away. I don’t understand why God isn’t healing me. But that’s a great interview if people wanna go back and listen to it.
We talk about the value of prayer more than just kind of getting what we want. It’s about our connection with God and communicating with him. God’s always working behind the scenes and a lot of times we don’t know what he’s doing or how he’s using these situations in our lives. And I wanna bring up this topic of healing back around.
I don’t know Pastor Mark if pastors do this, but as a podcaster and as a therapist, I’ll see themes of things that keep coming back around, coming back around. And I’m like, maybe we needed to talk about that a little bit more because it seems to be something like God’s bringing up over and over again. Do you find that’s true?
Pastor Mark: Oh, without a doubt. There are moments when, for example, for years I felt like I was butting up my head against the same. Issues over and over again, and I felt like that was part of the Lord telling me that, we needed to address it as a faith family whether it was mental health issues or marriage issues, relationship stuff, or whatever. There are themes that come up and with every new kind of season in life, things change and I feel like it’s really important for us to be sensitive enough to it to follow the Holy Spirit and say we need to deal with this.
Carrie: One of the themes that keep coming back around for me, whether it’s in counseling or people that contact our podcast, is, okay, we understand from reading the Bible that there were people that they just, they came up and they touched Jesus and they were healed, or Jesus even spoke a word and said, okay, go home. This person is healed. They’re no longer sick. From our self-centred view, I’m gonna call it that. We look at it and we say, okay, God, you could heal me. You could take this away. Why am I still suffering with this? And so if God’s all-powerful and he can just heal me at any point.
Why doesn’t that happen then? People fill in answers. May or other people sometimes will fill in answers for them if they’re talking to people. Maybe you’re not praying enough, maybe you’re not praying the right way. Maybe you’re not studying your Bible enough. What are your thoughts on this?
Pastor Mark: I was telling a few people we were doing this podcast and my only fear in doing this is this is a big issue. And it’s not an easy one. I will tell you even among what people would consider maybe the healthiest of concepts of theology or spirituality, there is a healthy tension between trusting in the sovereignty and the grace and the beauty of God and dealing with pain and suffering on this side of eternity.
How do we deal with that? You’re absolutely right. It’s the most natural thing to look in the scriptures and say, man, every time Jesus turns around, he’s healing someone. He’s helping someone. Why doesn’t he do that for me, I think there are a few things, as I was kind of walking through some of this, there were a few things that I thought were helpful.
One, I asked the Lord, and I said, God, there’s so many scriptures of healing in the scriptures. Is there one place that I can go that I think would be helpful to your listeners today? One of the things that I found was the story of the healing of, and if you remember the boy with the unclean spirit in Mark nine.
Now, I will say this also, there’s very little distinction in the scriptures, especially New Testament between physical illness and spiritual sickness. Sometimes Jesus says, get up. You’re mad and walk. Sometimes he says, your sins are forgiven, and the Bible doesn’t give us a clear picture. Sometimes it’s both.
Sometimes they may be dealing with mental illness or demonic depression, or a combination of the two. I think it’s really important to understand that this is not a simplistic issue at all. That story in Mark chapter two. Jesus and the disciples are coming out of this mountain of transfiguration where it’s been an amazing scene and they want to build these huts and tents and like camp out there. God says, no, I’m no time out. You’re just supposed to experience this and see it for what it is. And then they come back to reality. And the reality is that the rest of the disciples, crowds, and religious leaders are all in this big major debate over the disciples not being able to heal this boy. Now there are some confusing things I would love to help explain because there’s a lot of, I think, misunderstanding about that scripture. Once again, the argument is that disciples can’t heal him and Jesus calls He, it’s kind of a blanket statement to everybody, but he calls them a faithless generation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re faithless because they cannot heal the boy.
Faithlessness comes because they want to use Jesus as a means to an end. You know what I’m saying? It’s about, it’s kind of a results faith. Mm-hmm. They must not have faith because they don’t see any results. And I know we’ve seen that with people suffering through anxiety or OCD, that they’re like, I’m praying this, but I’m not getting the results that I’m looking for. So there’s either something wrong with the Lord or something wrong with me. Right.
Carrie: So many Christians that have memorized scriptures on God’s not giving me a spirit of fear, pray, and peace of God will pass all understanding. I mean, they know these verses inside and out, taking every thought captive, and they are praying and they are seeking the Lord and they’re still in this wrestling place of suffering.
I think. We miss the big picture though, like what you were saying about what Jesus was here to do and what he’s here to accomplish, and it’s not about me and my individualistic theology. I find it interesting, and I’ve shared this with clients as well in the past, in the beginning of Mark chapter one, verses 29 through 39.
Jesus is healing many people. Essentially he sneaks away to go be with God and the disciples are like, “Wait a minute. Everybody at the house is looking for you. What are you doing?” He doesn’t go back to the house and heal the people. He just moves on. I thought that just kind of shows Jesus’ mission, not that he was not compassionate towards these people because obviously, he healed many people, but he didn’t show up on earth to be a healer. That’s something that I think we’ve gotten our theology of healing a little bit confused on, especially in certain circles.
Pastor Mark: Without a doubt. It’s interesting that Jesus, often we see, especially in the gospels, that Jesus shows his power and his strength or his position as the Messiah. But there’s a testimony part of that.
In fact, in Mark chapter nine-story, the parents finally come up to them and it’s clear that they’re not even believers. They don’t even, they, they said, Lord, help us in our unbelief. And Jesus waits to heal the boy. Because he wants to make it a clear testimony to them, so it’s, and though he does have compassion for the kid, he wants to help him, but Jesus is seeing a bigger picture that sometimes when I’m in the middle of my problems or my suffering or my issues, it’s hard for me to see the bigger picture that God may have that I can’t see.
Carrie: Yes, and I was thinking too, as you were talking about that, how many different types of healing stories there are in the New Testament, like you said, some of them are clearly more of a physical nature. Get up your mat and walk and other ones. Say like the man that was lowered down into the house that actually says, like his friend’s faith that brought him there were responsible. Another one I was thinking about was the man who was born blind. Mm-hmm. And they asked who sinned that this man was born blind. Really it was for the glory of God to be revealed. In that situation, and oftentimes we don’t realize how God’s glory can be revealed even in the myths of our own suffering experiences.
Pastor Mark: One of the things I think through my own struggles and issues that I’ve had, one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is how my personal suffering, maybe Jesus hasn’t taken away yet, or maybe I’m still walking through that Dark Valley. It causes us to kind of pay attention to our soul care, to our art. And obviously, the go-to for the disciples in that story you were talking about was blame, right? Yeah. Assigning blame. And we see that in mental health issues all the time. Why is this happening? Is it because of my parents? Is it because something’s wrong with me? Do I not have enough faith? We play all these blame games when if we can get to a healthy point, I believe when we can pay attention to our heart. And our soul, and listen, truly listen, and I’m not trying to find the silver lining and everything. That’s not what this is about. But I do think it’s an opportunity to enlarge our soul through paying attention during that suffering or that reprocess.
Carrie: It’s interesting just working with people, finding what I call the gift of anxiety, the gift of OCD or even trauma. And people will tell me, I really have become a more compassionate person because of these experiences that I’ve had, or it’s caused me to seek God even more than I would have before. It caused me to get to a place of salvation because of these things that I’ve been through and the depths of the disparity.
I know that there’s many things that we’re not gonna understand, probably this side of heaven. And I think if our lives were easy and perfect on earth, there might be that lack of longing for heaven. What are your thoughts on that? Like if we became a Christian and God said, okay, I’m gonna make your life easier.
You’re not gonna have the same types of physical pain and suffering that other people have. I wonder if we would have as much longing for heaven
Pastor Mark: or a depth of compassion on this side of it either. But yeah, I agree. We are promised is that God is preparing us a place. I think that that as much of a physical space, I think a, an emotional space where there is true peace and true freedom, but the longing to get there and the journey that we have to get there along the way.
You know, you mentioned someone that may have come out of anxiety or is still dealing with it, but they’re able to relate to somebody else that’s walking through the same thing and there’s a brotherhood and a sisterhood. That takes place with that. I was talking to a group last week. They were actually talking about how she was a breast cancer survivor, and when she was going through that process, she would never have wished that upon herself or, and not even thanking God necessarily for that.
On the other side of that, the sisterhood that she has with other cancer survivors, she wouldn’t give up on anything. We think about the suffering that you and I walk through that other friends and family walk through, and the longing and the desperate desire to be at full peace with the Lord forever in eternity. That’s an amazing thing to look forward to.
Carrie: Yes. I know there are definitely been times when I can look back for things I’ve prayed for and I’m like, oh, I’m so glad God didn’t answer that. Like, yeah, that was not what I needed. Yeah, it was what I wanted maybe and what I thought I needed, but it wasn’t actually. What’s best for me I think about my daughter a lot because she’s one. I mean, if you let her do her own devices though, like she need cat food and all kinds of things and put stuff in her mouth. She wants to mess with the carbon monoxide alarm. There are all these things and she doesn’t understand like, no, like you can’t stick your finger in the socket. Like that’s not appropriate.
My job is to keep you alive. I think sometimes we’re that childlike in our experience. We think we know more. Like she thinks like, oh, I could just grab this. I can do that, it’s fine, but there are so many things that we have no idea what is coming around the bend in our own personal lives or professional lives.
Sometimes God doesn’t give us things because we’re not ready for them or because he is wanting to do something greater down the road, we’re not at the end of the story till we get to heaven. And so that piece is encouraging to me that God’s always continuing to work in our lives regardless of what suffering we’re experiencing.
This is more of a personal question, but how have you seen some of this play out in your own life, just kind of as you’ve wrestled through struggles of why has God allowed me to go through certain things?
Pastor Mark: Well, for example, some know that we served on the mission field in Guatemala for, lived there for nearly five years. We lost two pregnancies while we were there and there was a lot of spiritual baggage for us. I really question, Lord, we’re here because we’re serving you. We’re here because we’ve sacrificed. We sold our cars, and our home. We moved over here and why is this happening to us? We’re trying.
I’ve walked through trying to blame and trying to figure out, but I will tell you the depth of pain does not match the depth of grace and love that I’ve also experienced through some of that difficulty. Uh, and I know, uh, during, right at the height of Covid, uh, about two years ago between what was going on with the isolation and just in church life and homes and we were all quarantining and, and that kind of stuff. Between that and some isolation that I had with some family members, I developed panic attacks about two years ago. And ended up having to go into counseling for about six months or so to get to a healthy point again in my life. I really struggled with the Lord on why I was having to go through that.
Why did I feel like I was having a heart attack every time I went out on my bike and I went up this certain hill? All of a sudden I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was gonna pass out. I went through all the medical studies and everything and realized it was all related to my emotional health and the lack of control that I felt.
When I couldn’t change the situation, there was nothing I could do. Absolutely nothing that I could do. Now, I won’t say I’m fully recovered. I still deal with anxiety and there are still moments where I’ve been in tune to my heart enough to know, okay, I’m binging on this TV program because I’m avoiding something that I need to deal with or I’m falling into, or I’m eating too much because of this, or whatever.
This issue of control, God has really opened up a new window of spiritual understanding and trust in him that the lie was that I was controlled in control to begin with. Yes, true. Those are a few things that I’ve learned just through my own personal experience.
Carrie: I think for me, one of the things, and I talked about this on my first episode, really, is I had this kind of formulaic version of God and it’s like a vending machine.
If I put in what I’m supposed to, then I’m gonna get out. You’re gonna bless me like things are gonna go well. And then tragedy strikes and you realize, okay, well this is completely outta my control and it doesn’t matter that I’m going to church every Sunday, and it doesn’t matter that I’m trying to serve the Lord and do these different things.
Sometimes things happen in our lives and tragedy strikes and painful things happen, but it took me on a journey really of who God is. That was really the question. It’s like, okay, who are you? Are you really good and are you really kind? And how are you gonna show up in this season? He did and definitely changed so much of my view of God.
I think everything that I go through now has led me to a deeper place of trust, what we’ve been going through with Steve’s SCA, and I’ve talked about that on the podcast. I just remember like when we first got that diagnosis, just every day like. I didn’t understand what was going on. We didn’t have a clear picture of what the future was gonna look like, and I just got up every morning.
I said, okay, God, I trust you. I trust you. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I trust you, and God’s just been faithful and he’s been really good to us through this process. He definitely blessed us in many ways that were unexpected. I think we have this, like you were talking about before, this results in mentality about our spirituality.
Sometimes if I put in this effort, it should be successful, or if I do this, then God should do that. And I’ve been reading the book of Isaiah, which is super challenging. I’m just gonna say that it’s super challenging because basically, God told Isaiah to go preach to some people that weren’t gonna listen to him till the city fell down.
That’s a very condensed version, and I’m like, oh, that’s like a very far cry from American Christianity, right? I’m just kind of like cut to the core of, okay, God. So there may be some assignments that I have that don’t actually work out into this perfect, amazing success, and that’s okay. You’re still gonna be with me through that process, and I still need to follow through and do what God’s asked me to do.
Pastor Mark: I love what you said about that through some difficult or challenging times, it caused you to think about who God is and help maybe redefining that or understanding a little bit more about that. I think that’s a healthier approach than to say, what’s wrong with my faith right now? Or that results base of maybe I’m not praying enough and, certainly there are spiritual disciplines that we should all have, that ought to connect us to God in different ways. And sometimes our anxiety and our O C D or whatever can reveal some pax in the armor that maybe we need to work harder at meditation or work harder at Bible memorization or going on a spiritual retreat. I think anything that reveals more soul care for us personally is a healthy approach.
Often I find God expanding my understanding just of who he is and what his character is about. If I can share it real quick, I was just reading this the other day, but John Piper, who’s one of my favorite preachers, had an analogy between approaching God as a running spring or as a watering trough. He said, “You know, if you approach the Lord as this endless flowing stream, that’s always replenishing. That’s always there. That’s an amazing thing”. But he said, “Oftentimes we approach God like a watering trough, that we have to refill it. I have to work towards that. I have to perform, and I’m so grateful to the Lord for that.
He will not be confined by our limited understanding of that. Oftentimes I feel like we always want to put God in this box. And if we think of God just in those terms, then it’s always about me. It’s always about do I have enough faith. Am I performing enough? This kind of stuff, but if God is truly an eternal source of living water for us.
The only thing that we can do to honor that is to bow down and drink from it. We often think about offering God our best, but sometimes we need to offer God our thirst, our weakness. He says, when in your weakness I will be made strong. He says, “The prosperity gospel cannot explain what we just talked about.” That theology cannot deal with me coming to the Lord in my weakness finding strength in him and finding understanding that element of his character.
Carrie: That’s so good. True. This episode is not coming out anywhere near Christmas, but I feel like Christmas is so important to this conversation.
Just a sense of God becoming human. Jesus coming down to the earth and being with us in the midst of our struggles, that when God doesn’t take your suffering away, that he is always there with you in the midst of that. What are your thoughts on that?
Pastor Mark: Once again throwing me the softballs, but one of the beautiful things about Christianity and our faith, it’s that scripture from John chapter one where it says the word was made flesh and literally made his dwelling among us.
That means several things. We can talk about his divinity and his humanity and so many other things we can talk about that he is our high priest that understands and empathizes with everything that we’re going through. But I would say one of the most beautiful gifts of our faith is the gift of God’s presence in our lives where things may not be resolved, I may still be battling physical, emotional, spiritual issues.
I may be walking through a dark valley. But I sense the presence, the incarnation presence of Jesus walking with me, suffering with me through this. And I know there’s a promise of eternity. I know I’m going to get there at some point, but I know I’m not alone. And that is an amazing gift that we celebrated Christmas, that I think you’re right, sometimes gets overlooked.
Carrie: In the sense of Jesus being the suffering servant. Yeah. And if we are seeking to become more like Christ, that there are elements where we’re going to have to share in suffering within.
Pastor Mark: That’s another thing that’s very unique to Christianity. No other religion in the world talks about it. It’s our nature turn away from suffering and death. That’s a natural response. That’s sometimes what causes our emotional life to truly struggle bcause we want to avoid everything. We want to pack it away and we don’t want to deal with it, but Christianity is truly the unique faith. It says that life is found through death and that liberation and freedom are found through the crucifixion. You mentioned Isaiah 53, the idea that he was wounded and afflicted so that we could find life and peace. That’s an amazing promise that we have that is absolutely unique to our faith.
Carrie: I know we’ve gone deep on this conversation and thrown in a few personal nuggets too. I think it’s really good though, because this is how people who are struggling with anxiety and OCD think, and these are some of the questions that are rolling around in their heads.
I think many people who are in Christian circles that are struggling with anxiety and O C D are struggling from non-biblical theology, from theology that’s coming from man or one or two scriptures pulled out of context instead of looking at the totality of scripture and who God is.
Pastor Mark: Well, I would say a few things about that. I think in general the church has had a negative view of mental health and counseling and it’s kind, it’s, it’s still, it’s crazy to think in our day and time that it’s still a taboo subject for some. And then obviously our church, we have multiple different ethnicities represented in each country. Each ethnicity involved has a different idea of mental health issues and those kind of things.
There’s a lot of baggage that we find here that we have to kind of unwrap to help people understand how to breathe. And it’s okay to say, I’m going to counseling right now, or I’m having panic attacks, or I’ve got issues of anxiety that I need help with. And that we can share that burden together and we can pray for one another.
I would encourage those who are out there if, obviously you need to pray about it, but find a church that has a healthy understanding of emotional health as well as spiritual health. Uh, look for that Lord has taken me on, a journey that I’ve made, a personal commitment to the award that I’m gonna at least.
There’s at least one series that we do every year that is specifically devoted to either anxiety or some other mental health issue. We don’t prop that up like it’s mental health month or anything like that. But we just wanna be conscious and aware of that. Some of the statistics that I read say that one in five adults in America is dealing with some kind of mental illness, and that means one in five in our churches dealing with that too.
What I often do is, I’m trying to teach or preach here in our ministry, is to always look at through a filter of, okay, God, I understand what this says spiritually and biblical, but even emotionally, God, where does this hit me and my heart? Where does it hit our people and how can we address that emotionally as well. Now, I think it’s a healthier approach because there is, and you were afraid to say it, but I will say it, there’s a lot of bad theology out there, okay? It’s detrimental to people who are just trying to figure this stuff out.
Carrie: It’s so important to have these types of conversations. Wrapping up on at the end of the podcast, I like our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.
Pastor Mark: I already shared some things about my battle with panic attacks a couple years ago and how God has helped free me from a lot of that. But I will say that I still deal with anxiety. I still react in ways that I know is not healthy. Or I will hear something and immediately I’ll go negative or I’ll come up with five different worst-case scenarios that aren’t even warranted.
My hope comes from being a part of a family of faith, and I’m so grateful, not because I’m the pastor of our church, but. I’m just grateful that I’m a part of a faith community, that I don’t have to perform, that I don’t have to be perfect, that I can have a bad day, and others can too, and we can walk in faith with one another, even with our baggage, even with our issues.
I’m just grateful that I don’t have to walk in this thing alone. And not only is Jesus walking with me, but I’ve got other believers that are walking with me, brothers in Christ, people that may not seem significant to the rest of the world. But man, they’re so important to my heart. They’re so important to our faith, and I’m so grateful for that.
