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Neurosurgeon and award-winning author Dr. W. Lee Warren, MD delivers daily prescriptions from neuroscience, faith, and common sense on how to lead a healthier, better, happier life. You can’t change your life until you change your mind, and Dr. Warren will teach you the art of self brain surgery to get it done. His new book, Hope Is the First Dose, is available everywhere books are sold.
Friend, we're back and I am excited. It is Sunday afternoon here on the river
and that can only mean that it's Tuesdays with Tata.
How are you doing, Tata? I'm doing well. How are you?
I'm good. I'm looking out there and it looks beautiful, but it doesn't feel
very good, does it? It's hot. It is hot. Very hot today.
There's a wind from the south that feels like a sauna. That's right. Yes.
Crazy. Very hot wind. Yep. Tata, this week I was out running on the driveway
and I got charged by a badger. Yes, I saw the picture.
That was funny. This place has so much wildlife. Yeah.
Not all of it friendly. That would have frightened me right there.
Yeah. I'm going to have to start running with a handgun, I think. Yeah.
Or the infantry. Yeah. Or bring Al Genitone with me, maybe. Yeah.
It's all in August, and we're down to the wire here.
We're nearly at the end of the month. And I hope you've joined us on this journey.
But we've done a podcast every single day this month.
And if you haven't started, then use September as your all-in month.
You can go back and get all these resources that we've talked about,
all the episodes and all the conversations and all the things we've talked about,
and it'll be helpful to you.
But Tata's got another lesson for us this week.
Tata, who are we going to talk about? I mean, 1 Kings 19, we're talking about Elijah and Elisha.
Remember, we talked about Elijah one time before. Yes, we did.
And we left him, and in 1 Kings 19, he was fleeing Jezebel.
Elisha was. He had an encounter with the prophets of Baal, and Ahab told Jezebel
all about it, and Jezebel threatened to kill him. That's right. So he ran.
All of this took place, but the main thing I want to talk about is Elisha himself about being all in.
He was all in. He was all in to be the assistant or the helper for Elijah.
He tried to understudy. Yeah.
But he was plowing when he got the call. And he was plowing with 12 oxen.
Think about that. 12 oxen, and he was plowing with them?
That's a big plow. I think it was several plows. But anyway,
you think about the normal, probably a normal Jewish person,
farmer at that time may have had one. Yeah.
And if he was probably well off, he would have had two. Yeah.
Because oxen had to be cared for. That's right.
So this was the family business. He was running the family farm here.
It's like Jerry Deaver and the guys had all their combines out there in the
field. That's right. This is what Elisha was doing.
But when he decided that he was going to go with Elijah, he burned all the plows
and sacrificed the oxen.
Yeah, he chopped up the oxen and cooked them on the plow wood.
Yeah, with the ox yolk.
That's right. So he made a decision that he was going to be all in.
There was no going back. And what it reminds me of is the story when you talked
about burning the ships.
That's right. Or the missionaries that packed all of their goods in coffins.
That's right. They were never going back. That's right.
And I don't know if that's a decision that we have to make, that if that's a
posture we have to take, but we have to decide it's a choice.
That we have to decide what we're going to do.
And and elisha when he decided he was
very deafened that's right now what kind
of posture did that put him in with his mom and dad
i don't know i don't think they were very
happy with probably not that's a good point and don't hear us say that you've
got to go kill all your cattle and burn them up and give them to god that's
not your calling for all and what elisha was doing was saying my former life
was i'm a plow hand and my new life is i'm a prophet and i'm not going back And I'm not going back.
I even be like me, burning down my operating room and all my instruments.
Like, I'm not going back. Plus, I'd be in a lot of trouble with Ivan,
the CEO of the hospital. Yeah, that's true. It's all in.
That's true. And so, what we do when we decide to go all in,
we decide that this is what we're going to do. That's right.
And it's not, and what Elisha is saying is there was no going back for him.
That's right. He was not going back on the decision that he was all in and that
he was going to replace Elijah.
And if you look forward, that Elisha, he was right with him.
And what was interesting to me, though, is when Elijah put his cape or his cloak
on Elisha. He said, what have I done to you?
So, even if Elisha was faced not only with making that decision,
he was faced with deciding, is this the right guy for me?
So, he was looking at a very hard place.
And I'm saying that probably Elijah and his humanity was saying that because he was terrified.
He even told the Lord when he was in the cave in the desert that he was very
jealous for God and that he was a prophet for God,
but he was the last one that was left because all of God's people had destroyed
the altars and killed the prophets. And I'm the only one left, he said.
And so he was frightened by that. But anyway, he still was part of the call.
He was part of the decision that Elisha had to make. That's right.
Even though when he put his cloak on him, he said, what have I done to you?
That's what he hit me into. You think about Isaiah, when he said,
when the Lord said, who will go?
Who shall we send? I'll go.
When I read in verse 11, for how long will we order?
Yeah, so that story is great because God says to Isaiah the prophet,
who will go for me? And Elijah, I'm sorry, Isaiah quickly says,
I will go. Send me, here am I, send me.
And in just a couple of verses later, he's like, for how long, O Lord?
And so, Elijah answered that question for himself, didn't he?
It's not how long, it's like forever, like I'm burning the plow.
That's right, that's right. He burned the plow.
He burned up all of the farm implements and he barbecued the oxen.
That's right. And he gave it to the people. So, the oxen were not wasted.
That's right. Yeah. But what the whole point of that is, and what we learn from
that is that when we make that decision, that we don't go back on our word. That's right.
Am I saying that was an easy decision for Elijah? I don't think so.
I don't really think that it was easy for him to decide because he had his family.
In fact, as he told Elijah, let me go back and kiss my mom and dad goodbye. That was final.
Let me go back and kiss them goodbye. Because he's gone and not coming back.
I think there's some real world examples we could think of.
Like people are listening and they're like, friend, you're trying to say,
what does it look like? What am I going all in for and about?
And what does it look like in my life? Like sometimes it might be you finally
humble yourself enough to say, I'm sorry, and I'm going to fix this relationship.
If we're going to get into marriage counseling, or I'm finally going to go and
join Alcoholics Anonymous. I need help here.
You're finally willing to make the change that you've not been previously willing to make.
And is it possible? Could Elisha have quit and gone back home?
I'm sure he would have. He could have.
But the gesture of burning the plows and sacrificing the auction was a big deal.
This is an economic reality.
I'm writing the check. I'm giving away all my livelihood and my new job is to
be prophet and follow Elijah.
That's the kind of definitive thing we're talking about here.
And it's not sell your house and give away all your possessions like the rich
song ruler was asked to do, but you'll know what it is.
Mark Batterson makes that clear in the book. The call on your heart and on your
life is usually pretty clear.
When we know that thing that we haven't given God all of yet, it's pretty clear.
And the question for us now then is are we willing to do it?
Are you willing to go all in?
And sometimes the question is finally, we have to say to God,
I can't do this by myself.
That's right. And that's a good point. It's not by yourself.
That's right. It's just willing to submit to his leadership. That's right.
And that's where sometimes we have a hard time because how do we say that?
How do we come to some kind of peace with ourselves that we finally say, I can't make it anymore.
I can't do this by myself. I need help. And I'm sure it's just like reaching
out for help. And I'm as guilty as anybody.
I don't hold my hand up and say I need help. No.
And I don't go find the line that says we will help you here.
That's right. But at the same time, one of the things that I've tried to do
is I've tried to make peace with God, not on my terms, but on his terms. That's right.
And all he wants from us is us to surrender. That's right.
And all we have to do is claim Jesus Christ as our Lord. That's right.
And obey him. That's right. And even John tells us later in his life when he's
writing that God's commandments are not grievous, that we cannot follow them.
And that's how we know that we love God. That's right. And that's how God knows
we love him, if we follow his command.
And so Elijah, in my opinion, he made a decision that he's going to serve God
because he knows what he's getting into.
He knows that Elijah is a prophet, and he knows Elijah is not very popular.
That's right. Not with the queen or with the king either.
That's right. But he is popular with God.
That's right. Because he's a prophet. And I heard someone say this one time,
that prophets were only mouthpieces.
They were a mouthpiece for God. They spoke for God. That's right.
And we know that in times past that God did speak using prophets. Yeah.
But somewhere in here, when we are struggling, and friends, I know when we talk
about it, it sounds very easy to do.