Carrie: I think it helps a lot of people reduce stigma just to hear a pastor say, there are times where I struggle with anxiety or the worst-case scenario, and I’ve had a panic attack before, and I know it feels like you’re gonna die and counseling is okay for you. I’ve just appreciated all those messages that you shared with our audience.
I know pastors are busy and sometimes it’s hard to get them on the podcast, so I appreciate you taking the time to spend with me today. My pleasure and I love you and your family and I wish you guys all the best.
I know I asked Pastor Mark a lot of tough questions, but I really appreciate his being willing to take a stab and answer them in a short format version, obviously.
We only have a short amount of time on the podcast to talk about these things, but it’s so important that we do, and I hope this episode challenges you to step back and ask the question, okay, God, who are you? And that you allow Scripture and the Holy Spirit to speak and answer that. I know I’ve shared this on the podcast before, but we get at least one inquiry a week.
It seems now, for a Christian counselor who works with OCD out of the state of Tennessee. Since I’m not able to work with those individuals due to licensure laws. If you have a counselor in your state who you’ve come to trust in has provided really great quality counseling, who is a Christian and can treat OCD, please contact us through the website contact form at hopeforanxietyandocd.com.
You may be able to help someone else that you might never meet, but it would just be a great blessing to us if we could get this referral list off the ground.
Hope for anxiety and OD is a production of By the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. Opinions given by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the use of myself or By the Well Counseling. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.
On today’s episode, I have an interesting conversation with my favorite guest, my husband Steve Bock about toxic church culture
Episode Highlights:
Warning signs your church is becoming toxic
The danger of putting church leaders on pedestals
The importance of knowing the difference between your calling and your desire
What happens if you lead your church as a micromanager
Episode Summary:
Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD episode 92! I’m your host, Carrie Bock. If you’re new to the show, we’re all about reducing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God and others.
A few episodes ago, in episode 89, KJ Ramsey shared her story of spiritual abuse and how she and her husband left an unhealthy church where they both worked. I’ve been reflecting on that conversation and wondering: how do we know when ministry crosses the line from healthy to toxic? To dig deeper, I’ve brought my husband Steve back on the show.
We discuss five key warning signs that ministry might be becoming toxic. For instance, it’s crucial to recognize when someone might justify inappropriate behavior under the guise of ministry, or when the need for admiration and respect in leadership roles becomes problematic. We also touch on how focusing too much on numbers and external validation can lead to ego issues and unhealthy practices.
Join us as we delve into these topics and offer guidance on maintaining a healthy and balanced approach to ministry. Whether you’re involved in ministry or observing from the outside, these insights aim to help you navigate and address potential challenges effectively.
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Transcript
Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD episode 92. I’m your host, Carrie Bock, and if you’re new to the show, we are all about reducing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God and others. Back a few episodes ago, on episode 89, we had KJ Ramsey come on, talk about her story of spiritual abuse and how she and her husband left a church situation that was really unhealthy, where they were both working there.
I was thinking about that episode and processing, what are some warning signs, maybe, how do we know when ministry crosses this line from healthy to toxic? And I brought on the show back. On the show again, my amazing husband, Steve. Steve, welcome to the show.
Steve: Hey, it’s good to be here.
Carrie: Everybody, forgive Steve. He’s a little bit under the weather today, but he’s making sacrifices for me and is super supportive. In this podcast journey. You and I have been involved in various ministries. We also grew up in a context of our families being very involved in various ministries. I actually wrote all these, but I thought it would be good to get your feedback on it.
What you’ve seen experienced and what your thoughts are on this. I have five different things that I came up with on when ministry becomes toxic. For example, sometimes people will say, well, I just really believe that God is asking me to leave my wife and go have a relationship with this other woman, and obviously that is in complete contrast to the Bible. Anything biblical Or maybe it’s kind of not to that drastic level there, but someone you’re attracted to or you find yourself sharing things maybe you shouldn’t about your personal life or your marriage, and it’s getting to be some kind of slippery slope, but you’re saying, “Oh, well, you’re justifying it. This is a person I’m ministering too, and I need to be the one to minister to them because I have the relationship.” Have you seen this? You don’t have to go into specific examples of how people have justified sin in the name ministry.
Steve: I have, I won’t say names because I don’t want to offend anyone, but I have seen that and it’s difficult because I don’t think that God’s going to tell somebody, Hey, leave your wife and get with this other woman that would go against what the Bible says. He wouldn’t go against himself. That just wouldn’t happened. I don’t know. That’s a really tough area. I have seen that and I’ve seen people leave the church because of it. So the downside of it is terrible.
Carrie: We’ve both survived our share of moral failures, ministry, and fallouts. People that had to resign or got fired, and it’s just a tough situation for sure. Whenever that happens, these are kinda warning signs, not for people who are involved in ministry, but also if you see this happening in the ministry that you’re with. That’s why we’re wanting to talk about it today.
Steve: I think sometimes people, there’s your calling and your wants and desires and it’s great if the two all, if all that goes together, if God calls you to do something that’s also what you want, that’s wonderful. But sometimes I think there are people out there who they really want to be a pastor.
They like the idea of it, they like the prestige of it. They like something about it and they do it all in the name of, “Yeah, I’m called to do this.” But sometimes you wonder without being judgemental, are they called or is this something that again, they’re just, they like the concept of it. I don’t know if that fits what you’re saying.
Carrie: Yes and I’m curious about your perspective on how this is somewhat a weakness for men. I think more so than women like this need for admiration. Not that women don’t need that at times in validation, but for people to look up to them, I would say that’s more of a male need than a female need.
Steve: Sure. Absolutely, and I’ve known pastors who they really demanded that respect and you should respect your pastor. But I don’t know, sometimes the context of it made it difficult.
Carrie: I think there’s this balance between we don’t wanna put someone on a complete pedestal because at the end of the day, they’re still a human being and they still have human struggles like we all do. But I think that is a very dangerous thing that can happen in ministry situations is where we elevate people almost too much and it’s interesting because I had a pastor share one time with the congregation that he was on LinkedIn and God really convicted him about being on LinkedIn because he realized that he’s like, this is for people who are looking for a job.
I’m not even looking for a job. But he was almost kind of getting this little high over people, like recommending him and the connections he was able to make on there. And that was just an interesting realization that he had and was able to kind of get himself in check and go, okay, I don’t even need to be on this website right now cuz it’s contributing to something that’s unhealthy.
I think for ministry you really have to dig deep and examine your motives. You’re giving a sermon or a talk, and you don’t get positive feedback. Do you feel still satisfied? Like, okay, well I did what God wanted me to do, or do you feel disappointed because you didn’t get like that? That pat on the back or that kudos of like, “Hey, you did a good job.”
Steve: Sure. I’ve seen where, and I’ve even had a pastor long time ago, he had an altar call, said I felt like God said, have this altar call and no one came forward. And he said once again, three or four times the music’s playing. And after like 15 minutes I’m thinking, I don’t think anybody’s going to come up, but that’s not my call. That’s not my place. I guess you wait as long as it takes for maybe that one, I don’t know, but afterward, he was so beaten up by it and he says, I don’t even know why I bothered. What was the point of that? And I remember thinking, you don’t know what God is going to do in somebody’s life, so they didn’t go forward. That doesn’t mean you didn’t reach them. I think it was really easy for them to kind of get their ego hurt a little bit. I’m not a pastor, but I would think for a pastor it would be really easy for your ego to get in the way and think, look at how many people I’ve saved. I do an alter call and all these people come down and look what I’ve done and just it gets to you.
I was at a leadership conference a couple years back and the guy who’s a pastor, I think that was leading the conference had said, if you’re a pastor, especially if you’re a pastor or in leadership, you have so many people coming to you with their burdens and you have so many things that you’re trying to lead and delegate and just you’re trying to be that sheperd.
If you don’t have a therapist, and I think you probably agree, if you don’t have a therapist in your life with that amount of pressure on you and all of that you’re dealing with, it’s very easy to let that ego get no way, to let the problems bring you down, sort those things out, because otherwise you begin to take over and you push the spirit out of the way.
Carrie: That’s definitely huge. It’s so hard because it’s kind of a slippery slope that I try to work with people on this, okay, well you don’t wanna be in this extreme of, “Whoa, I’m a sinner, I’m a horrible person, and how could God even use me?” You’re completely on one side of the thing. I do believe that we can have confidence in Christ and in what we are called to do.
I think it’s who do you give the credit to. Where does the credit go? Even how you say it, I get kind of nervous, I think like you do when church is focused too much on numbers, because it’s not really about that. If one person got saved, there’s a party in heaven, that’s awesome. But churches, a lot of times, you know, we had 1000 kids at VBS and 50 of them made a decision for Christ. And I’ve already cheered and we’re all excited, but I just almost wish that they would say, we really saw some kids that were impacted by the gospel and we did have some kids make decisions and we’re following up with them and making sure that this is something that’s gonna stick. And they weren’t just doing it because their friend wanted to or anything like. I think that some of the numbers, games and things can kind of feed into the ego. I see this podcast as my ministry, and even in the beginning I was remember being kind of frustrated or just not frustrated as much as just feeling kind of lost because I wasn’t really getting any feedback.
I was asking for people to contact me, and I was like, “Okay, what’s going on? Am I doing this right?” But obviously, like over time I’ve gotten that feedback and I do know that. It’s making a difference and people are appreciating it especially the things that we talk about with kind of a strong clinical focus and having a strong Christian focus that it’s making a difference. I have to be able to step back and say, This podcast is reaching so many people because God has allowed me to have it, and because God is the one that’s bringing them to be able to hear it, and he’s done just amazing things and done the work and put a lot of pieces together in order for this to happen and that I’m trying to stay in a place of humility because as I’m studying and doing this deep dive into Isaiah, there’s a lot of information in there about pride. The dangers of pride and how it can essentially lead you to down a negative path and destruction. It’s not good. So that’s something that I think especially ministry leaders can fall into.
Steve: I appreciate that you don’t let that get your head, that you don’t go around. “Hey everyone, I’m a podcaster” with your pinky in the air and your nose up and putting others down who are not podcasters or not as good as you or not as whatever, but you take a very humble approach and I appreciate something you said that you went to others to ask them questions. And I know that you do that. I know that you ask, Hey, how can I do better? What would you think of the podcast? Or would you listen to it or whatever? I appreciate that. I think that’s healthy because you’re not trying to do it all on your own. Sometimes we get thoughts in our heads that we’re better than we are.
I hate to put it like that, but I think we get that idea and we take the credit of what God’s done, but we take it. It shouldn’t be that way. So I appreciate the concept of, looking at what God has done.
Carrie: Your quiet times with the Lord are all about preparation for a Bible study, teaching time, you’re not really taking that time to examine your heart. Seek confession for your sin, and apply the word for yourself. I can tell you, Steve, this is one I’ve been guilty of in the past for sure.
Steve: Sure. I mean, I think everyone has, if we’re honest, and I think the best leaders are the ones who are honest. The ones who say, “Guys, I’ve messed up, or I’m not where I need to be with the Lord. I’ve got the series figured out. I’ve got the sermon figured out,” but you could talk all day long behind a podium or behind a mic or what have you, but people are at some point, they’re going to recognize your walk and who you are.
They’re going to begin to see the difference between what you did and are doing versus what God is doing through you. I think it has to be God doing it through you.
Carrie: That connection to the Holy Spirit and what he wants you to share is important, but you have to preach it to yourself before you can teach it to anybody else.
I was thinking about a pastor, I’m trying to figure out how to explain this, but essentially due to being in college, I was in one part of Florida at one point and another part of the year because it was summer or Christmas break or whenever. I was in another part of Florida and I heard this man who was part of this denomination preach the exact same sermon twice and I thought, this must be something he can have passed in a file cabinet somewhere. He just kind of pulls it out and this is like my top 10 sermons and I think I’m going utilize this one. And it caused me to be like, there’s just something that feels inauthentic about that in terms of making sure that you’re bringing what God wants you to bring.
I could be judging this completely, inaccurately and he could be praying and connected to God and feels like that’s what God wants him to share. But I just thought, I just don’t know about that. I mean, to the point that it was the same sermon, there weren’t answers on it, and I was like, “Wow, this is very interesting.”
Carrie: This is one that we’ve definitely talked about this in the past.
Steve: Yes. I’ve got a lot of pastor friends and I think that’s probably one of their biggest struggles. They know the direction of the church somewhat. There’s a direction in their mind. To relinquish a duty to someone else, to let someone else do that, I think is very difficult. It’s hard. I, know pastors who may want to be in charge of the music, what’s going on in small groups and to the point where everything that’s said is controlled.
I think that to me, I’m struggling because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I don’t want to call anybody out on your podcast here. I don’t think that would be right, but I just think that they have the best of intentions. I think sometimes you might want to pray about that and see if God put this person in this role, and I think God’s in control.
God can show them what he wants in you and what he wants in that small group for that whatever God has to control the foil. I think that’s the best way to say it.
Carrie: Yes,
Steve: You can’t paddle all the little boats going the same way, if that makes sense. You can’t control everything. You can’t micromanage it all. God doesn’t need micromanagers, he needs leaders.
Carrie: The reality is we’re supposed to be living in community and thriving off of other people’s strength. When a ministry leader or a pastor identifies like, “Hey, this piece is not my strength.”
Steve: Sure.
Carrie: I need to hand that off to somebody else who is going to do a way better job because that’s more in their spiritual gifting and that’s just so important.
Steve: Sometimes I think that the person that should be doing it isn’t even the most qualified, but the most called.
Carrie: Yes.
Steve: If you’re trying to control things, you get in the way of that. So a good example, if you open your Bible and you look at the story of David and Goliath. David certainly wasn’t the most qualified to sling that rock. There’s no way.
Carrie: Yes.
Steve: He was the smallest guy. We know that story most of us. So if the bigger guy, the more qualified person, the more whatever would’ve slung that rock. It wouldn’t have worked out the same, but David did it and it won the day.
I think you have to look at your church whatever it is the same way. Whatever you’re leading, I think you have to see it the same way. Don’t look at it solely as you got be in charging and no one else can do it, or I got to have this person because they’re way more qualified even though they don’t have the time or the want to do it. And then you got this other person who doesn’t seem as qualified, but they got a heart of God for it. Pray about it and let them do it. Let it go.
Carrie: I think we were just talking about pride, and for me personally, I feel like when I’m in that space of thinking, I can do it all myself or I should do it all myself.
I don’t need anybody else to do this. To me that’s pride, and I’ve certainly been guilty of my sense of trying to control things and we have to be able to know when to let things go. Especially, this is so crucial for preventing burnout in ministry. It’s easy to get into that place. And there was something that happened at a previous church where I was asked to take charge of something and that was going to take a lot of time. I said, “let me think about this. Let me pray about this. I’m not saying yes or no right now.” And I went down. I went back and I wrote down, okay, here’s everything I’m doing for the church and this ministry. And I said, “Okay, well if I’m gonna take on this other role, then some of this stuff needs to come off my place,” which was great because it allowed other people to get involved who had been sitting on the sidelines a little bit, and they wanted a task. They wanted more involvement. Mm-hmm. , they wanted more connections, so it was just a really great opportunity. Whereas we grew the ministry in the sense that we added people that were serving.
I didn’t get burnout and I was able to get some things delegated. Also, some things probably that I wasn’t as passionate about as this project, where I was pretty passionate about that project. I think that’s just a good example of when this can work out well for us. We talk about in churches all the time, what is it? 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
Steve: I’m just thinking about that. That’s funny. You got your 80-20 rule. I think that sometimes the 20% do it every single time because I don’t know if it’s because they’re the extroverts that stand up to do it, or if the 80%, a lot of them just aren’t asked to do it. They’re just waiting for someone to ask them, which doesn’t make them right, but maybe they need a little nudge. “Hey, I’ve got something. I want to entrust it to you.” It would be a good way to start that. I think on pastors, it’s a hard thing. I do have to give them some credit. In the past, I was a manager before and I’ve led other things, and it is easy to ask the same person all the time to do the same stuff because you know that they can do it. But in ministry, that’s not necessarily how that should work. God calls us, we have to do it.
Carrie: Ultimately not sustainable for that person. I have had experiences in the past where I recruited some people for different tasks and at first they were funny like, “I don’t know if I can do that.” And I was like, “Well, these are the skills that I’ve seen that you bring to the table. You have some of these things that you’re doing in the context of your work, or you’ve been around the church a while, and so you have this level of being a Christian for a while. You have this level of experience and knowledge, and so forth.”
Sometimes people do need that little extra push of encouragement to get more involved and end up really enjoying the service in the ministry over time, once they can get in there and get their feet wet a little bit. People have two different perspectives. There’s some people that go, I have to do this because if I don’t do it, nobody else will do it. And then on the completely opposite side, you have people who say, they don’t need me, they’ve got this kind of under control, and I’m not really needed over here.
Steve: Yes and there’s that side too of similar to what you’re saying, where people will say, I’m too young to do it or I’m too old. I really hate to break this news to you, but there is no retirement plan in church ministry. It’s just, well, maybe there is, but when God calls you to do something, I don’t care if you’re five years old or 99 years old, you do it.
Carrie: I think my grandmother has been a good example of that through the years and when my grandfather died, she got involved in helping other widows as they were grieving the loss of their husbands thought that was kind of a beautiful thing about how she used that experience to help other people who are in a really sad place.
Carrie: Sabbath rest is definitely biblical. We see more pastors taking sabbaticals and we just need this rest to become mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy. Have you seen some ministries?
Steve: Oh my goodness.
Carrie: That didn’t value rest?
Steve: Yes. Not to interrupt you, but Yes. I had one youth pastor one time that I knew that said, if I don’t do this, no one else will. And if I stop now, it’s all going to fade and go away. I’ve put too much work into this to stop. I just finally said, listen, if you don’t stop and get the rest that you need, even Jesus rested, right? If you don’t stop and do that, how are you hearing God? You’re putting all your time into doing the work.
Carrie: Yes. That’s huge.
Steve: How are you getting the energy up to continue? You become your own worst enemy. You’re just going through the motions, but you’re not listening to God and you’re not resting to get the energy up. It’s not a healthy thing to me.
Carrie: I have definitely seen situations and was in a smaller church context and had really challenged the pastor. “When do you get a Sunday off? Who’s able to preach for you?” I think a little bit of pushback of need to be here, need to be involved. And then later there was some other leadership that pretty much kind of forced some time off, I think, which is healthy.
It’s just we need that time away not just to recoup, but also to know. I think that the walls aren’t going to fall down when we’re not there. I feel like that’s really crucial for leaders to know if you raise up other leaders under you in your ministry as you should. You should be able to miss a Sunday and it not crash and burn or fall apart. You don’t need to be the glue that’s holding this whole ship together.
Steve: It’s a leadership position. It’s not a dictator-type position where only you can do it and you tell everybody what they’re doing. God put you in charge of a flock. So help the flock, help them grow and listen. When there’s an area that’s struggling, your job as a leader isn’t necessarily to fill the void. It’s to help someone else grow into that void and fill it in a lot of cases there too. Like I said earlier, I don’t think being a pastor or a leader in church, it’s not easy. I think it’s very easy to fall into that, what we’re talking about today, those problems where you’re trying to do everything and you’re taking the credit for it like we talked about earlier.
I think you have that some point, step back and ask yourself, what is God doing what am I doing and how much can I step out of that and let God step in? I think it’s at that point you’ll find things are going to go a lot better with your church or your program or your whatever because you’re letting God do it, not you. We always fail.
Carrie: We’re so results-driven in our society. We want to put the effort in and see the results. What I’ve learned over years of ministry, not just in church, but in counseling situations, there are times where you’re going to follow the Lord and you’re going to put in the effort and you may not always get the results out that you’re wanting or that you’re hoping for. The obedience is the important piece,
Steve: Right.
Carrie: That I would go back to, did you do what God asked you to do?
Steve: Yes.
Carrie: At the end of the day, can you rest and say, regardless of how the results came out, did I do what God asked me to do today? And if the answer is yes, then it’s okay. You can move forward, I talked about this on the podcast before with my friend Sarah Slade.
They brought on and we had an EMDR chat, but we were talking about when we were working in community mental health and we were going into homes and working with children that just had very severe emotional behavior problems. We’re getting kicked out of school, all kinds of things happening and going to juvenile detention. I know there were days that I went home and just felt like, oh my goodness, I did nothing worthwhile today, . I drove around in my car and I talked to some people, but I didn’t really make a difference or I wasn’t able to help these people, but I had to come to a place where it couldn’t all be about me, obviously, because I was only one piece of the puzzle in this child’s life, and so I couldn’t put all that pressure on myself to make those things happen and to make those results happened. But also I had to step back and leave room for God and others to be involved in the situation, to get parents on board, teachers, and whoever else was available to support these kids and adolescents. I think what we’re talking about, there’s going to come like a tough time in your ministry if you’re in it for a long time. There’s going to be a season where it’s not easy or it’s not enjoyable.
Steve: Absolutely. I think if you’re focused on the amount of people in the seats over what the people in the seats are doing, as in how is God using them, you’ve missed the boat. You may need to go back and they have a heart check.
When you stand before God, I don’t think he’s going to say, all right, pastor or leader, how many butts were in the seats? I really don’t think that’s going to focus. I know that for me, looking at my own life, one big decision that I made for ministry was to go into mission work. And what got me there was a little church.
It wasn’t the church that was huge, it was the church that small. Now that’s not putting down the big churches. I’m not saying that, but that little church was more interested in where my heart was at, and that was the growth they were concerned with was my own personal growth, not what’s coming out my wallet and not what’s.
How many people can I bring to church? Cuz we need a bigger church and let’s see if we can have this many baptisms and this many salvations. Those are all good things, but the focus shouldn’t be solely driven by numbers like we were talking about earlier. I think it’s important to check a person’s heart. Where’s that person’s heart at? What are they leading by?
Carrie: Steve, is there anything else you would add to this list? Is there anything else that we didn’t cover that you think you might add of what’s kind of a warning sign or red flag of ministry potentially becoming toxic?
Steve: I think when a pastor or a leader, they can’t relax. They can’t be one of the group. I used to have a pastor that every single week he invited people over to his house. That’s a big deal. And it was a big church too, but he always invited people over and said, you know what? If we don’t have enough food, we’ll all chip in and get McDonald’s, whatever we got to get, but I want to have fellowship in our church. If you’re not coming to my house, take some months somewhere. Spend some time with your own family too. It wasn’t about going out to eat every single Sunday. It was more about time together. That was huge to him. I think that’s missed a lot of time. We work so much on the administrative side or the perfect sermon or the whatever, that we actually forget that there are humans out there that just want to grow as a community with us.
I would say relax, let your guard down. Let them see your flaws. That’s the best way to have growth, is to be transparent and to let them see what you can’t do and haven’t done, and then what can be done down the road as you grow as a person. I think that those following you, those in church would probably grow even more because then they would say, well, the pastor’s transparent. I guess maybe I ought to be as well. Transparency and relax. Those are my things I think, and I would add to that,
Carrie: It’s hard I think for pastors and other ministry leaders to be transparent if they feel like there are these really high expectations of them.
Steve: Sure.
Carrie: I think there has to be a give-and-take supportive congregation environment for them to be in where they feel like it’s safe and it’s okay to say, Hey, let me raise my hand and say, I struggle with this too. Or I’m eradicating sin out of my own life through the help of the Lord, and this is how I’m doing it. These are my weak spots and these are things that God is working with me on. The pastor job or ministry leader job is kind of hard because you need to be able to have those good communication skills while at the same time having the relationship skills.
Sometimes there’s an imbalance between the ability to study, communicate, the intellectual side of things, and the ability to have like a warm touch and greet people be empathetic and compassionate. Sometimes it’s hard to find a balance between those two things because both are essentially important.
Steve: Sure. Absolutely. If they are honest and open about things and they have, people that are around them that will hold them up to that level and let them know, “Hey, we’re praying for you ” or, “Hey, you are a little harsh here.” I don’t just mean the pastor’s wife or the leader, spouse, whatever, but I mean having a group of people that will really, truly hold you accountable in those situations that you see, things you wouldn’t have seen on your own.
Your pride gets in the way or whatever, but to be called out a little bit in a nice loving way, not a, Hey man, you stink. Just quit. Why don’t, no, not like that, but in a loving way, say, I think maybe you handled this a little harshly. I think that helps to have those people there.
Carrie: Being open to feedback is a very healthy trait to have for sure in ministry and in life.
I have a good friend that I meet with once a week, who always appreciates when I give her feedback, whether it’s on herself, how she’s interacting with her business or on her business. This is what I think of when you say, “Is that what you mean?” Or “I’ve noticed you have this pattern.” “What’s going on with that?” And she’s like, “Thank you because I don’t have other people who are willing to really be honest with me, and I appreciate your feedback. It’s helpful.”
Well, thank you for joining me on this episode. Even when you on a day you don’t feel the greatest , and I was wanting to think of if we had any stories of hope to share. I don’t know if you have any ideas, me or you or us.
Steve: I think one that comes to mind, I felt my situation. Now I don’t drive, I don’t get out nearly as much, but I felt called to do some sort of a small group. Something and we’re involved in a small group already, but something that would allow me to feel useful and be a good tool. It’s not all about me. We decided via Zoom or what have you, to do a small group where individuals like myself could sit from home assuming they feel up to it. You don’t have to drive anywhere. You don’t have to go anywhere and connect online. We could talk to one another and we could do a study, and if you can’t show up, you don’t feel well, you can just text back and forth or email us or whatever. “Hey, this is where I’m at.”
It’s a guy’s group and it’s been good timing for us and it’s, it’s small and I’m okay with that. If it’s just myself and one other guy, that’s fine. There’s actually a few of us that are in it. Thus far, only me and one other person, one other guy, have really shown up, and that’s okay because we talk through text, and we hold each other accountable.
We have a topic. It’s everything you would want in a small group, really just not your traditional small group. It’s an odd fit in a way. It’s an odd situation. We don’t do the traditional thing. We’re not going to one another’s houses or things like that, but we don’t get to go out much or often. So it fits the need, and I feel it’s been a question like, how do I serve? How do I do that? I thought, this does feel hopeless because I can’t be dependent upon as easily as I used to be. I can’t just show up somewhere and say, all right, I got everything together, or have the energy for this long study. It’s kind of have to take it day by day, moment by moment. These guys are in the same situation, so it works out perfectly. A small example, but it’s kind of a big deal for me.
Carrie: No, I think that’s great that you’re able to keep some healthy social connectedness and male accountability and things like that even within your current situation. Thank you everyone for tuning in and listening today to just kind of talk through some of these warning signs, and maybe you’d have one or two that you might even add to this list.
This was just something that I came up with quickly and I was glad to be able to talk with Steve about it since he’s had a good share of time in ministry situations as well. You can reach us anytime at hopeforanxietyandocd.com.
Christian Faith and OCD is a production of Buy the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. Opinions given by our guest are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself or By the Well Counseling. Until next time, you maybe comforted by God’s great love for you.
Today’s special is a pastor and anger management expert, Ed Snyder. Pastor Ed not only talks about his knowledge and insights about anger but also shares his personal experience with anger that nearly destroyed his marriage.
How Pastor Ed recognized his anger problem and its root cause.
The turning point in his marriage that prompted him to find ways to deal with his anger.
Using your anger as a force for good and other anger management tips
Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 42. I am your host Carrie Bock. And today on our show, we’re talking with Ed Snyder, who is a pastor, author and anger management expert. I know he has his own experience with anger that he’s going to be sharing with you. And talking about incorporating spiritual principles.
Some people may wonder why are we talking about anger on a show that has to do with anxiety? Well, anger can be a complex emotion and often time runs alongside other emotions. So hang on. And if you deal with anger or know someone who does this content may be really helpful for you.
Carrie: Ed, thanks for coming on the show and talking with us today.
Ed: Well, thank you, Carrie. It’s an honor to be here with you on your podcast.
Carrie: When or how did you realize that anger had become a problem in your life?
Ed: Wow, that’s been a minute ago. Well, let me start here. I was always the overweight kid. That was the bully magnet in school. So I was always getting made fun of. Speed up all that good stuff. I was quiet. You’d never tell that by knowing me now, but I was the quiet, shy type. Again. I knew I was overweight and all that good stuff. So I went through a lot of trauma there that was early on in my elementary school year. I think it was about in junior high. The is when I realized of course back then I took it as, Hey, I got some aggression here because my junior high football coach approached me and said, man, I want you on my team because of my size, you know?
And of course, I had a growth spurt at 12, so I stood six foot at 12 and husky. That’s what my mom always says. You’re just husky. So I think like a good old mom. And so it was then that I joined the football team and realize the aggression that I had pinned up inside of me. In fact, to the point that my coach handed me this weird looking pad, and he said, strap that onto the back of your hand beause I was center or nose guard. So I lined up with the center. Knocked that center out of the way and go sack the quarterbacks. And so I did because, and I was successful at it because I was angry and I didn’t identify the anger at that point so much as I identified the aggression that I had, it wasn’t after four concussions and I played in my seventh grade, my eighth-grade year and in my freshman year, I had made it to the varsity team that I realized this is a little more than just skill and aggression. This is anger because I get up, if I got tackled or knocked out of the way I got up and I was ready to beat somebody down, that’s when identified. And then, of course, after my fourth concussion, I created a brain bleed and ended up in the hospital for three months and was facing some surgery.
That’s a whole another testimony of what God did in my life, but that’s about the timeframe that I noticed the aggression and then realized what it really was, is the years of being bullied and, and the anger buildup.
Carrie: And being that you were playing football, was that aggression celebrated or did your coaches feel like, okay, this is a little bit too far, this is a little too much.
Ed: Well, back then it was celebrated. It was like go after a man. That’s the way to sack them quarterbacks, you know, and all that stuff. Although I earned him a reputation among the other teams, especially locally that you’re going to have to go after Snyder because we can’t allow him to get in there.
And so they, they came a little extra hard against me because of the aggression, but it was celebrated, which didn’t help me. Sure. It kind of endorsed my vibe. Very negative behavior.
Carrie: Okay. What was that process like later on in life when you did seek out help for the anger spiritually, mentally, emotionally.
Ed: Okay. Great question. And of course going along with my story, I was in high school then I got in my freshman year and of course, like I said, I was in the hospital three months. That was a major interruption in my life. And that kind of made me realize, okay, you need to settle down. And I knew I had an issue because.
In my uncontrolled anger, there was two things you did not do to me. And that was hang up the phone on me or slam a door in my face. And my own mother was mad at me and, and we were having a heated conversation, but that way it was teenage rebellion that she was trying to deal with. Anyway, she slammed the door in my face and, it angered me.
And I put my fist through the wall beside the door. That’s when I’m like, this is not going well for me. So I just kinda dealt with it the only way I know how, which wasn’t much, but my turning point, Carrie was in, when I got married, I got married. I met my wife when I was. 15 and knew that’s her, that’s the girl I’m going to marry.
And my best friend Burt said, Hey dude, remember you’re only 15.
Carrie: You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You don’t have to settle down yet.
Ed: Another neat story, but you know, we’ll stick to the subject. It wasn’t until Gail and I got married and of course I hid it because I didn’t want her to know about this.
You know, I might lose her. She’s the love of my life in our first marriage discussion. And God’s got a real good sense of humor. He put together a hard-headed German descent and Irish descent. I mean it, a red headed Irish woman, just fun. Anyway. So we made a vow when we got married that we’ll never go to bed angry at each other that we’ll get it resolved.
And of course she really didn’t know. She knew I was. Irritated quote unquote, but she didn’t realize I had this issue. And so we agreed to that. We agreed and we valid each other. We’re never going to go to bed or go to sleep angry at each other. And then also she told me, he says, look, when I get upset, Just leave me alone.
Let me go for a while. Let me cool off, which is classic textbook anger management technique is to breathe, go intellectualize the situation, come back, deal with it. You know, I’m, the type. No we’re going to deal with it now. And so for the first 10 years of my marriage, I spent chasing her around the house and stop.
We got to fix this and I’m only fueling her fire, but anyhow, in our first marital discussion, you know, she walked off or tried. And, again, slammed the door in my face and she not only slammed the door, she locked it. And I went into outer space. And of course, in my anger, I put my fist through that door and unlocked it now for your audience.
Clarification. I have never, ever laid a hand on any woman, especially that of my wife. And of course my mother I’ve been raised better than that. So I never laid a hand on her, but I put my fist through the door and we finished the quote unquote conversation. Well, it wasn’t until the next morning that we got up, we were having breakfast and she said, I don’t know if I can do this.
And I’m like, do what, what are you talking about? Because, you know, angry people, once they have their fit, they’re rant, it’s over it’s water under the bridge, move on. And it wasn’t. So her, it shook her to her core that to see my fist come through that door and unlock it.
And then, you know, all the unnecessary shouting and screaming and all of that. So that was a wake up call when she said that I did not want to lose this lady. She’s the love of my life. She’s the one. And I wanted to stay married. And by the way, we’re celebrating this October 41 years. Yeah, I always tease and say, she’s such a blessed woman.
I’m actually the blessed one. So anyway, how did I realize? Or when did I realize that I had the problem? It was the progression and of course the process at that moment, that, again, that was the turning point for me. And I said, look, I don’t know how to do this. I’ve been fighting it for years. My teenage years.
All of that, I’ll get help wherever that is. Carrie, this was 40 years ago. Anger management classes wasn’t even in the universe, it didn’t exist. Printed material was rare, books on anger management, things like that. So I went to my pastor and I said, look, I need to chat. And so I went to him and.
And got an appointment with him. And I said, Hey, I need help. I got an anger issue and his advice was, well, son, get in the altar and pray and you’ll be okay. Let me clarify. I don’t want to ever take away the power of prayer. Sure. Pages things. I started. My journey in the learning is faith without works is dead.
I mean, we can pray all day long and fast until our tongues fall out. But if we don’t put some action, some works to our faith. We’re not going to get very far. So I took his advice. I got in the ultra and I really prayed and, and a man felt better got up in a day or two later. I’m I’m throwing things again, I’m yelling and screaming.
I’m back into the same mode. So Gail and I really just started a journey. Of trial and error when I’d get upset or get crazy, I’d cooled down. And of course we amplified not going to bed angry with each other, and we really worked on letting each other walk away and breathe and intellectualize the situation.
Then come back and talk about it. And I allowed her to tell me what I did wrong. So again, this whole process was started right there on 58. And that was when I was 18. I turned 18 September 10th and got married October 4th. I mean like I’m done. Let’s, let’s get this done.
Carrie: That was probably hard in the beginning.
You were saying, I let her tell me. What I did wrong, really receiving that feedback of, Hey, even if it was how she perceived the situation and that could have been totally different than how you perceive the situation.
Ed: Yes. And it took a lot of discipline on my part to listen to her because she, even though she was inside the emotional circle, she was outside of my anger circle.
She was able to see what I, how I was reacting to things. What I was reacting to. And was able to help me troubleshoot that and define why did you get angry with when I said mashed potatoes, that’s an example that, but you know, sometimes we get mad over the most ridiculous things. Big, not because mashed potatoes, but it’s the emotional time.
Way back in the subconscious mind.
Carrie: So there wasn’t a whole lot of help out there for you. Like you really looked for books and materials there weren’t classes. Now you’re actually involved in teaching some of those classes, correct?
Ed: Yes. I’ve. I’ve professionally taught anger management and emotional intelligence. Probably about 17 years give or take. Yeah. And again, back then 40 years ago, again, printed material was just virtually, almost non-existent. I found very level classes, training, teaching on it.
Non-existent so as soon as stuff started being printed, I kept an eye on the shelves, I’m kind of a book freak anyway, so I know my Barnes and noble days was long and I’d go in there.
And look around and when I found something, I bought it and I read it and I digested it and I tried everything I could to apply to my life to help me.
Carrie: Good. That’s good. Because anger can be destructive. And you already talked about that, like, putting your hand through a door or. Breaking things.
Christians sometimes try to suppress it or avoid it like we’ve labeled instead of labeling that behavior as sinful, we’ve labeled the emotion of anger itself as sinful and how can Christians develop a healthy, biblical understanding of anger?
Ed: Well, you really hit a great nerve there that,we, as Christians, we’ve got a criteria to live up to we’re spirit-filled and we’re supposed to be having the fruits of the spirit and to represent Christ on the earth.
And so we’re not supposed to have any flaws or any, setbacks. So I know I did, I suppose. I didn’t want anybody to know. I was an angry person that I was this crazy raging dude that would put my fist through a window or a door or wall or whatever. And that was really part of my problem. I never let anybody know I was in trouble.
And so for years I went through all of this and only to realize that in my journey to manage this. You do not get rid of anger. Anger is an emotion. It’s a part of your psychic. It’s just like love and, and joy and happiness and all of that. It’s identified as a negative emotion, although that could be turned around into a positive direction.
Using your anger to force you to go positive. However, the understanding and in fact, I’m big on the power of understanding when we understand the who, the, why, the what, how come, where they’re coming from, where it’s coming from. It helps us deal with a lot of things. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay. Jesus was angry when he come into the temple and found the money changed.
Buying and selling. He got angry and drove out those money changers and said, my, my house will be called a house of prayer. So again, it’s okay to be angry. The Bible says be angry, but sin not. And there’s, there’s the key, right? We can get upset. We can be angry with some situation, but here’s where we need to be.
Careful. Don’t send that it don’t start violating. Somebody’s cussing using foul language or whatever. That’s going to bring a reproach on your walk with God. People’s understands that if somebody disrespects you, it can upset you. People understand that whatever happens, it upsets us. It angers us. There’s an injustice going on.
For example, one of my friends on Twitter posted out that this kid, a young man and in Montana, him and his family, his mom and dad are church planters. And they’re trying to plant a new church in Montana. And this is a good kid when school bullied and the group that bullied him. Stabbed him 10 times and put him in there and, you know, I cared, I was angry.
I wanted to fly to Montana and find the bullies, but I, okay. God, I can’t bring bodily harm, although I want to, but you know, it’s okay. That’s what we’ve really got to understand. It’s okay. To be angry. It’s what you do with the anger. That makes all the difference in the world.