But when we're struggling, when we've reached that point where we cannot go
any further, that's when we have to get on our knees. That's right.
And we have to submit ourselves to God's leading. That's right.
And that's what's hard for some people to do. That's right.
Sometimes it's paradoxical. Sometimes we got an email yesterday from a guy who said, hey, I'm 65.
I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to get
after it. Like, I don't know what to do.
And sometimes you're worn out. You're stressed out. You're beat up.
You're, as I say in my new book, sad, sick, stressed and stuck.
Like, you're just stuck. You don't know what to do. And sometimes what you haven't
gone all in on is God's plan for how to balance your life.
Sometimes it's, do we need to keep a Sabbath? And we say, how can I keep Sabbath
when I don't have enough time to do all the things I need to do in seven days?
In God's math, six days works out, and seven days wears you out.
That's how it works, right? God commands us, make time for me. Give me space.
Give me your finances. Give me your marriage. Give me your children.
And it'll work out in a way that you can't imagine it working out.
So sometimes one of the ways to go all in is to learn how to rest in balance,
to learn to try to do less and make better decisions and use that holy no that
we've talked about before and stop thinking we have to please everybody.
So some of the things that you could choose to go all in on might be almost
counterintuitive. It might be the negative, like I thought I had to do more,
and the truth is I need to be doing less.
And that's part of the issue, the problem for us, because that's part of the
issue, is that we think we have a hard time accepting God's grace.
That's right. We say, okay, I get that, but I need to do something too.
To try it. No, we don't.
All we have to do is say yes. That's right. I know that does not sound right.
I know that it sounds too hard.
It sounds too good to be true.
And I still concern myself and I think about people that have made a decision
that says, none of this can be true. In the Bible, yeah.
But what if it is?
But all we have to do is come to some kind of point of understanding that says,
Because I cannot do this by myself.
That's right. I have to admit that I can't do it. And that's what Elijah was saying.
I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to plow with these oxen anymore.
And I'll show you because I'm going to get rid of them. And I'm going to get
rid of the farming equipment. What else could he do?
That's right. It's Abraham putting Isaac on the altar and picking up the knife.
It's full commitment. It's Peter getting out of the boat. It's Jonathan climbing the cliff.
As he says in All In. Oh, yeah. It's the whole idea that you stick yourself
out in the place where you say, God, this next step is impossible unless you
take me there, unless you do it. That's right.
It's not possible. I can't go all in without you carrying me there.
That's that step that you have to take. In the grief world, there's a book called
The Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff who lost a boy in the 80s.
It was one of the books that really helped me after we lost Mitch.
We had this week where we had our 11th year without mention I know and the service
on Friday and all that stuff and I remember reading that book and he said faith is.
It's like a footbridge, and you don't know if it'll hold you up until you get out on it. That's right.
Like you've got to walk out over that canyon onto the bridge before you know
that your faith was placed well or not.
And that's how this is. This all-in life, this time when it's time to go and
get after it, to answer William's email, you don't know that you can until you
go, until you say, God, I'm giving it to you.
I'm taking this step, and God will hold you up. He'll be there.
He'll meet you in that moment.
That's right. And that's why it's so hard for people to do that,
because what it indicates is I surrender. That's right. I give up.
It's almost like I hold my hands up and say, I just give up.
I can't do this by myself.
And when you do that, when you come to that point, it's scary. That's right.
Because what you're doing is you're letting go of everything that's familiar,
and you're letting go of the routine that you've established for yourself.
And when you do that, you have to have that replaced. That's right.
And if you replace it with something that you don't know, it's even harder.
Now, the other part of that is God knows that.
He knows how we look. How does he know that? He created us. That's right.
He made us. That's right. He gave us free will.
And he gave us the will to do as we choose.
And the case in point is Adam and Eve. That's right. He told them don't and they did. Yeah.
And we've been suffering with it ever since. Yes, we have.
And we will continue to suffer with it. That's correct. And that is, that's what's so hard.
And let me tell you something, it's hard for me to accept that as well.
It's hard for me to accept the fact that, and I thank him every day,
that Jesus died for me. That's right.
How did that happen? How can we accept that?
That God loved us so much that he sent his one and only son,
Jesus Christ, to die for us. John 3, 16.