Carrie: Absolutely. I think that anger can be very powerful in terms of creating beautiful change in the world. Like what if we never got angry about things like human trafficking or child abuse? I mean, we should be angry about those things that are going on in our society and. I know that there was some anger for me that fueled the start of this podcast.
Cause I got so tired of having people say, well, somebody told me anxiety is a sin or depression’s a sin. That means I don’t have enough joy in my life and I just need to pray. Through it. And, you know, it was just so frustrating that people were getting misinformation that wasn’t biblical from spiritual leaders and it was causing extra distress on the distress that they already had, that they were already bringing into therapy.
Ed:Have you got a minute? Let me tell a little quick little neat story about how anger compelled us to, to do a positive bank like yourself, fired of spiritual leaders, basically not bothering to study out or research. Anxiety. It’s not a sin. Anyway, years ago, I learned this story when I was doing some research of a beautiful family in suburban LA.
Nice suburban LA had a 13 year old daughter and daughter asked mom, can I go to whoever’s there? Her friend had just a few blocks over in a very nice suburban. And of course, sure. Not a problem. So only about two or three hours later, LAPD shows up on this lady story. To tell her that her child, her 13 year old is dead, been killed by a drunken driver in, in the neighborhood, in the suburban area.
Of course, that went through it. They caught the guy and the guy got a little bit of probation and 30 days in jail, it was, wow. This guy killed this girl and got off way too easy. And so this woman in the story that I read had a choice, she was very angry.
That her daughter walked out the door and she never got a chance to say goodbye.
You know, she’s never coming back. She was in a very safe, nice neighborhood in suburban LA and her life was taken by a drunken driver, cutting through the subdivision to go somewhere swerved. She was on the sidewalk and the dude swerved up onto the sidewalk and hit her. She had a choice to make, whether she was going to allow that anger to make her bitter probably ruin her marriage and relationships to other children.
However, she chose to allow the anger to drive her to a positive direction and make a difference. Her name is candy and she created mothers against drunk drivers and has literally changed the world. And when it comes to DUIs, the laws have changed the punishment stiffer. They get what they deserve because one woman said, I’m not going to let this destroy me.
I’m going to create something good out of my anchor.
Carrie: Absolutely.
Ed: Hopefully little encouragement to your audience.
Carrie: That’s good. Oftentimes we hear people say anger is a secondary emotion, meaning there’s some other emotion underneath it. Tell us about the connection between anger and anxiety.
Ed: Sure. And, and that is correct.
Anger is always a secondary emotion. It’s a, by-product, there’s always a primary in place, such as loneliness, anxiety in other word, fear, the big kahunas is stress and frustration. When we don’t manage those primaries, then they escalate to anger. Then if it’s not taken care of escalates to rage, rage goes to blind rage.
I had a client years ago that I dealt with that went into blind rage and literally. $5,000 worth of damage to his mother’s kitchen and denied it. He said, I didn’t do that. There’s no way I did that. He was in blind rage. He didn’t even know what he was doing so it can get ugly real fast. But again, let’s back up.
We have anxiety now of course. Anxiety is a lot like, or it has one common thread with the other primaries. We all have stress in our life, the stress of driving in traffic every day to work stress in handling family situations. It’s okay. And we all have frustration in our life. We all have a little bit of anxiety in our life.
A little bit of worry, a little bit of stress. You know, we’ve got something major coming up, whether it’s a certification test or whether it is a presentation that we got to make it work, or we’ve got to deal something with our children, we all have what we would call normal stress, normal frustration, and even normal anxiety.
The challenge comes is when. It doesn’t become normal anymore. We’re stressed out more than we usually are. We’re frustrated more than we usually are. We’re experiencing anxiety more than we usually do. So is the fears and the worries becomes extreme. It becomes excessive. And that right there.
The connection is, is when we don’t deal with frustration or stress or anxiety, we start getting angry because we don’t like the emotion. We don’t like to feel stressed out. We don’t like to feel frustrated. We don’t like to feel the fear, the intense fear, what’s wrong with me? Why am I feeling so afraid?
Why am I worrying so much about this thing? This ain’t that big a deal? And everybody’s saying I’ll just calm down. You’ll be fine.No, I’m not fine. So as you can see, anxiety really kind of ties into the frustration that primary. And of course, if we don’t get something to relieve it, then it’s going to escalate to anger and we’re going to start being mad at ourselves.
We’re going to be angry at other people trying to give us. And they mean, well, they’re trying to help us, but they’re not helping. Then we start getting angry with that. And everything kind of blows up from there. Does that make sense?
Carrie: Yeah. I mean, it’s like a domino reaction, you know, if you don’t back up and deal with the, the initial dominoes that cause the cascade to go, then you’re not going to be able to resolve the issue.
Whereas I think sometimes people in. Anger management situations. We’ll just say, okay, well, I’ve just got to catch myself before I get to that rage point, but they don’t ever deal with those emotions that come before the anger point, which came before the rage.
Ed: Yes. Ma’am. That is exactly right. Again, it’s a.
It’s a cascade. It’s just, it starts falling and you know, we’ve got to stop it somewhere. We’ve got to say, okay, wait a minute. Stop right now.
Carrie: Yes.
Ed: Absolutely.
Carrie: Probably the worst thing that you could do for an anxious or angry person is to tell them to calm down that does not usually help at all. Usually causes more frustration or anxiety.
Ed: Yeah.Do you remember years ago? The movie that came out with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, anger management,
Carrie: I’m not sure if I saw that one.
Ed: Go back and dig it up. It’s a great movie. And of course it’s a movie, Adam Sandler. I think he got thrown off a plane because he was angry. I’m not angry.
Nicholson is the therapist that’s going to help him overcome his anger. Everything wrong in getting the character that Adam Sandler is playing a good friend of mine in LA was the consultant for anger management. And it was kind of knowing anger management. And Jack Nicholson was always saying, you need to just calm down.
Okay. Just calm down. And, and then, the character that, um, Adam Sandler’s playing, it just goes through the roof. It was hilarious, but you’re right. When you say to an angry person or to an anxious person, just calm down, you’re throwing fuel on the phone.
Carrie: Right. So tell us about your book control the beast.
Ed: Oh boy. That was fun. As we’ve gone through this podcast, I’ve totaled bits and pieces of my story. The control of the beast is a book that we have just put out on the market. That is really, for me, it’s 40 plus years in the making because I was, angry kid, young adult, and then Gail and I started when we got married on our journey of trial and error, trying to help me get rid of anger.
We realized I’m not going to get rid of it. I’ve got around a manage. It just like anxiety. You don’t get rid of anxiety, you manage your anxiety. And that’s what you do with anger. As you learn how to manage your anger, how to identify and diffuse. So the book is based on a 17 years of training. I still do training of sharing this because my whole mission and purpose, I felt like God wanted me to give back.
I was this person I managed, I’ve gotten better. And now I need to give back. So, as we talked about earlier, when books and things started coming out, I started ingesting everything. When I did find some kind of training seminar workshop on anger, I took it. And then when certification classes actually came out.
I did it and became certified and then just started teaching. We taught with probation and parole court services. Several chambers of commerce have brought me in for lunch and learns companies, brought me in for identifying and diffusing, angry people, working with their management, et cetera, et cetera.
So control the beast is what is that? 12 chapters. And we’d start out with the power of understanding or discovering the beast. When we understand who we are, what’s going on, what’s our past and everybody around us, again, the power of understanding helps us deal with it. Then chapter two is starve the beast.
We’ve got to clean up our environment, there’s triggers. And I end the book I talked and I also taught it. There’s six main triggers. That exists, that that’s the six popular ones starting out one with pornography, the addiction to pornography, television programming, what we’re listening to music, what we’re reading all could be triggers of anger.
I imagine in your field of dealing with anxiety, that could be, there could be some crossover there. So we talk about the importance of cleaning up our environment. Then it’s not really a book about anger management, as much as it is. Yeah, guide a manual. Uh, how to, I felt like people needed, okay, how do I do this?
Because when I started I’m like, what do I do? How do I handle this? And so I wanted to develop a guide, a manual to say, okay, read this and start following it. And practicing it and you can get your anger under control. So with that, we talk about how the beast works. And of course the beast is our negative emotions and that is emotional mechanics that how does emotions fire, what triggers them?
The biology of emotions. And then Mr. Beasties game, that’s the blame and responsibility we always get in the blame game. Well, I wouldn’t get angry if they would keep their stupid mouth shut, things like that. And so you cannot go into the blame game and blame everybody and everything around you for your bad behavior, you got to own it.
You got to take responsibility. Chapter five is the TMZ of the beast world, and that is the emotion, anger, and emotion unveil. We rip the lid off of it. And we expose the beast for who it is, what it is. And then chapter six is kind of the pinnacle where we don’t play games with the beast and that’s diffusing negative emotions.
That’s the tools, the mechanisms that we can use to help like walk away, breathe, intellectualize the situation, get help, things like that. The beast. Is ambushes and disguises where it hides such as a drug addiction and alcoholism attempts at suicide. People are angry at people around them. Like teenagers will attempt suicide because they’re very angry with their parents and they want to inflict pain upon them.
And so we discover, we talk about the ambushes and the disguises that the beast does time to confront the beast. That’s the answer to the question of self-identity who are. Where are we, it takes a team to control the beast. And that, that is a chapter on vital relationships. I wrote a piece and I taught it and I put it in the book called nine levels of relationships and how to handle toxic relationships.
So many times we get confused with the levels of relationships we have. For example, we have an acquaintance that we don’t really know, but we want to make them a best friend. What can they be trusted with best friend status. Or we have a best friend that violates our trust. We can’t keep them there. They have to move to a different category.
You know, spousal relationship. Of course, the number one relationship that I talk about nine levels is our relationship to God. That’s gotta be strong. That’s gotta be powerful. And then of course, we work our way down to level nine, which is the toxic poisonous relationship. That we’ve got to deal with because the only thing happens when you mess with a toxic relationship is that you get poisoned, you get hurt over and over and over, and you’ve got to get rid of that relationship.
Not to say that it won’t heal not to say that you can’t detox that relationship and put it back up into one of the other levels of relationships. That’s good chapter. I just did two or three podcasts on that chapter alone. Rebuild what the, these destroyed is rebuilding our self-esteem. From our past, the shame that anger brings negative emotions bring.
And of course, then chapter 12, we talk about train the beast and that’s revitalizing the positive inner person.
Carrie: Okay. Wow. There’s a lot in there. It sounds like.
Ed: Yeah. Packed it with some meat.
Carrie: And sounds like very practical information, certainly takeaways that people can implement in their life and step-by-step instructions on how to do that.
I like that. I like practical materials. I don’t philosophical ones are nice, but if you don’t know how to apply it, then sometimes it’s completely worthless. If you can’t put it into practice in your own life, then it’s like, well, what’s the point there? So.
Ed: That’s right. And of course we want to say to God, be the glory for all of this.
We are getting a lot of great feedback. When people read the book, they’re hitting me on Instagram or Twitter. Hey, I just got your book, man. This is fantastic. And they use the word practical, which I’m like, yes, yes.So that’s good.
Carrie: Well, I think it’s just beautiful that you have used your.
Difficulties and struggles and challenges to allow God to use those things for good and then to bless other people and help them along their journey. So as we’re kind of wrapping up our time together, I like to ask every guest to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.
Ed: Wow. Let me go. And we’re going to talk about probably a lot of anxiety that I experienced in my life with everything else. That’s going on. Somebody being bullied like I was, or you’ve got somebody in your life that is, they may not physically be bullying. You beating you up physically, but they’re beating you up emotionally and make you feel small, making you feel.
Insufficient. It really messes with my emotions and kind of makes my eyes water a little bit. When I think about the kid ed Snyder, and I knew me, I just love everybody. I just wanted to get along with everybody and everybody’s making fun of me and tormenting me and all of that stuff. And it literally, Carrie destroyed my,self-esteem.
I couldn’t see my way up. And if it was. For God, putting somebody in my life that I called mother where every day I come home from school, after going through a day of it’s supposed to be a day of learning, which was a day of abuse. She was there telling me, Hey, you don’t need those people. You can do anything you set your mind to do.
God’s got great things for you and your life. He’s got stuff in you that you’re going to do great with.She was constantly just hitting me with that and it really was a saving point in my life. I don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for the time that God used my own mother. To tell me you don’t listen to them.
You’re better than that. You’re a good kid, et cetera, et cetera. And so, as I grew, God just kept putting people in my life. One being my wife we’re together. I mean, we’re, peanut butter and jelly. I mean, we just, and of course she knows. And that’s what I think everybody needs in their life as somebody that knows them inside and out.
And she knows when to back off of me, she knows when to get in my face and wad up that Iris face or hers and get, straight. And I take it because I know she loves me. And so it’s amazing how God puts people in your life. That will help you. They’re there to be a blessing to you to build you up. And of course, again, I don’t want to take anything away from God, but God uses people.
God uses work, have your faith. God can do anything. He is everything. But sometimes he uses the hands and the voices of people to make that. And of course we’re responsible for putting in the work. Faith without works is dead. I went to the altar and I prayed after my pastor preach the message and I cried and I wanted God to heal me of this and get rid of it.
I don’t want to be like this anymore. And I get up in a day or two later, I’m back at it again. I had to figure out the work, what do I need to do myself? To partner with God’s power and prayer to make it happen. Maybe that’s what I need to help. So a listener of yours and your audience, whether you’re dealing with anxiety or you’re dealing with stress or frustration, or even anger, God’s putting people in your life, this podcast, perhaps get back to this podcast and get the help that you need so that you can put the work with your faith.
And God’s going to do great things in your life.
Carrie: That’s great. So we’re going to put links in the show notes to the book and to your website so that people can reach you. And this has been a great conversation and I think really valuable for our audience. I appreciate you being here today.
Ed: Well, if there’s anything I can do for you or any of your listeners, please reach out to me.
Our emails on the website can hit me up on social media, whatever it is, but thank you again, Carrie, for the opportunity. And the privilege of being on your podcast, I’ve enjoyed being with you.
Carrie: You can find us online any time@hopeforanxietyandocd.com. I would love to hear from you. You can head on over to the contact page and let me know what you think about these episodes.
Thank you so much for listening.
Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.
Today, we are privileged to have pastor and author, Steve Hinton as our guest. We had a meaningful conversation about doubt and faith. Pastor Steve also shares his journey of finding hope in the face of doubt and childhood wounding experiences.
Doubt as a normal part of one’s faith experience
What is the root of doubt?
Why wrestling with God is a good thing?
How to hear and discern God’s voice in the midst of doubt?
Embracing the mystery of faith
Seeing God through pain and suffering
How can we help those who are hurting see that God is good?
Pastor Steve Hinton’s book, Confessions: Finding Hope Through One Pastor’s Doubt
Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 37. I imagine that if you’ve been following God for any length of time, at some point or another you’ve had some questions and doubts come up. How do we know that God is really good and maybe hard to come to a certain understanding of God due to past woundedness getting in the way. We’re going to talk about doubt today with pastor and author, Steve Hinton.
Carrie: Welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Steve: Thank you very much. First of all, I just want to give a thumbs up to you. The whole question of anxiety, especially today, the past couple of years, everybody’s past year, everybody’s been worried about the physical aspects of COVID. Suicide hotlines are off the charts and nobody’s really talking about the whole anxiety.
I just want to encourage you and what you’re doing. I think there is a connection to me, I’ve been in vocational ministry about 27, 28 years now. So I’ve seen all kinds of anxiety and, and had to work through some of that myself, just from some wounding in my early childhood. I grew up in the Northern Panhandle of Texas, which is kind of a conservative area.
I grew up with a general biblical Jesus worldview, but I really didn’t know Christ until I was a young teenager. I had to work through some father figure issues in my life. Couple of dads were in there. And then when my mother remarried, when I was about seven or eight, He adopted me. Jim Hinton adopted me the father one year, but he had to work through his own issues from his own childhood.
All that to say is, you know, a lot of times people get their idea of what God is, who God is by the father figure in their lives. So that bled into the book that I had written Confessions: Finding Hope Through One Pastor’s Doubts and doubts a big topic today. Carrie, I’ve been married for almost 30 years. And we have four young adult children. I’m kind of an adventurous guy and I’m looking forward to having this adventure with you.
Carrie: Awesome. So are all your kids out of the house yet or not yet?
Steve: Just about our third is going to junior college here in the Houston area. The youngest is a college in another state.
My oldest works for a church camp in the state of Washington. And then my second one completed a tour with the Marine Corps and he’s about to do a contract, a security contract, actually for the army in Kuwait here in a month. So we’re almost to that empty nest place, but you know, we can see the light.
Carrie: There’s a line at the end of the tunnel. I’ll just watch out sometimes they become a boomerang generation and boom, bring back. So hopefully yours will say stay launched and you and your wife can enjoy your time.
Steve: Yes.
Carrie: That’s awesome that you have been married for so long, having that type of background and having, you know, being involved in your children’s lives because so many people grow up in a broken situation and then they end up repeating that same pattern.
Steve: Yeah. And that was a big prayer for me, Carrie. That was a big goal for me coming into marriage and coming into parenthood thinking, man, I want to do this fight and not saying that to throw my mother or anybody under the bus but also looking at the right care, looking at society as a whole. We just have way more dysfunction played out today than what we witnessed 20, 50, a hundred years ago because a lot of these root issues that we’re talking about the anxiety, the doubt A lot of those are the fruit of people growing up with the traditional nuclear family, not intact like it was a number of years ago. So some of the anxiety is a by-product of how we’ve constructed life today.
Carrie: I think that sometimes when I talk with Christians in my counseling practice, there’s some shame maybe around having doubts about God or just through church ministry. People say, well, I know that I need to have faith. I know that I need to trust God.
They really struggle maybe with some sense of shame about having these doubts, do you feel like that’s a normal part of our faith experience?
Steve: I think it’s a practical part. I think it’s a reality today. And I resonate with what you’re saying there with the shame, and that’s actually one of the reasons I wrote the book so that people would see, here is a vocational pastor, a guy who’s vocationally in the ministry, and he wrestles with some of these questions and he’s come out of the other end. Therefore, maybe there’s hope for me as well. And even on the shame picture, you know Carrie early on in the process when I was finishing up writing, I had to ask myself this question, how raw do I want to be? Because on one hand, there’s going to be people, for example, in ministry or people who seem to feel like they’ve got it all together who might look at what I’ve written in a judgmental way, but then I thought I’m not writing it for those people.
I’m writing it for those people who are really wrestling. Maybe with the journey of doubt, asking, what is the root behind it? And I think you’re right, some people think, yeah, if I, if I really had faith, I wouldn’t be wrestling with this. But asking what is the root behind the doubt?
Just one needing more data, Luke chapter one, God shows up and says, by the way, Mary, you’re going to have. And her question is how will this be? In other words, she accepted what God was saying, but she’s looking for some clarification. Sometimes the doubt and people maybe who are listening in and maybe they don’t know Jesus yet.