He hasn't asked anything of us that he wasn't willing to do himself. You talk about all in.
Jesus gave it all and laid himself down for us.
And so we certainly can trust that he'll be there for us when we make that decision as well.
Well, I think this whole idea is, and it all comes down to spiritual stuff,
like whatever you're dealing with, friend, if it's addiction,
if it's suffering, if it's grief, if it's lack of high performance in your career
that you need, if it's a marital relationship, whatever that issue is,
ultimately you keep peeling those layers off and it comes down to how much do
you trust God to give him that situation.
That's right. And say, okay, I'm going to get, we shared that email from a woman
named Kathy a few days ago, Dad,
that I read on the podcast a few days ago and had this conversation about wondering
if Jesus was just a guide, just a noble figure that we could learn things from.
And my response to that is when we wonder what God's role is in our suffering
or in our stuckness or whatever it is that we're thinking about going all in after,
When we realize what got us here won't get us there.
When we wonder about that, ultimately it comes down to, we usually have talked more about God,
chatted with other people more about God, read books about God more than we've
actually gone to his word and seen what he says of himself.
That's right. And what the Holy Spirit says is this word, when we say the word,
of course, we mean the Bible. So if you're not familiar, when we say the word
of God, we're talking about scripture, the Bible.
And what he says in the Bible is that the word is living and active and sharper than a sword.
And it'll get down in your joints and it'll sort you out and it'll help you
get cut you open and show you the places that you need to give to it.
And so the point of all that, Kathy and William and everybody else that's listening
here is just this. Whatever the place in your life is where you're suffering,
where you're stuck, where your hand's on the plow and you recognize it ought
not to be, it's a spiritual matter at the end of it.
It comes down to, do you trust Jesus has the power and the intention to help
you in this? And are you willing to let him take it?
And also, a starting point for me has been very simple.
Be thankful. And you think about what are the gifts that we have breath.
That's right. Right. And we don't have to think about it. We have the ability
to see, we have the ability to hear, we can feel, we can taste.
And we have all of these gifts, and we have all of the, and I know some people
have said it came from washing up on some beach somewhere, some molecule.
But Mike, I have a question. Where did that molecule come from?
That's right. Where did the beach come from? Yeah. Who made the beach? Yeah.
And what I think you have to do is you have to sit down and say,
okay, I get it. It's not me.
I didn't do any of this. and yes, I'm suffering right now.
Yes, I have struggles and I've lost loved ones and I'm sick and I can't see
how I'm going to get past where I am right now. That's right.
And I don't have the answers for all of those things, but I know this,
that the peace that comes from trusting God can't be measured.
That's right. It can't even be defined.
We don't have any understanding of it And it's part of the mystery,
I think, of being God's creation, because we are part of his creation.
He created us. And it's hard for us to understand that really the reason that
Jesus came was so that he could learn how to be like us, so that we could be like him. That's right.
How do you figure that out? So what we have to do. So what I'm saying is that is faith blind? Yes.
But we have to put our faith somewhere. That's right. That's right.
We have to believe in something. That's right.
And I know this, the faith that I have is not disappointing to me. That's right.
I'm not worried about the definitions that people have today.
I'm not concerned about all of the issues that, what if I don't wake up in the morning?
What if I get, and I remember when years ago, I went to school with the Aetna in Hartford.
And one of the things that they told, there's only three things that can happen
to you in this life as a human being.
You can either die too soon, can be disabled and never be able to work again, or you can live too long.
So that's where you are. So what if, what if? We can't answer all of the ifs. We tried.
We don't have an answer for that. But I know this, that what we're placing our
trust in God and placing our trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord will give us
the peace that we're looking for. That's right.
And sometimes that requires that sort of bold move. Sometimes it requires that
sort of all-in move. Elijah made that decision.
That was a bold decision that he made.
That's right. He did make a bold decision. He made that all-in decision that
has to be made when you come to that, of wondering if God will keep his word or not,
wondering if God's will for you is good, his plan for you is good,
like he says, if his promise is good.
That's a bold decision because you're not sure. Sure. When I was doing interviews
for Hope is the First Dose and we were doing all the press around the release
of that book, one of the common questions that I got asked was,
what's the difference between faith and hope?
And my best working answer that I came up with is faith is the belief that God
can do the things he says he can do.
Hope is the belief that God will do those things for you. That's right.
That he'll do it not just generically for other people, but for me.
So if you believe that God can do the things he can do and you have that faith,
but you come up short of saying, yeah, but does it really count if it's me?
Am I willing to stick my neck out there and go after it and make that phone
call and say, I'm sorry, or fully commit to my job or take this new opportunity
or whatever it is that you're feeling like you're coming up against the edge of?
Sometimes you just have to burn the plot. That's right. Sometimes you just have
to go after it and go all in.
That's right. Right, because the question is, how much peace do you want?
That's right. And how will it feel like to have peace?
And how would it feel like to have hope? That's right.
And so when we personalize those two questions, then we can make that decision. That's right.
When we finally decide that I can't do that, and I've said that several times,
but you have to decide that there's some point where you come to a resolution
that says, I can't do this by myself. That's right.
I cannot do this. Or you don't even have to say that. You just have to say,
I can't do this. That's right. Period.
I think that's a good time to remind people. We're always talking about self-brain
surgery. You don't do self-brain surgery yourself any more than Jerry Deaver
and the farmers out there make that alfalfa grow.
So you, yes, when you're going to have surgery, there's a role that you play in that.
You go to the doctor and you find out that you have a tumor or a hernia or whatever it is.
And the doctor says, here's the plan. Here's what has to be done.
The day that the surgery is supposed to happen, you've got to wake up and not
eat anything after midnight. night and you got to get in your car and drive
down to the hospital and sign a consent form and you got to let them put an
IV in you and then you have to let somebody else perform that operation.
You have a role to play, but you're not doing the surgery and you're not creating
the anesthesia machine and you're not performing all the pharmacy work that
has to be done to make that happen.
So when we say that you're submitting to surgery, it's not the same as you having to do all the work.
And the same thing is true in self-brain surgery. We're not saying,
and going all in, we're not saying that you have to wear yourself out doing
all this work. We're saying you have to consent.
You have to lay down your will to the will of the Father.
In the self-brain surgery world thinking, we're going to say,
I didn't make this brain.
I didn't make this mind. I didn't make the quantum field in which God communicates
with me, but he gave me a mind and a way to interact with all that.
And my job is to consent to his leadership and guidance, operate myself as best
I can under his influence.
And think about what you just described.
What happens to us when we go into the hospital and we lay on the bed,
we trust the guy that's going to cut us. That's right.
Or the person that's going to cut us or perform the surgery.
That's right. We trust. That's right. And when Jerry and those guys drill that
field and put those alfalfa seeds in the ground, they didn't make those seeds,
and they didn't make that dirt, and they didn't make the magic that happens inside it.
But they're doing that work, stewarding God's creation, knowing that he's going
to keep his promises and produce that crop.
That's right. He's going to feed all of us next winter and feed all those cattle
next winter and keep America's engine going and all of that.
He's not having to do the work, but he has a role to play in it. That's right.
And so don't think we're ever saying that when it's time for you to go all in
or it's time for you to do self-reinsurgery that you have to do more work.
You're having to bear up under the suffering and do more work.
The role is to get to the cusp and say, yes, I'm ready. I'm ready to let you
lead me into it. That's right.
And what does God say? His divine power has given you everything you need for life and godliness.
And what does he say? I can do all things through him who gives me strength. Right?
That's right. And you go back to what Jesus, the disciples came to Jesus and
said, what work must we do?
What did Jesus say? Believe. You must believe.
That's the work. That's the work. That's the work. So that he empowers,
And he guides and he directs and he, the Bible says it plain.
Paul says that God works in us to will and to act in ways that please him,
his power on his time frame. We just have to submit. That's right.
And we, all we have to do is say yes. That's right.
So our hands to the plow, we're running the family business.
The old prophet comes and says, hey, I'm calling you out, Dennis.
I'm calling you out, Kathy. Kathy, I'm calling you out, William or Lola or whoever
you are, wherever you are.
It's time. Your call has been made. What got you here won't get you there.
It's time to make a decision.
And if we're going to do that, we're going to burn that plow and sacrifice those
auctions and go all in. When do we start? Start today. We start today.