Sometimes the root of the doubt is really not data, but it is an expression of rebellion. As long as I could push this issue off, as long as I can pretend to be an atheist or agnostic, I can push off responsibility. And then also, maybe just, again, looking at the root. Is somebody doubting because they see the promises of God,
they’re trying to walk in faith, but they have these triggers and it’s really not so much about God as it is something that happened to them early in their childhood that just totally got them off rails. And they’re not able to connect the dots and, you know, they need to talk to someone like you Carrie to pull all these pieces together to realize that our God in heaven is not our biological father or our mother or our aunt or whoever that might be.
So I think doubt happens, Elijah in the Bible, a huge man of faith, but in First Kings chapter 19, he wanted to die. He was wrestling with fear and he was also wrestling with exhaustion. So trying to acknowledge doubts there. Okay, how do we couch it? What’s going on? What is behind it? And just being honest about it.
Carrie: Just having a sense of prayer of, I believe, but help my unbelief.
Steve: There you are. I liked that. Yeah.
Carrie: Yeah. I know there are some things that I’m definitely wrestling in questioning God about things that I believe that he’s spoken to my life and I don’t see the fruits of that or their fruition of that vision. And it’s really hard, but I think the wrestling part is so important. It’s an important part of our relationship with God. I don’t think it’s wrong to question at times and say, Hey, help me understand this. You know, I believe that you were speaking this into my life, but then this is what actually happened. And that just brings us closer to God to even have those conversations. It’s a different level of intimacy.
Steve: I liked the way you finished that. You know, Carrie, the level of intimacy because sometimes the doubt will force us to move closer. We’re no longer functioning on this vending machine relationship with God. You put in your dollar bill, your quarters, your credit card, and then you get what you want.
And then sometimes like a good parent, God says, no, or God says not now. And part of the trust is stepping back and saying, okay, God, I don’t understand, but I’m going to trust that somehow. We’ve got to reframe things. Maybe there’s something I’m not seeing clearly. Okay, God, I’m going to be patient and wait on you to clear everything up.
Carrie: Right. I wanted to add something to what you said earlier about God is our father, but God is not like your biological mother and father were to you because they’re human and they’re imperfect and God’s perfect.
I would also say that sometimes people have spiritual leaders like pastors or other people in the church that they’ve really been wounded by, and God is not those people either. And so if people have been wounded by spiritual leaders who led them towards paths that were not biblical, or, dumped a bunch of extra rules and legalism on them and excluded them from grace. God wants us those people to have a different kind of experience with him where they understand his true character.
Steve: I think you’re spot on there, Carrie. And even in my own life, one of the greatest mentors in my life, a wonderful man of God, incredibly brilliant, but he’s very stoic, very logical.
I tend to be very ADHD and I want to go save the world and go see the world. So I’m going, into adulthood trying to process this. I don’t function the way my uncle functions. How does that play into God? And obviously, my uncle loves God and I love God and God’s doing this, but not this.
And then I start to doubt, well, did I hear from God, right? Or does God even liked me or what do I do now? So one of the things I do carry to encourage other people is I just try to point them to Jesus again and again, and again, even people who don’t know Jesus, I try to say I get it.
There are a lot of people out there who have wounded you, who have done things, maybe even false teachers, but I try to point them directly to the person of Jesus Christ, both divine and human. And that’s the perfection. No human being, no woman, no man, no matter how good they are is perfect, but Jesus Christ.
Carrie: How do you feel like God spoke to you in the midst of your doubt as you were wrestling with some of these things?
Steve: A lot of it Carrie is just keeping my nose in the Bible on a regular basis, even times when I don’t feel it. We have to ask ourselves what are we listening to. If we’re listening to the media, the world 24/7, that’s going to cost a lot of doubt.
If we’re listening to God’s word, who are we with, I believe we’ve got to be connected to a local body of Christ. So in some of the darkest hours, I try to listen to the still small voice of God, which means you got to shut up and be quiet. But also, we’re trying to hear God’s voice.
Okay. Well, God’s given us the revelation through the scriptures. So being in the scriptures, especially the Psalms, especially the Psalms over and over and over again. And just wait.
Carrie: Waiting is so hard sometimes when you really want an answer. I went through a divorce. That’s something that you probably don’t know about me. It was a pretty traumatic divorce a few years ago, and God told me through that process through basically three different situations like I sensed it in my spirit that God was telling me. You’re just not gonna understand that. And you need to let go of your need to understand because I wanted it to make logical sense and it just didn’t make any logical sense. So there was a mentor at church that also spoke to me as I was trying to process it with him. And he said almost the exact same words that I sense to my spirit. It was just like “Carrie, you’re going to have to let go of this need to understand because it’s just not going to make sense to you.” And I feel like there was one more situation at like came in threes and I was like, okay, God, I’m sorry that you had to tell me three times.
I’m sorry. I didn’t listen the first time, but I hear you loud and clear. This is just something that I’m not going to be able to understand. And that’s something that’s really hard for people with OCD to sit with their level of uncertainty and doubt about the situation. I don’t know if you know that but they call OCD the doubting disease. There are always questions.
Steve: I had not heard that, but that makes sense. There’s probably a connection with that and these control issues that I want to, why am I doubting because I want to control it and I can’t control it.
Carrie: Yeah, absolutely. Just trying to like wrap our minds around spiritual things. Sometimes God is so much bigger and beyond where we are that we’re not going to be able to keep humanly comprehend him fully. We’re only getting the bits and pieces that we can receive. I think there’s just so much more, and I’ve learned, I guess, through some of that process also to embrace some of the mystery of my faith, that it’s faith that’s part of the process is that there are going to be things that I don’t feel know or can’t fully explain and that’s part of my connection with God.
Steve: I think I’d put us to Kado on that. And again, part of the reason I wrote the book was to show, here’s a vocational guy who’s been in ministry for a long time, and he’s still wrestles with doubt. I have more questions now than I had when I first went to Bible college when I went to seminary, but by getting to a place where I’m able to say, okay, God. I’m okay. There are some things I’m never going to figure out, which actually means you’re bigger than I am and being at peace with that. So I think that might be a component of the doubt, being able to just rest in and again, looking at Mary. Mary, didn’t have all the details figured out, but she was able to say, okay, God, I’m your servant. You’ve given me a thumbnail sketch of what’s going on here and I’m going to trust you with the rest.
Carrie: Yes, that’s so good. So I know one thing that can come up in, in therapy and, you know, you had your kind of own share of childhood. What I would call attachment trauma with caregivers and other people have had other experiences in childhood that maybe they went through an abusive situation and they might really be struggling with.
What would you say to someone who struggles with this idea of God being good? Because maybe they’ve experienced a certain level of trauma in their past, and you had some things that you talked about in your book in terms of growing up without a father or having various father figures in your life? And so it’s hard for us to wrap our minds around, like, okay, if God’s good, why would he allow us to go through these very painful situations? Or why would he put us in that particular family that hurt us?
Steve: Yeah. Again, affirming them, listening to them and trying to understand them and be in their shoes. I think sometimes leaders, we try to answer too quickly until we empathize with them and then hear them. There’s the whole theological aspect the fact that we have free will, that’s why people make dumb choices. There actually is no good unless there’s the opportunity for evil, the opportunity to go against what is good because we would just be robots without them.
And then again, reframing that what we do, for example, what we think success is. You may have people in your practice who have huge incomes and huge salaries and they’re on speaking towards and things like that, but they have zero relationships with their spouse or their kids, but would we call that successful? The world would. But in my years of vocation and vocational ministry, any time I’ve been with someone when they’re on death’s door, if there is ever been a regret, it was always a relational regret. I wish things were better with my kids. I wish things were better with my spouse. It’s never a regret of I wish I made more money or something like that. So maybe reframing what is success, what is good. I’ve talked a lot about being in the Bible and I’m thinking of the apostle Paul. If anybody would have their prayers answered, it was the apostle Paul, but he made it very, very clear and talked about the thorn in the flesh.
There was something in his life that was causing all kinds of trauma and he prayed more than once. And God says, “I’m leaving this there for your good and my glory.” So I would tell people to keep their life in the word, keep pressing in, be in the church, because these are people that can encourage you.
And you go back and you look at Thomas, you know, refer to him as doubting Thomas. He said I’m not going to believe. Well, if you look at a context, Thomas was not with the other apostles. The first time Jesus appeared to him, Thomas was out of the community and Jesus came back around and said, Thomas, look at my scars and stop doubting and believe.
But that’s an illustration as to why I say care, you’ve gotta be in community to work through these doubting issues.
Carrie: Community is really, really powerful. One thing I’ve realized, I think through processing literally now hours and hours of traumatic material with people is two things. One, those hard situations are what builds our character.
So if we didn’t have those difficult and challenging situations, we wouldn’t be as compassionate as we are today. If I hadn’t have gone through my divorce, I wouldn’t have the understanding of grace that I have today that I’m really so incredibly thankful for. And it has allowed me to extend grace to other people. It’s taught me so much about forgiveness and so many different things that I could go into there. I talk about it in my initial episode, but if we don’t go through some of those hard stuff like God uses that in a beautiful way to really like the working of things together for good, like Romans 8:28 talks about in our lives.
And if we didn’t have all of that, we wouldn’t be the people that we are today. And God uses those things to sanctify us and grow us closer to Christ. One of the other things that I’ve realized through processing childhood trauma with Christians is often people will have this spiritual experience. It’s like once the trauma part gets cleared up, they’re able to see, look back through a different lens and recognize that God really was there for me.
And he was there the whole time, working behind the scenes. And he was always with me. He never left me. He preserved me through all of the challenging, dangerous, whatever, fill in the blank things that I went through. And that’s a really powerful experience, I think for people as well, to recognize and acknowledge, and just in terms of wrestling with the role of suffering, I guess, in our lives.
Steve: Yeah. There’s tons of volumes on suffering and how that fits in. It circles back around to the whole question “If God’s good, why is there suffering?” And again, reframing our world and in our worldview and in our philosophy and our theology.
The reality that God allows things to happen to refine us and thinking about my own story. I came out of high school with all these doubts about who I am, went into college, and I realized pretty quickly that God had called me to preaching that aspect of ministry. And I was pretty good at that. The art, the craft of homiletics and in writing. And I began to put my identity into that. And then when I go through a period of time and I went through a period of time where nothing is working right. And then I began to realize, it’s not about my identity as the preacher. It’s my identity as Steve, just Steve.
And that’s illustrative of getting to a level of depth, relationship with God If I had not had gone through these tough times. We may say, “Where are you, God? What’s going on?” Well, the bottom line is, there’s a lesson in that.
And we do come out of that with more grace to people, more compassion to people. And we’re able to minister to people at a deeper level that we would not have been able to do so If everything happened at exactly the way we wanted it.
Carrie: Right. What do you hope that people will experience by reading Confession?
Steve: Carrie. I hope they have a smile on their face. There’s a lot of raw material in there, but there’s some funny stuff. And I hope that they’re able to say “I get it. I’d been there.” And you know what? there are other people who’ve gone through the tunnel. I think there’s hope I can get through the tunnel as well.
I hope that it will be an encouragement to people that they will press further and deeper into the presence of Jesus and no matter what they’re going through, they can come out at the end of the tunnel stronger and then be able to share that with other people.
Carrie: Right. One of the things that I appreciated you sharing in the book that I felt like it would be good to bring out is this sense of like struggling with has God really forgiven me for my past mistakes. And this element of it took you a while to kind of work through some past sins. I don’t know how you would say it if like the devil was holding them over your head or you were, but it just was something that like kind of kept coming back up and coming back up for you.
A lot of Christians can really identify with that, that wrestling of really like how can we rest in God’s forgiveness and have that assurance?
Steve: That’s a good question, Carrie. And I think you’re right that I’ve had two or three monumental peaks where I was able to look at things and say, “yeah, I own it.
I did it. That was me.” I think that’s part of the process. We can’t blame other people. We got to own it. And then being able, to surrender it to God and realize that that whole Jesus died on a cross thing. It is finished. That’s a real deal. But again, I want to come back to the community. that’s the beauty of the church.
I’m not talking about my local church, although that’s true, but the universal church that has a body. We encourage one another. And for me to affirm other people and affirm the grace and then receive that back as well. That’s why it’s so important that we have people in our lives that we be people.
And then we have people in our lives to remind us of the things we know. We may have it in our head, but it takes a little bit longer to move that 12 inches down from our head to our heart. And that’s why we got to keep repeating it again and again and again.
Carie: Yes, absolutely. Just keep repeating like the promises that we have through scripture and in Christ. This is so important. We can’t forget those things.
So at the end of every podcast, I like our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time where you received hope from God or another person.
Carrie: One immediate thing, here we are, we’re recording this in may, and I know it’s going to launch later, but one immediate thing is a big debt that I took about 12 years ago because I was just so certain I was following God’s lead and everything fell apart. And over the past couple of months, it’s interesting Carrie to see, here are some things I have been praying about for years that it just seems they’re falling into place. So maybe again, part of the reason I wrote the book is to say, here is a narrative to show that God is faithful and we can look at the faithful stories and in the lives of other people. But I think that that would be a situation where I’ve been praying about a few things for years and just over the past month, they’ve just been coming together. And maybe that’s an encouragement to folks to not give up. Just keep on keeping on.
Carrie: Yes, that is really good. And there is something about persevering in prayer and waiting for God’s timing.
Steve: Yes because God’s timing is better than ours. Sometimes we’re not ready. Sometimes we are not ready for it. Sometimes other people aren’t ready for it. So it’s a waiting for it.
Carrie: Absolutely. This was a really great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and talking with us about doubt today. That’s good.
Steve: Well, Carrie, thank you for the opportunity. And again, I just want to encourage you in what you’re doing because it is so vital, especially in our world today, people need hope and thank you for giving that to people.
Carrie: Thank you. We will put all the information in the show notes. The link to where you can find the book and get in touch with Steve, if they would like.
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God in his amazing, perfect timing knew that I needed to have this conversation with Steve when I did. It was such a blessing to be able to talk about these things. And I hope it was a blessing for those of you who are listening as well.
If you’re new to the show, we are all about reducing shame, increasing hope and developing healthier connections with God and others, specifically for Christians who may be struggling with anxiety or OCD.
For more information, you can find this online at www.hopeforanxietyandocd.com.
If you’re searching for a little extra encouragement in the middle of the week, you’re welcome to follow us on Instagram or Facebook. Thank you so much for listening.
Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam.
Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s great love for you.
Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 11. Today’s show is on the incredible power of Christian community and how that can impact mental health in a positive way. I wanted to make a very special dedication of this episode on Christian community to BJ Howard. In the process of putting this recording together, I’ve found out that he passed away.
This was someone that was very connected and involved in church, connected to encouraging and mentoring people that were younger than him. He was someone who was able to give me a lot of hope in my life when I needed it the most to keep going and to keep following the Lord and keep trusting his plan for my life.
Thank you so much BJ for your influence. I hope that in some small way this episode and not just this episode, but this podcast is a way to move forward and can carry the torch of the light and the love that you showed to me, to be able to show that to other people.
I got the opportunity on this episode to interview one of the local pastors in Nashville, Randy Draughon. He is the Pastor of Midtown Fellowship, and we were able to get into some great dialogue about being a Christian and living in the Christian community and what that looks like.
Let’s dive right in.
Carrie: For those that don’t know, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Pastor Randy: I’ve been in Nashville for almost 30 years now, married have three kids. I started Midtown Fellowship around 2001. Our passion then was to go into the heart of the city and to start a church for people that had given up on church.
So we were from a very traditional style church and we shed the skin of all that and started a church and a skate park. Most of the folks that were coming to Midtown were musicians or college students. Back then the city had really not gone through any kind of transformation. This was pre-Titans.
Nobody really lived down there unless they had to, which meant that they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else. Downtown was the cheap place to live.
Carrie: Wow, not anymore.
Pastor Randy: It’s true. We’ve seen a lot of change over the years and we partnered with a ministry called Rocket Town and they built a skate park and a big music venue down in the city.
When we got to a point where we needed a bigger space, they opened their doors and they were incredibly generous to us and we needed that because everybody coming to our church was so poor. None of them had any money. We had a philosophy early on never to take an offering because we were shedding the skin of the idea that when you come to church, the church wants so much from you. We’re operating from the philosophy of we just really believe that God has so much to give to you. So God just took care of us.
Carrie: How in the world, like, did you get paid? You didn’t take up an offering. This is incredible.
Pastor Randy: We just prayed and people just gave. I really can’t tell you that we ever spent much time around the budget, trying to figure out how to make it happen. We just were so busy just doing the work of ministry, meeting with a lot of people. We really had a simple philosophy and that was, we really believe that when God impacts one person, the ripple effect of that to their community and their family actually ripples out into the city.
And so we spend a lot of time trying to keep bongo, Java, and business and Fidos and all the coffee shops. You’ll appreciate this, our first offices were on 12 South because it was the cheapest place to get an office. It was just a rolling crime scene over there and obviously, it’s all changed since then.
Carrie: A lot has changed in Nashville. I’m sure over the years that you’ve been there and in terms of like ministry that has shifted somewhat, the population that you’re ministering to, is it more diverse as Nashville becomes more diverse?
Pastor Randy: You can tell me how much you want to get into this. I’m happy to talk about what we’ve done over the years. Midtown, about the first 18 months, was a slow crawl. We had maybe 10 people coming to church and then it began to build and we started to see the Lord really doing some really cool stuff in people’s lives. When we moved to Rocket Town we literally bought a hundred used folding chairs and we called it the purchase of faith.
We believe that the Lord was going to fill these hundred seats and within a year we had close to a thousand people that were coming to services at Rocket Town, and it was insane. We couldn’t get everybody in. In fact, the stage was full of chairs and the floor, and the balcony.
We really had a dilemma because we realized that the bigger that we were getting the least effective we were at reaching our mission, which was creating a safe place for people that had given up on church, that we were really good at attracting Christians from other churches because we’re a huge artist community. So our bands were killer. Like you can imagine coming to church and looking up in the band area because we wouldn’t put our band on the stage.
We actually moved them off to the side where you couldn’t see them because none of our artists wanted to perform on Sunday morning so it was about the Lord. It wasn’t about them and all of them were professional musicians. So the big dilemma that we had is, do we go to multiple services and see how big we can get this?
I didn’t feel led to do that. So we went to San Diego and we met with a group of people that helped start a Tim Keller’s church up in New York. They were doing something very unique out in California that we brought it back to Nashville. We customized it and then adopted it for ourselves, which was to, instead of going to multiple services, why don’t we take a big chunk of these people and send them back to their slice of Nashville and let them be the church in their community.
Carrie: A lot of churches are doing that now having kind of multi-site campuses.
Pastor Randy: The uniqueness of our model is really based on a couple of ideas. One is then this will interest you as a counselor, is that we really believe that pastors can sometimes be the most dangerous person in the church. They get isolated and isolated men that have power are very dangerous people when they’re isolated emotionally or they’re isolated relationally. There’s some expectation that a whole community of people are putting on them, but they know internally they don’t live up to. That can be a really dangerous scenario for him and If he’s dangerous, then he’s dangerous to the people he’s shepherding too. So we came up with this model of grading campuses. We’re one church, but we have multiple campuses and every campus has its own pastor, but that pastor is in a fellowship with other pastors and we take serious responsibility for one another’s emotional journey, spiritual journey, the whole heart. So we’re kind of a support group for one another.
Carrie: How did you, your church get to that point where you realized we really need to invest in that, not just the spiritual health of our pastors, but the emotional health and the other aspects?
Pastor Randy: Great question about how we got there. The easy answer is I think the Lord just reviewed this so many times through all our failures that he drove us there.
I think maybe the more detailed answer is before coming to Nashville, I’ve worked for some really large churches. I was in youth ministry for 15 years and I got to witness firsthand like national ministries and the men that led them and realized that they were isolated and that the trickle-down effect of that, wasn’t always a pretty story.
When you peek behind the curtain and we began to dream about what would it be like for a pastor to actually open the curtain? And that he ministers out of that place where he’s first in line, as the one who needs grace, He’s kind of the chief repenter and his community that he’s the most vulnerable of anybody.
We realized that the only way that’s going to happen is if we began to mature emotionally and began to mature spiritually at the same time. I’ve seen spiritually mature people that can quote the Bible from the beginning to the end and have these huge prayer lives but they’re not emotionally mature and as a result, a lot of times they’re just hurtful people and they’re not very safe to be around.
Carrie: They don’t know how to have healthy relationships and form healthy connections.
Pastor Randy: Yeah and you know, that’s fair because a lot of times, pastors, men that are called into ministry and women are called into ministry too.
A lot of times they’re intellectuals. They love to study. They love teaching. They love books more than they love people. So a lot of times they’re disconnected from their own heart and therefore they’re disconnected from the people around them because I don’t believe you can be disconnected from yourself and actually connected with other people. I also believe it hinders your connection with the Lord. But if you’re not self-aware enough to know how you need the Lord and where you’re at, I think it’s very difficult to have a meaningful, profound relationship with him.
Carrie: Right. I was thinking about that versus you were talking how
Paul was a big spiritual hero in a lot of ways, but he said himself, like, “I’m the chief of sinners” and such a puzzling verse because you’re like, how can you be the chief of sinners? But he just had that understanding and that awareness of like, “I need all of the grace too.”
I think that’s really cool what you’re talking about to this overlay of like where Christians meant to live in community and so that’s not healthy with pastors being isolated. Also this sense of our relationships with other people and those connections, a lot of times maybe mirroring our connections with God. Would you agree with that?
Pastor Randy: Yeah. Say that again and say it a little differently.
Carrie: Okay. I think that a lot of times we place on God like our ability to connect with him. We place on him things that we’ve received from other relationships in our life, often parents, fathers. And so if our fathers were disconnected or neglectful, then we receive this sense from God that we feel like God’s just kind of distant.
He’s not really there. Sometimes being able to connect healthily with people can help us heal some of that, like Christians. I don’t know the God in you maybe healing that piece of being able to love someone in Christ may help them connect more with God. I don’t know if that’s making sense.
Pastor Randy: That’s so good and you’re really the expert here. I’m just dabbling in your world when I talk about counseling here. We all have trauma in our lives and some of us have pretty severe trauma and it’s trauma that’s either been produced through parents or through relatives. Some of us have trauma that we produced ourselves and that trauma often I’ve seen, it digs these trenches in our lives that it seems like whenever we enter into any situation that triggers that trauma, which could be relational, we tend to go back to that ditch. So if our father was harsh with us, the only way we ever experienced God is as a harsh God. That’s why one of my mentors always tells me if something is hysterical, it’s probably historical that if we don’t understand ourselves enough to know that we have that trauma, then we’re not aware enough to know that I need healing in that trauma so that I can rewrite the script in a fresh healed way. Maybe it’s more than a healed way. Maybe it’s a healthy way.
Carrie: What was that journey for you of your journey of self-evaluation?
Pastor Randy: Well, for me personally, I’ve always sought out older men that would invest themselves in me. I’ve been fortunate I’ve had some amazing men that have the gift of listening and they also have the gift of wisdom. So they let me talk myself out and then they speak wisdom into those places. And if it’s true that our thoughts are really a bad neighborhood and we should never go there by ourselves then the men in my life have gone there with me. They’ve helped me fight the shame stories and we all have shame stories. But probably the most, I would say maybe one of the most impacted things was about six years ago. Our oldest son at 25 died unexpectedly. That story of grief for me and my wife and our family was so traumatic for me that it caused me to start to question everything. In fact, to get a little vulnerable here, I couldn’t let go of the thought that it was my fault and I felt deeply responsible for that. And as I began to unpack, why is that? I began to realize there were a lot of my own issues of codependency that I have not dealt with growing up. I grew up in a home where addiction was a part of our home. And so I just jumped into a whole community of people that had shared experiences like that and began to unpack my own lenses that I’ve put on to how I process my life and how I’ve processed the Lord and how I process other people. So it’s been an amazing journey over the last six years of embracing the joy of grief and the healing power of community and the Lord.
Carrie: I think a lot of times it’s the tragedy points that brings us closer to God and closer to other people, but it can really challenge your theology in the best way and wonder if that happened for you.
Pastor Randy: I think that pain is so misunderstood because I think that many of us live and I don’t want to, maybe I should use an “I” statement here. I lived thinking that if something is painful that means something is wrong, that we didn’t get something right because the right life is not a painful life, but the reality of every relationship is there’s pain. And that’s a part of relational health is realizing that if you’re going to love somebody you’re going to hurt and if you’re going to let somebody love you, it’s going to hurt. That pain is a part of the relationship.
It took a real season to realize that pain doesn’t have the ability to change what is true, but pain does have the ability to change what I believe is true. For me to bring my pain to my community and for me to bring the pain narrative to my community and whether that was through counselors or whether that was through just mentors or friends or people that were fighting for me, letting them fight for me so that my narrative of truth [00:16:12] can come alongside my pain and really call it good, which may sound strange to people that are in pain, that your pain is good, but it can be because the Lord uses that to bring healing in her life.
Carrie: Just as a connecting point to him and to other people.
Pastor Randy: And I mean, that’s what I’m saying, I’m swimming in your waters right now. You’re the pro in this area, but I’m just sharing my own personal experiences. Not necessarily an ocean of therapeutic knowledge.
Carrie: I think it’s really great though, to hear these kinds of messages from pastors, because depending on people’s backgrounds, they may not have had a pastor that has ever been this vulnerable about difficult things in their life like you were talking about the isolation. Maybe there’s the sense that I have to present as the most spiritual person in the room and therefore, somehow that means I present with no problems or no pain. Anyway, I have the Lord. The Lord is good, nothing wrong here.
Pastor Randy: You think about it that if the only time I can preach is when I’ve mastered what I’m preaching and I want to preach with vulnerability. I really don’t have any sermons because who can do that unless you put up a facade and you’re a counselor. What happens when people put on mask and they spend their lives to manage an image and they manage this facade so they can keep their jobs, which is their income.
They can keep people’s respect, which is, they believe my reputation is that if everybody was like me, then we would all be so much like Jesus. It takes a lot of energy and effort to do that so what would it be like for the joy of preaching from a place of, “Hey, I really need this more than any of you need it.”
I’m preaching from a place where I feasted on the Lord this week and I’m just sharing with you what he served up for me. If you have a community that would allow you to do that it’s a beautiful place to be.
Carrie: I love that. I think there’s something really about authenticity that’s attractive to people [00:18:25] and unfortunately, the church has gotten a bad rap for being fake. A lot of times, or Christians have gotten a bad rap for being hypocritical.
Pastor Randy: Because we are, but some of it’s a good rap.
Carrie: Some of it’s true. I used to become frustrated when people would talk about Christians becoming hypocritical and then I realized that Jesus was most frustrated with religious people in the Bible. And so I was like, “Oh, it bothered Jesus too.” There’s a relate-ability there. So if you’re frustrated with the church or people who appear religious, then you know, Jesus understands that.
Pastor Randy: Right and so true. I think that there’s such a gravitational pull to unhealthiness. I mean, you’re a counselor. There are a lot of people that don’t come to see you, people that their whole world of dysfunction and they live in it until they go to their grave.
There’s a huge pull to having a world that you completely control and that it’s not dangerous and you’ve minimized pain by medicating or avoidance or distraction. I think that that pull is so attractive when you realize that vulnerability and openness and willing to admit that your imperfect is so scary.
I love what Bernay Brown talks about is that courage is the ability to let yourself be seen and it really is true. That takes a lot of courage to let your true heart live itself on the outside.
I don’t think that any of us can do that by ourselves. Maybe some can, but I think it takes a community of people that are jumping into that water with us to give us the courage to keep jumping into it.
Carrie: I’ve been processing this verse in James that talks about how you confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you will be healed. I just find that so powerful because we’re told Jesus is our high priest. So he’s the one that has to absolve us, so to speak of our sin, who we go to for forgiveness. But yet we’re told to confess to other people for this level of healing. That I believe is emotional of just saying, “look, I’m struggling and I need your support and love and prayers.”
Pastor Randy: I’ve never been involved in AA, alcoholics anonymous. I have been involved with adult children of alcoholics ACA, and there’s a fundamental belief in those communities is that when I get vulnerable, when I speak out loud, what I have on the inside of me, there’s something that gets healed in me when I’m sharing that in a community that’s accepting me and go on me too. When I get vulnerable and also I believe it heals something in you, it’s a gift that we give to one another that knits us, not just together, but gives us strength and courage to live our hearts on the outside.
Carrie: Right. Do you believe that kind of going back to isolation? So for people who don’t have these communities, maybe where they feel like they can be safe and vulnerable and open up, whether that’s a church, small group or support group, or something of that nature. Do you feel like that isolation just kind of continues to feed the dysfunction you were talking about?
Pastor Randy: It’s strange that the things that we begin to accept in our lives and even the routines that we began to allow to exist in our lives. And I think that for a lot of people that experience things like we’ve talked about pain, but also like loneliness that they receive loneliness as a curse rather than the emotion of loneliness is actually a blessing and understanding what that blessing, that inviting emotion is actually inviting you to.
They use that loneliness as a means by which they stir in shame into their story and then stepped back from community because they don’t feel like they’re worthy of community and then when you pour resentment on top of that shame and that loneliness, it leads to a real isolated place. But if we understand that loneliness is a gift from the Lord it’s a part of our hearts that’s crying out for, longing and for community and whether I’m lonely for myself or I’m longing a friend or for Jesus. It’s inviting me to something and that’s why we need community because that takes a lot of courage and loneliness to call somebody and go, “I need you, could we go out to dinner or can we go grab coffee?” or “Would you consider meeting with me once every Wednesday morning and let us just encourage each other.” That takes a lot of courage because that person may say “no”.
I think it’s, sometimes it feels easier just to isolate and medicate which is a tragedy. It’s really why we do what we do with our pastors because in ministry, who do you call and say, “I need you” when you’re the pastor of a church, you’re the person everybody calls for, you’re the need meeter. You’re the one that helps everybody else out and the tragedy of that is, imagine a pastor who is very healthy in his need for his community.
I’m not talking about being over needy in the sense of inappropriate but really needing the strength of the community to be spiritually healthy.
Carrie: Don’t most pastors have connections to other pastors though? I’m just thinking about this from the therapeutic lens. If I have a really difficult day or really hard session, I could name for you three or four people that I could call and in a confidential manner and say, “this is what happened to me today” or “this was a really hard session I’m having a hard time dealing with it personally.”
Do you feel like most pastors have that? Or some do and some don’t.
Pastor Randy: My experience is that most pastors don’t have that. My experience is that most pastors would say that they have friends who are pastors, but that their relationship with them is not on the level that you just described, where I can call that guy if I have to four times a week and connect with them, or even once a week. I think I don’t have them in front of me, but you can google search stats on how pastors are doing and it’s not a pretty picture.
Carrie: Just in terms of a lot of people dropping out of ministry or moral failings.
Pastor Randy: Yeah and even surveys about, do men feel fulfilled in their calling? Would they continue to do with what they’re doing if they could get another job?
It’s just ministry doesn’t have to be this miserable place of isolation. It’s miserable in the sense that you’re suffering as you’re caring for sheep, which is a hard, hard job. But you can do it in such a way that if you’re self-aware enough to take care of yourself so that you’re healthy and taking care of other people.
Carrie: That’s really huge. Being able to make sure that your needs are getting met and as Christians, yes, that’s from the Lord, but it’s also from Christian community. I don’t think we can just say, “I go to Jesus and he fills me up.” That’s great but our faith is so communal that we need that interaction and we need the accountability and the people to call out our blind spots, the things that we’re not seeing.
Pastor Randy: Yeah, we were born into a family. I love worship music, but I always chuckle when I hear songs that “All I need is Jesus” and as a pastor, I’m like, “Okay, that’s good” but that’s not what Jesus says. Even God in the garden said to Adam, it’s not good that you’re alone. Adam had God, he’s walking in the garden with God and God said, yeah, you need community. So we’re gonna create community right here. So I need people in my life and it’s how I often see Jesus is the community that God puts around me or the community I help build around me. And that’s the thing I see a lot is that people say, “Man, where do I go and find that community?” You probably aren’t going to go out and find that community, but you can start by you building that community, by finding one other person that you practice vulnerability with and then see who God adds to your number because I don’t think that there’s a whole community of people somewhere out there that are just waiting for us to join them. I think the Lord invites us to go and build that.
Carrie: It’s hard because we live in such an individualistic society or we’re taught possibly from a young age to be very independent and to not have needs and to make sure that we take care of our own business or don’t talk about things outside of the family a lot of times. So it can be a challenge to start engaging in that process. But like you said, if it’s just one person, if you find one safe person that you can be vulnerable with and start to develop that community, I think it will be attractive to the people that need it.
Pastor Randy: How do you help your clients do that?
Carrie: It’s tough. It really is tough. I think it depends on what their background is, faith-wise. Some of my clients, they don’t feel like they can go to people in their church and say, “Hey, I’m struggling with anxiety” or, “Hey, I have OCD.” That would be absolutely terrifying to them because unfortunately, church does not feel like a safe place, or they may have received different messages in the past like the Bible says, be anxious for nothing and you need to go pray about it some more. So there’s all kinds of different Christian communities and their responses to mental health obviously.
It’s so therapeutic for me that we’re having this conversation because I know for me personally, even pastors that I’ve dealt with in the past, I don’t think I could have had this kind of conversation with them.
And it’s always been very passionate for me to figure out how I can support the church as a mental health worker. Sometimes it’s received, sometimes it’s kind of like, “yeah, we want you here in this space” and other times it’s not received very well. So that’s been just an interesting personal journey amongst working with pastors. [00:29:14]
But now I’m in a very supportive place where my pastor is very open about mental health issues, and we’re able to talk about those things and how can I support the church and what does that look like. I’m in a good space with that now. Not all churches are open to counseling or those types of things, or it’s very taboo like “what’s really going on there? Is that really Christian? Is that Godly?”
I interviewed a woman and asked her about her experience in terms of mental health in the church. She literally said that pastors have their heads in the sand, like an ostrich. I was shocked by that but I was glad that she was honest and she just said, “that’s been my experience”. And I said, “Why do you think that is? And she said, “Well, because they would have to look at themselves first.” She said because we all at some level have some anxiety or some depression, or like you talked about trauma childhood wounds that maybe haven’t been healed yet and if we don’t do that internal process, how are we going to be able to support someone else that’s on that journey?
Pastor Randy: Yeah. That’s why when I was growing up, I went to a very traditional Southern church I grew up believing that joy was the bully of all the other emotions. That if you’re in pain, “Hey, just rejoice.” This is the day the Lord has made rejoice and be glad. It said joy comes in and beats up everywhere, whether it’s sadness or grief. You’re not a “good Christian” if you’re not rejoicing all the time and just happy, happy, happy, happy.
We get stuck with these crazy messages that mess with our heads which keeps us from navigating our hearts and so my experience, and even here at Midtown, we really celebrate the gift of counseling.
We really believe it’s a gift that the Lord has given to our community to help our people really do an internal journey because a lot of us need master navigators like you to guide us through this jungle called our heart and help us to put language to some of the things that we’re experiencing that our family never taught us how to talk about.
The gap that I often see that makes me sad is the gap between what’s happening in a counseling office to that person’s community. Ideally, I would love just to see a community of people from the church that are journeying with that person as they go to counseling. Out of counseling, that community is supporting them and carrying them, and listening to them. So that counseling with community or helping that person really becomes a full-hearted person. He was really maturing deeply in their life, but often even with very healthy people, what happens in the counseling office stays in the counseling office and what happens in community is often the tip of the iceberg or real surface kind of stuff.
I think that the work has to really be done on our side of this fence that the church needs to realize that AA group that’s meeting in the basement is experiencing vulnerability we need to take that out of the basement and bring it up into the sanctuary, and it’s going to start with the pastor. The only way his community can go on that journey if he’s not gone on that journey is if they go around him and if they go around them, it’s going to hurt him, the church.
Carrie: Wow. That’s so good. I know that I’ve been in group counseling situations and walked away from it and said, “that’s what church is supposed to be like.” This sense of unconditional acceptance for where people are at.
I see you. I see your struggle. I accept you and “Hey, I’m struggling on this journey too” and a lot of times, unfortunately, that isn’t people’s experience in church, but I think that things are shifting and changing. The more that we have these conversations, I hope that this podcast and these types of conversation, I hope it like provokes the church in the best possible way to start looking at this integration of our spiritual life and our mental health and how we can grow together. That those things for many years were believed to be in opposition of each other. “Don’t seek out that secular counseling stuff, that’s not in the Bible” and now we’re realizing that everything that we know about the brain and childhood trauma and all of these things, nothing is against what’s in the Bible in terms of our knowledge of psychology.
When we look at studies about forgiveness, we’re like, “We already knew that as Christians. We already knew that that freed you up” like it’s right there. So it’s just a passion for me to really integrate those two pieces really well.
Pastor Randy: I think It’s really crazy how we as human beings and you probably know more about this than I do, but how we as human beings love to label everything black and white. We love to put things in the categories that we accept and the categories we don’t accept. So there are people that would look at counseling and go, “all counseling is bad and they would give anecdotal stories where Aunt Betsy went crazy after seeing a counselor or whatever. People can say that about the church too. That there are churches that are crazy. They’re just crazy, but that’s not the entire Christian community. So I say that finding a really healthy counselor that really has a good idea of how to guide and care for their people I think is really an essential part of our lives, especially when we’re going through seasons of our lives that we can’t navigate or to understand ourselves even better or joining a support group just to grow emotionally. I would say to people, I would really encourage you to find a group of people in your faith community that can go on that journey with you as well. That it’s a partnership.
I just hate the thought that people go to counseling and they have to leave their faith community when I think that the faith community can actually go with them and support them and care for them and actually grow with them. That’s really a dream of mine.
Carrie: Yeah. I think I have had situations where when people healed from the shame. They were able to go back into their Christian community and talk more openly about their struggles once they were able to work through some of the trauma or the shame pieces, they were able to go back and say, “Hey, these are the things that I struggle with.” And then that opens up other people to say, “Oh, I’ve had some of those struggles too”, or “yes, I’m struggling, what are you doing about that?”
I think just this sense of when people are in therapy if they have support, that therapy process is so much easier than if they don’t have support. If we’re really like straining and stressing to find the sense of who are you connected with [00:36:41] that’s positive and healthy. That just takes a lot longer. Sometimes it ends up being the therapist. The therapist ends up being the positive relationship in their life until they can develop a healthy, positive relationship outside of therapy, but it works so much better if they have even just some kind of support people that they feel like they can call or talk to, or be open with.
So I wanted to ask you if you have any specific encouragement, maybe for people who are struggling with anxiety or OCD,
Pastor Randy: I’m not an expert on either one of those, but I’ve experienced both of those in my life and in the lives of people I care about. I would say that if anything to take the shroud of shame off of those things and to really get aggressive at seeing yourself as someone you’re willing to invest in and not being content with just trying to manage either one of those, but in that state, jump into counseling and find somebody that can help you understand what’s going on inside of you. Help you get some tools to really build and live a healthier you.
I’d also encourage you to find a church that would speak the gospel to you, and really speak the truth of God’s grace in your life. Find a community of people in that church that are willing to go on that faith journey with you that you can be vulnerable with and bring out of counseling into the open.
What’s happening here you might discover that people don’t run and hide from you when you share those vulnerable moments in your own life. You may actually find other people that are going, “me too.” That’s the journey together. You begin to see that what’s happening to you is not as unusual as you might think it is. That normalcy of our own struggles, I think let’s just take a deep breath and remove all the stuff from it that shouldn’t be on it anyway, which is just shame and embarrassment and the kind of things that we don’t want other people to see.
Carrie: That’s so good. I feel like it’s somewhat of a summary of the things that we’ve already been talking about.
Pastor Randy: What I’ve experienced in all the years that we’ve done in Midtown is nobody here has a hard time understanding that their centers, that relates to that’s a message that preaches itself, but you know what? Everybody has a hard time believing is that I’m Holy, but what Jesus did for me is he made me his beloved. That in Ephesians 1, it says that he chose me before the creation of the world and he has lavished grace on me and he did it because that’s his pleasure. That the pleasure of God is to pour on me a new name and love and wisdom and understanding. Sin, I have no need to convince me of that, but my shame is so loud sometimes believing that I am beloved, that my father in heaven is for me and he’s not against me.
Those are the things that I find unbelievable and there are things that are in the way for me to find that unbelievable. Sometimes there are barriers and sometimes there’s trauma and sometimes it’s addiction and sometimes it’s relationships and marriage that are hurting me. I feel belittled by my spouse or my children don’t respect me, or maybe I don’t love my kids
and I feel ashamed about that. All the things that we dare not even whisper in the shadows. And I would say to people, men, you need to pull all those things out and put them in the light of day. And a counselor is a great way to start but a community is a great place to trust. And then maybe you can start to believe the unbelievable story of what Christ came to do for us and what he’s done for us.
Carrie: Yeah. So good. At the end of every podcast, I ask our guests on the show to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.
Pastor Randy: So you sent me this question, what was this like 5 days ago and I thought about it. I could give you such great platitudes right now, Carrie, and talk about hope in Africa or all that kind of stuff and I thought that would be so unfair after this conversation. So I’m going to give you the real story. Okay, so in my garage, like I’m a motorcycle guy. It’s been something I’ve done since I was 15 and I love motorcycles in my garage. I have a couple of motorcycles and one is a project bike that’s been sitting in my garage, unmoved for almost a year and a half.
Sunday afternoon, one of my old friends called me and he said, “Hey, what are you doing this afternoon? Let’s get in your garage and play with that motorcycle.” I said, “okay, come on over.” And he’s one of those guys that we never get together and just talk small, talk like football, sports. He’s very open. He’s very vulnerable. He runs a prison ministry, he’s a musician and he plays to guys on death row. He’s just a very interesting guy. We played with that motorcycle for three hours and after it was done, that motorcycle started and I drove that thing up and down my street to the irritation of my neighbors because it has no muffler on it.
When he left, I realized there are things in our lives that sit dormant and we just avoid them. And I’m with that motorcycle for a year and a half, it’s in my garage and it wasn’t started, and sometimes it just takes a friend that calls and says, “Hey, I’m coming over and we’re going to open your garage.”
I just want to talk about that thing you have in your garage that should be running and it’s not, and it didn’t take a Herculean effort to get it started. It just took a Herculean friend who was willing to come over and when he left it just birthed hope in me that that’s what community is, is someone who’s willing to pick up the phone and say, “Hey, I’m coming over.”
And I would speak to the people in your audience who says, I don’t have a friend like that. And I would say, go be a friend like that. Go and be that friend and you’ll be surprised at how quick those kinds of people will gather around you and then come over to your garage.
Carrie: That’s really good and it only took three hours.
Pastor Randy: I know now they’re all my friends and they crack up that I still like riding motorcycles. Their kids love my motorcycles though. They’re very excited about that.
Carrie: They wave to you as you’re going down the street.
Pastor Randy: They want to get on the motorcycle with me.
Carrie: Very cool. Thank you so much for sharing this wisdom about vulnerability and community and connection with God and others. It’s been really great conversation and I think it’s really going to benefit people.
Pastor Randy: It’s a real joy to be with you, Carrie. Thank you so much.
I really think there are some great takeaways from this interview of just being there for other people, being the kinds of friends, and loving people that we want other people to be towards us. There’s a saying that if you’re able to be a friend, you’re able to make a friend.
I encourage you to find ways to make deeper connections. If you haven’t stopped by yet, I hope that you will visit our website, which is hopeforanxietyandocd.com.
Let me know what you would like to see on the website. I’m trying to compile some resources on there for you that I hope will be helpful.
Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam.
Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s great love for you.
In episode 2 of Hope for Anxiety and OCD, I had the opportunity to interview my own pastor. We discussed how people with anxiety and OCD wrestle with having these disorders and not receiving healing from God for them. He shares his own experiences of how his prayer life has grown and developed over the last several years. Pastor Troy discusses prayers that were answered and how he handles the ones that weren’t.
How Pastor Troy went from falling asleep to engaged during his time with God in the morning
Receiving the call to plant a church and the unexpected miracles along the way
How praying to God when you are mad or distressed increases intimacy
Transcript of Unanswered Prayers for Healing with Pastor Troy Powell
Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD Episode 2
I am your host Carrie Bock. Today, we’re going to be talking with Pastor Troy Powell, who is the pastor of Victory church. I have really been so blessed to be a part of the Victory family for the last couple of years. This was my first interview on the podcast.
I was super nervous even though I was already interviewing somebody that I knew and knew a lot of the stories that he was going to share. Today, we’re going to be diving into a lot of different issues like how do you develop a prayer life? How do you handle frustrations and disappointment with God when you’re praying?
What in the world do we do with unanswered prayer, especially surrounding healing from anxiety or OCD. So, if you have been praying for God to take your anxiety away and there’s no relief in sight, this episode is absolutely for you. Unfortunately, the audio for this episode is not the greatest. We had a big Tennessee thunderstorm roll in at the time that we were recording this.
You may hear some thunder in the background. I know that our editor has done the best that he can on his end to improve the sound quality. Please don’t judge our show by episode 2 audio. The content was so good that I didn’t want to scratch it. I really wanted to be able to provide an opportunity for you guys to hear this stuff because it’s just really good.
Pastor Troy’s Journey to Becoming a Pastor
Carrie: Welcome to the podcast.
Pastor Troy: Excited to be here.
Carrie: In church backgrounds, we call our pastors all kinds of different things. Sometimes, people will say like, “Brother Troy”, or typically we call you Pastor Troy, but recently you’ve really embraced this new nickname of PT. I’m curious about how that came about?
Pastor Troy: Pastor Troy has been weird for me in a way. I’m not heavily educated in that theology realm. I’ve got a little bit of theology background and I’ve always just been a servant leader at the church. So when the day came to be called Pastor Troy, that was weird for a while. Plus, I’m from Memphis and there’s a rapper named Pastor Troy. Don’t go buy any of his CD’s. They’re not good. A quick, funny story- there was a Cat’s Music that on the sign out front had like Pastor Troy on it because he had a new album out. The children’s pastors and all the kids were showing in the church, “What are you doing in the Cat’s Music?” and I was like, “Don’t go to Cat’s Music.” I didn’t even know who it was, maybe Jamal or somebody just kind of quickly said, “PT” and that sticks because it’s quicker and it’s easier to say. I love it because it’s both respectful, but at the same time, relatable and kind of chill. So, you can really have a good conversation with somebody.
Carrie: Cool. So tell us a little bit about the journey to becoming a pastor and planting Victory church.
Pastor Troy: I’ll try to do the smallest critical, condensed version of that. I didn’t go to church, didn’t know anything about the Lord till about 17. I sat beside a young man in a math class at school. He started talking to me and we found out that we both liked basketball and so on.
He invited me to his church where they played basketball and long story short, I just fell in love with the environment. The people were super nice. Our kind of tagline at our church is “You’re here on purpose because you have a purpose.” I’ve always known there was a better purpose to life than just give money or become famous or whatever. I could never find that. I worked jobs. I’ve worked them for a day or an hour and quit cause I was like, “What is the purpose of this?” I started going to church for girls, basketball, the food, and all that kind of stuff. The more I stuck around, the more I started to realize, “Hey, there’s something to this.”
Long story short, God grabbed me, held onto me, and then I just said, “Hey, this is what I want to give my life to.” So, I started stacking chairs at the church, that kind of thing, and one by one, the opportunity would open when I’d walk to the door.
Long story of how I got from there to at the time I was the Executive Pastor of our church in Memphis. I just felt this weird, we couldn’t explain that at the time, but it was this urge, this calling in our heart to shepherd people, to pastor people. My two pastors, Matt and Ron Woods would tell us “You’ve got an anointing on your life to be a pastor.” We didn’t know what that meant. We love to counsel our friends. We love to teach the Bible, love to preach the Bible on any Sunday. It was just amazing. We loved pastoring people to our pastor’s vision. We loved shepherding people and we always did it from another pastor.
God Called Pastor Troy To Plant A Church
That was the assignment God had for us, but we just knew that there was a time coming where we would be pastoring our own church. It was just kind of a moment where the church was going in a certain direction. We didn’t really want to go in that direction personally. We knew something was changing for us. We went to our pastor and said, “Hey, this is what’s going on” and our pastor said, “Have you ever considered planting a church?” and we were like, “We didn’t know anything about it.” The more he described it, I said, “That sounds terrible.”
I have to quit my job, raise funds, move my family, get my kids out of school, sell my house, move somewhere potentially that I’ve never been. Then, beg people who don’t know me to give up their life for something. That sounds completely like the hardest thing you could possibly do.
So I said, “No, there’s no way I’m doing it.” And he said, “Well, go with me to a conference,” and I said, “Sure.” So he took me to the conference and the Lord confirmed through a particular preacher that day.
That’s what was happening. She (spouse Darla) had to stay at home because we had small kids. At the altar, at this place, I was crying because I know that God has called us to do this. I didn’t know she was watching the same service online at home in the kitchen and she’s crying at the same time. She’s texting me after it was over and she goes, “We’re doing it” and I was like, “Yes, we are.”
We knew from that moment forward this will come up. There were a lot of hardships and hurdles to jump but we never lost faith. In fact, we were supposed to do it because of the way that we didn’t want it. We didn’t see it as an opportunity to be the leaders or something. We didn’t see it as the opportunity to get more money or to be finally the person, the boss. We just saw it as an opportunity to walk where God had us and we knew it. Again, He kind of dragged us at first, but as we fell into that place and said yes, the doors started swinging wide open. There’s no doubt in my heart that this is what God’s called us to do.
Carrie: I like two things about that story that you shared. One is like the sense that you had other people in your life that confirmed God’s vision for your life. I think sometimes it’s easier for other people to see it and we catch that up later like God speaks to us over time and it’s like maybe that is really valid what that person is trying to say. I definitely can relate to times where I told God, “No” and He was like, “nN, you’re really doing this.”
Pastor Troy: I heard a guy say one time that we struggle seeing the anointing or the calling on our lives because we’re the only person we can’t see. Everybody can see us. Everybody can see that you’re gifted. Everybody can see that you’re beautiful. Everybody can see these things, but you don’t see it. As much as that happens with a woman who’s beautiful and is insecure about her beauty, it happens with an individual who is anointed to do the work of God but just doesn’t see it like everybody else sees it. Like you said, it’s valuable when you have somebody in your life, people who are able to tell you, “You are called to do this. You can do it.”
Carrie: That’s good. I think it speaks to the value of the church and being a part of a community because more and more people are fleeing the church in a sense saying, “Hey, I want God but I don’t want anything to do with organized religion”, or “I’ve been burned in the past by churches and so I’m not going to have anything to do with that aspect of my faith.” I think it’s unfortunate because we miss out on so much when we do that.
Building Relationship Is Vital In Church Planting
Pastor Troy: It is very unfortunate because number one, I just believe that the church is the hope of the world. Number two, I believe it is where you find that fellowship. We try to design Victory this way. We’re not perfect by any means but I always wanted to be a place where right off the bat, you come in the door and you’re welcomed. You belong before you believe. It’s not about your belief system. It’s not about your standards and all that.
Jesus went fishing like he’ll clean you after He catches you or however it works. You get people in the door and then you build a relationship with them and you get some relationship equity. Then, as you build relationship equity, you’re able to have those conversations about, “Here’s what the Bible says about this. Here’s what the Bible says about that.” Then, of course, you’re preaching the whole time and allowing the Holy Spirit to do that.
Don’t get me wrong, every Sunday before you start trying to essentially change somebody’s life, maybe the way they’ve been living it for 20 years, you may want some relationship equity first so there is weight behind that where you’re saying, “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t do this. Maybe you shouldn’t do that” because of that relationship. That’s where I think the church has got off a little bit as you walk in the door and they’re telling you what you shouldn’t do, and you’ve already got a blow-up. So, you turn around and leave to where they would build a relationship, love you through the way somebody loved them.
I’ll jump off the subject of this. When I started coming to our church in Memphis, which was called Raleigh Assembly of God, I was so far away from God. People, specifically Ron and Timmy Kennemore, they’ve been at our church multiple times. They’ve been there at every birthday. They were there for the launch. They parented me. They wrapped their arms around me and loved me and I was not lovable, but they did. That to me was a picture of Christ. That’s I believe what the local church can do and can be if people are willing to let it use them that way.
Carrie: That’s awesome. I think relationship is really a key and really important in any change. Sometimes the kindest thing that we can do for people is to speak up and say, “Hey, you’re going down the wrong path” or “You’re on the path of destruction and let me guide you over here and that’s going to lead you to the path of life.”
Taking The Prayer Relationship To A Different Level
One of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast was to talk about your prayer life and how it’s grown and developed to where you are now. Can you share a little bit about that story?
Pastor Troy: Certainly, this is one of my favorite stories to talk about simply because I think it’s one that God uses.
So again, I get saved. I’m very young and immature in Christ. I just start serving God and I was serving because I was around, I ended up in circles with more spiritual, mature people. I was a janitor at the church. I was an assistant to different staff members. I just kind of do that whole deal but I’d always struggled with having a consistent prayer life. I would hear people talk about their quiet time or their time with the Lord or when they read, pray, whatever they called it. I wanted it bad but I just couldn’t do it. There was the hurdle of not quite understanding it but as I grew up and as I stayed in the church, that kind of got fixed, but part of it was just, I would try hard and I just couldn’t do it. I’d wake up in the morning and I’d go in the living room and I’d fall asleep trying to do it. I’m not a morning person. I like to get up in the morning, but I don’t wake up and go like, “Oh right.” I don’t drink coffee, so I don’t have any kind of immediate wake-up. I remember when Darla and I really started talking about doing this, planting this church which was probably a year and a half to two years before we actually moved to do it. I just remember saying, “Alright, something’s got to change.” I’ve got to take that prayer relationship to a different level and I know, again, I’d wake up in the morning, I’d go in the living room. I’d sit on the floor, get my Bible out, and then, I’d fall asleep. It was just not working.
Hearing God’s Answer Audibly
Interestingly enough at the same time, I had gained some weight through the stress of ministry. That’s a whole another podcast. She (Darla) said, “You need to get in the gym.” I’d never been at the gym and so I said, “Fine, I’m going to the gym and lose some weight.” So I go to the gym one night and I’m walking into the gym, and I don’t even know what to do. I don’t know how this machine works.
People are looking at me like I’m weird simply because of God. I turned around and my brother-in-law, Darla’s brother, is walking in the door and I’m like, “I didn’t know you work out here.” and he’s like, “yeah.” And I was like, “Man, is there any chance we could work out together? I don’t know what I’m doing today.” He said, “Sure, but normally I’m here at five o’clock,” and I was like, “That’s no big deal” and I think it was like six-thirty or seven o’clock at night. He goes, “No, no, I’m only here at 5:00 AM.” I was like, “Oh, I thought there was only one five on the clock.”
I’ve never really heard the Lord audibly, but I can feel it so strong in my spirit that it sounds audibly. God says, “This is what you’ve been asking for,” and so I just said, “You know what, I’m going to do it. You’ll hold me accountable. I know you will and so I’ll come.”
Walking The Track With God
I don’t remember the exact day we started, but I get up at 4:30. I drink the pre-workout that he gave me. It’s kind of caffeine. I get in my car and drive to the gym. We worked out from five to six. Six o’clock, he leaves. We have a couple of the guys with us too. Six o’clock in the morning, I’m standing in the gym that’s almost empty, nothing but senior adults in it. I don’t normally wake up until seven so I’ve got an hour in time that I’m not normally not even up for.
They happened to have one of those tracks above their gym that went all the way around. So, I said, “Well, I’m just going to go walk.” I’m going to put on my headphones and I’m going to try to pray and I walked up there. I put my headphones into Christian music and I just walked and I just started talking to God.
I didn’t have a diagram. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have a layout. I don’t even think I actually said a prayer during that first hour, but that hour flew by. I just talk to God as if me and Him were walking that track. There was nobody up there but myself and it was beautiful. It was great.
I felt better about myself. I felt excited to be able to say, “I prayed today,” and so I just started the process and kept it going. I don’t do it on Sunday mornings because normally we’re at church. If we’re on vacation, I won’t work out, but I’d still walk, pray, but I haven’t missed a day in five years.
Carrie: Wow. That’s awesome.
Listening To The Same Praise Worhip Music List Helps
Pastor Troy: Certainly, it’s matured. It’s grown. It changed my life. What it looks like now is I don’t have to get up as early. Praise God. I will do it if he ever calls me to do that again, but I will get to the gym, I’ll work out. Actually, now I pray first. I’ll get there, I’ll drink my pre-workout while I’m praying.
A couple of keys in case anybody’s listening and wants to model it, I listened to the same praise worship list or music list because I don’t want to be distracted by the song. I don’t want to be surprised. I don’t want the genre of music to change or to go from soft music to loud music or fast music. So, it’s the same. It’s almost like it’s white noise.
It drowns out the people that are around me. I now have a prayer request on my phone, different prayer requests that I marked cause I’m gonna show you something in a minute that I brought for this. That’d be pretty cool.
Carrie: That’s awesome.
Checkbox To Highlight Answered And Unanswered Prayers
Pastor Troy: I’ve now actually got an app on my phone where I can read the Bible now during that time as well, and take notes on what I’m reading. So in that whole hour, I start off thinking about God. I’ll go into my prayer requests. I’ll read my daily reading for that day. Of course, depending on what’s happening in my life, it kind of changes.
One thing I wanted to show you this, I don’t know if you’ll be able to see this at all, but this is the book I had when I first started doing my prayer. These are some of the prayer requests that I had written down. They can be very specific. I wish I could share this one day. I actually have my beard because I wanted to grow a beard so bad.
During this season, we had to sell our house. We had people moving with us. One of our guys lost his job. They said they were going to allow him to work, move to Nashville but work from Memphis. They fired him. We had to raise $175,000. Our water heater went out.
I had all these people. We had people who were asking to move with us. So, I had all these prayer requests and I just could not get that verse out of my mind, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” So I would pray over these things. The reason why they’re highlighted is that He answered the prayer.
My phone has a little checkbox that you get but what that does for me is it allowed me to go back and see all that God was doing. One of them that’s not highlighted on here because I had moved out of this book is church location. I moved on to a different book.
Carrie: That’s awesome.
Pastor Troy: It’s been life-changing for me. First of all, understand this about me, Carrie, I don’t like surprises. I like to set stuff up. I like my house. I want to clean the dishes, put the dishes in the cabinet and let them set there cleanly and I’d rather use a paper plate, never get them dirty. Like, I’m weird. I like stuff to be stable and so not only did I pick the number one career for my life to become unstable, but now I have to deal with everybody else’s lack of stability, right? If their mother becomes sick, if their job furloughs them, I’m now involved in that.
Experiencing God While Working Out Put Things Into Perspective
I have a lot of anxiety or I have potential for a lot of anxiety and this has been life-changing for me because every morning I go get my perspective right. I sit, I bring whatever it is I’m dealing with and then I give Him the actual day [00:19:00] and I can spend some time reading my Bible and worship if that day calls for it. When I go work out, I listen to podcasts and sermons while I’m working out. So it’s like a two-hour experience with God and by the time I leave, I am so jazzed for the day with a different perspective.
God Cares About Everything, Even Little Things Like A Hair Tie
Carrie: That’s awesome. I like that you prayed about your beard because I think there are some things that we really think, “Oh, that’s too small or it’s too insignificant” or “I can’t really bring that to the Lord.”
There was a story one time where I was on my way to the gym and I was like, “Oh, I forgot a hair tie” and I was like if I go through this workout class I’m just going to go crazy cause my hair is going to be flying everywhere and some really gonna bother me. I got there to the gym and I opened up the locker and there were two hair ties in there and I was like, “I know this is the Lord.” I know there were two because you had been preaching [00:20:00] about how God wants to do more in your life. I was like, “See, there it is, it’s right there.”
I love little things like that. God’s concerned about the details of our life. Yes, He’s concerned about our job and our health and our family and things like that but he’s also concerned about little stuff that most people would find insignificant or say, “You don’t really need to bother God with that.” I guess, so to speak. He’s not bothered by any of it.
Pastor Troy: Not at all. I have two kids, a 10-year-old and a five-year-old. The five-year-old is still really little and she still has a raspy voice. If that little girl asks me for anything, if she says daddy, “I can’t find my hair tie.” I will flip this house upside down to find it for her and on a second, I’d say. “We’ll just get another one” or “Hey honey, your hair’s fine down” but she wants it and your love for her drives you to find it. There’s a verse, I don’t remember the reference, but it talks about how a dad will not give [00:21:00] their son. I think it’s like a rock if they asked for a fish. So how much more would God not do that to us? If that’s the way I feel about Kacey Rae, how much more does God feel that way about me?
If I can get to that level of intimacy where not only am I asking Him for healing and provision, but I’m asking Him to give me a hair tie, that’s the level of intimacy that most people never get to.
God Does’nt Get Offended When We Are Mad At Him
Carrie: That’s awesome. So what do we do when we do pray about some of the big things? I look at things that have happened in my life. I lost my foster children. I lost my marriage and I remember specifically when I lost my foster children, I just said, “You know, God, I will live a thousand years and I will never understand why you allowed that to happen in my life.”
Do you feel like it’s okay for us to go to God with [00:22:00] things like doubt or questioning? If you could talk about that for a little bit.
Pastor Troy: Yes. First of all, I think that’s always the hardest part about having a consistent prayer life because if you have a consistent prayer life, you are eventually going to ask God for something that He doesn’t give. It’s just going to happen like“go ahead and mark it on.” I could find stuff in this book and some of the stuff are highlighted, but it’s not highlighted because He gave me the prayer. It’s highlighted because I didn’t get it. I just knew that was the answer.
Obviously, If I had the supernatural answer for why God does those things, I’d write a best-selling book, but I do want to say this to the direction you were going, during that time that I have in prayer, there’s often a time that I call the lamenting time. You go through the Bible, you see David do it. [00:23:00] You see Joseph, you see different men and women of God where there’s a season where they cry out and they’re angry at God and sometimes it lasts for only a short time. I think David when his son with Bathsheba dies, he cries out, he tears his clothes, and then you’ve done that and I’d get up and move on.
Here’s what I’ve learned from that, number one, God doesn’t shake or get offended or shiver when I get mad at him. I don’t get scared when my daughters get mad at me because I don’t let them do something they want to do. I understand the process. So as long as I’m communicating with them. I tell my kids all the time, “You don’t have to agree with me, let’s talk about it”.
A lot of times with God, I think what it is God’s saying, “That’s fine. Go ahead get it off your chest. Cry, yell a little bit, scream” like, “God I can’t take it.”
I think what He tries to teach us is that principle, I haven’t learned it quite to a level of excellence [00:24:00] yet, but the ability to cry, lament but once you’re done get up and move on.
Once there’s a moment that you have done that and you have had a perspective shift or you have had confidence now that for whatever reason God didn’t give it to you but God is on the throne, let’s move on. I think you and I both could name many, many moments in Memphis where now that I look back, I’m thankful God didn’t answer that prayer.
Carrie: Yeah, absolutely.
Lamenting To God Will Draw Us Closer To Him
Pastor Troy: There are still things that I will go to my grave probably wondering, “God, why didn’t you give that to me” “Why didn’t you make it easier?” That whole idea of God’s looking at the puzzle from the top and we’re looking at it piece by piece. I believe and I would love to assure anybody that in your prayer time with the Lord, do not hesitate to just let Him know how you feel. Do not hesitate. If you’re unhappy with something, tell him. If it didn’t go the way you want it to, [00:25:00] go get mad, scream, yell. I think He just draws us closer. I think He just continues to console us and lets us lament to Him so that we can get through that season and into a season of healing.
Carrie: There’s a certain emotional connection that comes about when you welcomed the emotion into the room. So like for example, in counseling, sometimes people have a hard time crying in front of me initially, but then when they do that, it’s a connecting point. I think the same is true of God. If we try to hide our feelings from Him or come to Him in some kind of pious religious way, then we’re missing that deeper layer of intimacy to say, “I’m hurting right now,” or “I’m mad at you” or “All of these emotions are here.” We just miss out on that connection.
Being Vulnerable with God Will Deepen Our Intimacy With Him
Pastor Troy: My wife and I don’t have a lot of fights, but we like to call them “intense conversations.” [00:26:00] Everyone we’ve ever had, if I look back on it, because of that conversation, we grew in our level of intimacy. When you’re angry, you’ll say things that you really feel. You may not say them in the best of ways, but you’re no longer beating around the bush. You’re no longer sugarcoating it. You are just, “You know what, here it is” and when those moments happen again, you can’t just turn around and walk out of the house and not talk about it. When handled correctly, I think that recovery from a fight or recovery from a disagreement, or whatever misunderstanding brings a new level of intimacy. I think it’s the same way with God. When we have that time, that intense conversation with God, we see once we get through it, there’s a higher level of intimacy.
Carrie: I agree. I think that’s great. It really goes back to prayer, being more about a relationship with God, [00:27:00] rather than this is something that I do because I’m obligated to do it or I pray in a certain way because that’s what I was taught at church.
I know for me for a long time, I wasn’t really honest in my prayer life, not at the gut level, honest place and I think that difficulty with being vulnerable with God and being vulnerable with other people really scented my spiritual growth in a way. When I went through difficult things and tragedy, my prayers got a lot more gut-level honest to where I could be real. That drew me closer to the Lord in the end even though I wasn’t happy with the process of having to go through those things.
Pastor Troy: I think you hit it on the head. I think that the number one foundation has to be laid out is that prayer life has to be way more about having relationship with God and less about a religious process or even a means to an end. It’s not I’m doing [00:28:00] it so that I can get A, B or C. A lot of days where I don’t even pray a prayer request. I just talk through what I’m going through. I just talk through what I’m thinking and my insecurities and all those kinds of things and I feel better. I didn’t even ask for anything. God may answer one of those prayer requests that day because obviously, I’ve prayed about it before, but it’s about having that daily meeting.
The Bible talks about being at a level with God where you are revealed the mysteries of God. I really think that the more we can get close to God in an intimate level where we get to a place where our prayer time is more about just hanging out with him than it is about a means to an end, when you keep it regular.
God always knows where to find me and my wife will talk about this, anytime she’s praying about something that she wants God to move in my heart, she’ll pray in the morning when I’m at the gym because she knows I’m in [00:29:00] conversation with God. God wants to do anything. If God wants to speak something to me, He knows where to find me.
I said this at church recently, when all of the COVID-19 stuff hit and we weren’t allowed to go to the gym, I walked and ran outside around my neighborhood and prayed. I remember praying about COVID-19, praying for our church, praying for people who had lost jobs and so on and so on. I remember saying to the Lord, “I’m so glad this isn’t the first time you’re hearing from me. I’m so glad that because the world’s upside down and all of a sudden I’m talking to you. I’m glad that for five years, I’ve been talking to you when it was a Saturday when all we had to do was lay around the house and play games when it was the best of best days, I was praying to you that morning.”
I’m glad that that’s the routine I’ve put in place, which in result has created an intimate level of relationship which I think has unlocked some of God’s mysteries.
When God Doesn’t Answer Your Prayers…
Carrie: That’s good. A little bit about this in terms of unanswered prayer. I just wanted to address maybe for people that are listening [00:30:00] out there who would say, “I’ve prayed for healing for my anxiety” or maybe they’re having debilitating panic attacks on a regular basis. Maybe they’re struggling with OCD which can impact people’s connection, ability to pray, relationship with God. So for somebody who said, “I’ve been praying for God to take these things away and I’ve been praying for healing and I haven’t received it and I’m just so discouraged by that”. What would you say to encourage them?
Pastor Troy: That’s a great question. Obviously, every situation is going to be different, right? Because of that particular situation, how long have they been in it? Throughout the Bible, you’re seeing so many people healed and delivered. I think we automatically fall in that vein that we think prayer should bring healing and deliverance right.
About Bob, we may not forget about what he went through. The person I immediately think about that I think would allow me to bring some encouragement in this area. [00:31:00] is Paul. When Paul says “I’ve got this thorn in my side, and I’ve been praying for God to take it away once, twice, three times and God has not removed it.”
I think that’s such a funny situation because Paul is such an incredible man of God who has given his life to the kingdom of God, asking for this little thing to be delivered and God doesn’t do it. I heard a preacher say one time, the reason that they don’t identify the thorn is so that you and I could apply whatever our thorniest into that, as if it was a blank. The part that I don’t hear preached about enough is when Paul’s talking about the thorn. He says a couple of lines in there that reveals that what it’s doing is keeping him in humility, but also bringing him to the feet of Jesus.
The best way I can explain this is with this illustration: four years ago, five years ago, [00:32:00] I had this extremely bad situation with kidney stones. I think they said it was like 13 kidney stones in both kidneys. I had a brand new baby. Kacy Rae was just born. My wife is dealing with a newborn baby by herself and I’m on medication painkillers, whatever it was, just enough to let me go to work. Six o’clock I was right back into pain so I would come home.
Darla would have the heating pad on the couch. I would sit on the couch and do nothing. She would handle a five-year-old and a newborn by herself. I would just sit on the couch looking at the TV. By seven o’clock, I was so miserable. All I want to do is go to bed. So I go to bed. I’d lay in the bed. I could hear her screaming at our kids, dealing with our kids’ crying.
[00:33:00] At two or three in the morning, I just go in the living room and watch Boy Meets World. It was miserable and this went on for like four months straight. It was just terrible. I prayed. Every second of every day and I pray like this, “God, you could snap your fingers and it would just stop right now, so why aren’t you?”
I could write down you a list, 10, maybe 20 things that God taught me through that experience. Had it not happened, I wouldn’t be the same. I wouldn’t be the same physically as far as fitness. I wouldn’t be the same in my marriage. I wouldn’t be the same in my intimacy with God. I would not be the same father.
I’ve preached a sermon before about taking my kids for granted and when they wanted to hang out and do something, I was like,” Oh, I’m too busy. Every time they said my name, I dropped what I was doing and went and spent time with them. So I say that if somebody is going like, “I need some hope and all these because God’s not taking it away from me,” instead of praying, “God, take it away from me” shift that. Still, pray by all means as Paul didn’t stop praying. Start praying, “God, what are you trying to teach me in this? What is the perspective you want me to see?” What are some things in that intimacy with Him? Again, like we were talking about earlier, you’re not going to Him with a means to an end. Now, it’s not we’re going out and talking to you so you will deliver me so that once I’m delivered from it, I’ll just move on because we all have that tendency that once our problems are fixed, we forget.
It’s a lot easier to stay on the other side because obviously, God did end up healing me. It could’ve been a lot quicker, but he did end up doing it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to belittle the situation because it’s just so much easier talking about it when you’ve been delivered from it. If I was going to give an encouragement, it would take some time to set up a [00:35:00] situation where you have an hour a day of prayer and for 15 minutes, pray that God would deliver you, even then for 45 minutes, pray that God would help you see why He hasn’t.
God’s Gift In Unanswered Prayers
Carrie: I try to remind myself, sometimes God’s always working. God’s doing something here, even if I don’t see what it is or I don’t know where this is going. Even in our culture of American and what’s happening right now between COVID-19, between race relations, God’s doing something in our nation.
If we are tapped in and we are tuned in and saying, “God, what are you doing in my life? What are you doing in my community? What are you doing in the nation and the world?” Then I think we’re going to be a lot better prepared to handle situations as they arise. They’re out of our control.
Pastor Troy: A hundred percent. It’s about stewardship, right? So you mentioned COVID-19, [00:36:00] I think God has got so many things that He’s going to do by the time all this is over both through the racial dividing and through COVID.
I’m going to use the COVID-19, for example, when it first hit, we went a couple of months, we couldn’t even leave our houses. The kids weren’t going to school. Not that any of that really changed, but it was really extreme. So number one, we had dinner meetings every night. We were meeting people every night, so we were never eating at home. That forced us that we can’t go to restaurants, so we’re cooking at home.
My back porch was just a bunch of junk piled up. Somebody had given me a free grill. I never even turned it on. So Darla and I took some time and we bought a swing and we cleaned it up and we cleaned the grill up and we got some plants and put out a table and long story short, four months later, every night, we have dinner with the kids. We’ll put them in bed and then we go sit on that porch and we just swing and we talk.
So my point is that God gives us these, whether we’re considering it a gift. So again, back to [00:37:00] Paul, he talks about the stone, he says, “God gave me that.”
Nobody’s going to consider COVID-19 a gift right now but if you allow the spirit of God to give you a little bit of perspective shift, again, not that any of those things are good, people being sick, people dying, small business, that’s all bad, and we need to do all we can to help. We’re a mess, whatever it might be, but there’s another side of it that says, “All right, God” I’m going to also look the other way and say, “What can change in a positive way as a result of this? What can I learn that makes me a better person.” Moving forward from what people would have considered a terrible situation.
Carrie: Right. There’s a gift in there at some point. I want to end our podcast time together. This has been really awesome. Some of the things that you’ve shared and topics that we’ve gotten into.
Pator Troy’s Story of Hope
I like to ask every guest, what is a moment of hope maybe that stands out for you, a time where you received hope [00:38:00] from God or someone else in a period of maybe a discouragement or time where you had a hard time moving forward?
Pastor Troy: There’s so many. I think of two big wins right off the bat though. I’ll try to say real briefly, the first one, which you’ve probably heard me talk about before, we had to raise $175,000 to launch our church and my dad’s blue-collar, “If you want money, you work for it.” That was really difficult for me to ask people and God actually kept providing so we were about $65,000 away from our goal and we decide that we’re gonna launch the church nine months earlier than we originally planned. We’re going to launch in September. We moved to January. So we kind of started panicking. We didn’t want to have to borrow money even though there are great organizations out there that will let you do that.
We wanted to launch debt-free and so we just didn’t know what we’re going to do. We have missed some deadlines for some of those applications and I remember just praying like, “God, I need something.” [00:39:00] Long story short, a pastor friend of mine whose church is kind of a parenting church of ours, called us up there for a video and totally pretended like it was one thing. Darla and I arrived and they handed us a check for $65,000. It’s moments like that, that it can only be God.
The second one, since I had this book, I was going to show you or read it to you cause I don’t have it memorized. So we were supposed to launch the church or plant the church. We felt that calling from that conference.
I’m trying to decide the name of the church and I’m getting kind of uneasy because we don’t know where we’re going. I’m starting to get to that point of like, “God did you really call us?” because all the people that I know are like, “Oh, God called us here.” Most people got called back to where they were born. At some point and God called them back to it. We were leaving where both Darla and I were born. So there was no like, “Oh, we’re supposed to go [00:40:00] here.” I was just kind of getting to that point of doubt. I needed some hope.
I had to go to a conference that I didn’t want to go to. It’s normally a boring conference for me but my pastor made me go. So I said, “well, that’s fine.”
I’ll go but I’ll sit in the back and play candy crush and get through it. So we’re getting ready for the first night and the guy who’s speaking is like 80 years old.
So I’m like, “This is not going to be entertaining for me.” My pastor says, “come here” and he takes me to the front row beside him, and then before it starts, he gets a phone call and leaves. He leaves me on the front row by myself. So I can’t play candy crush because everybody’s gonna see. So I did what I had to do. I listened and I took notes. He preached this entire sermon and I forget the title of it, but he preached it. He just read the verse when he started off, Hebrews 11:8 and he reads this [00:41:00] “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”
I just remember floodgates just because you can’t write a better script than that. You know what I mean? Like God knows that’s what I’m struggling with. It takes you to this place I don’t want to be and He makes me listen and that guy steps up, and that’s the first words he said.
It’s just a couple of, probably hundreds of moments that I could share with you where God has given me the little nuggets of hope to just keep me moving in the path that He’s got to move me on.
Carrie: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I look forward to when we can see each other in person and all hug each other and all that good stuff at church, it’ll be a good day. We’ll probably all be okay.
[00:42:00] I really hope that this episode blessed you as much as it did me and I am so thankful to be connected to a pastor who cares about and is in support of mental health.
You can reach me for show opinions and suggestions at our website hopeforanxietyandocd.com.
Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing was completed by Benjamin Bynam.
Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s great love.
