Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
When life gets hard, does what we think we believe hold us up, or does it crumble under the weight of doubt? I'm your host, Dr. Lee Warren- I'm a brain surgeon, author, and a person who's seen some stuff and wondered where God is in all this mess. This is The Spiritual Brain Surgery podcast, where we'll take a hard look at what we believe, why we believe it, and the neuroscience behind how our minds and our brains can smash together with faith to help us become healthier, feel better, and be happier so we can find the hope to withstand anything life throws at us. You've got questions, and we're going to do the hard work to find the answers, but you can't change your life until you change your mind, and it's gonna take some spiritual-brain surgery to get it done. So let's get after it.
When life gets hard, does what we think we believe hold us up,
or does it crumble under the weight of doubt?
I'm Dr. Lee Warren, your host, and this is Spiritual Brain Surgery,
where we'll take a hard look at what we believe,
why we believe it, and the neuroscience behind how our minds and our brains
can work together to help us
build a bulletproof faith that will withstand anything life throws at us.
Whether you're struggling with anxiety, grief, doubt, or you just want to go
deeper into the big questions we all have, remember,
you can't change your life until you change your mind, and sometimes it takes
spiritual brain surgery to get it done. So let's get after it.
Friend we're back it's a beautiful springtime sunday
afternoon here by the river in nebraska there goes a
bald eagle down the river and tata and i are sitting here on the riverbank how
you doing today tata i'm doing well how are you i'm good we've been watching
our uh our house geese yeah yeah they're they're neighbors now we got a pair
of canadian geese that decided not to migrate and they think that our backyard is their home,
they've been just living here for about two weeks. Yes.
Amazing. We get to see them every day. We've come to the conclusion they must have a nest down there.
Yeah, they must, because there was another pair of geese, and this one ran them off.
They had a big battle one day and ran those other two off, so they must have a nest somewhere.
But if it's Sunday afternoon, it must be Tuesdays with Tata.
Apparently so. It's kind of a paradox, isn't it? Yes, it is.
Sunday turns into Tuesday around here.
Well, friend, we hope that you're well and that the spring is treating you well.
The pollen here is very high.
We've been sneezing and coughing and all that stuff. The farmers will be cutting
the first round of hay pretty soon.
Life goes on, doesn't it, Tata? It does. But I'm astounded by the pollen.
I look at the report. Of course, I get weather bug on my phone.
And I don't know how accurate that is, supposedly they take that at the airport.
But one of the elements has been oak, and that is not on my list.
Oak pollen is, you know, from the ground.
I don't know. And the irony of it is it settles in my eyes. Yeah,
it's been really weird. Eyes are itchy and all that.
So if there's any allergists out there, let us know if there's something we
need to do to bring the pollen down.
But, you know, Tata, we had a good set of friends of ours, you and I and Lisa
have known for 20 years, who lost their home in a fire last week and just got
out with the clothes on their back.
And now they're having to go through that whole rebuilding process.
And we've been praying for them.
But it brings up the topic again about suffering, doesn't it? It does.
And one of the things that I noted in your podcast was that May is Miracle Month.
Miracle May, that's right. Miracle May.
And I've thought about that process of suffering and the dilemma that it brings.
And I don't quite get it yet, but I'm beginning to conclude that it is a miracle
when we pass through it and come through the other side.
And friends, that doesn't say that we're not sensitive to what you may be going through.
I personally have not experienced a serious illness or anything like that,
but I have experienced trauma in my own life with the premature deaths of two
of my children and one of my grandsons and my wife.
That's right. So I understand what prompted all of that,
and we talked about this a little bit, but I read every day New Morning Mercies
by Paul David Tripp, and I'm about wearing a book out, and I pointed out to
Lee just a minute ago that the spine is broken.
I've You got to do that as a repair. And it was given to me as a birthday gift.
I knew about this, but I didn't use it.
I have used for years Jesus Calling it.
And I understand all the controversy that surrounded that, but at the same time, it speaks to me.
And that's the point. When we read Scripture, we need to ask God to speak to us. That's right.
Because that's how He speaks to us. That's right.
And just to remember, we talked about this verse before in Romans 5, verses 1 through 5.
And the Apostle Paul is talking. and he says, therefore we've been justified.
And all of this has come together for me on April 22nd.
It's all in one place. Yeah, it showed up in the book on April 22nd.
And so maybe that was a precursor to where we are today. I don't know.
But anyway, this is what I pondered about because one of the things that the
Apostle Paul says is that through him we have also obtained access by faith
into this grace in which we stand.
We rejoice in hope and the glory of God. Not only that, we rejoice in our suffering. That's right.
We rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame.
Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which he has given us.
And we know that there's a great deal of impact in that scripture is very impactful
because we've heard back from some of our listeners that it touched a place in their heart.
And the fact is they're doing something with it, and they had suffered loss.
But what David Tripp points out that there's other scriptures that address this same issue.
Suffering. And the next one that I would look at it is what he looked at here.
And the reason I'm using this is because it's all in one place, as I said.
But in 1 Peter 5, 1 through 6 through 7, in this you rejoice.
Though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials. That's right.
So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold,
that perishes though it is retested by fire, may be found to result in praise
and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
That's right. 1 Peter 1, 5-7, that's right.
And that caused me to recall a story, and I can't give you all the pieces of it.
I thought I had to take a copy of it, but I did not.
Some women that were in a Bible class were studying this very same issue,
in this furnace of the fire of... The furnace of suffering, yeah.
The furnace of suffering and refining. And so the occasion presented itself
that a couple of these ladies had the opportunity to spend time with a silversmith.
Now, I know that Peter refers to this as gold that is purified by heat,
and while they were meeting with the goldsmith, he described the process of how they used fire to.
Remove all the impurities that might exist.
And as he was talking and as he was continuing his work, the last question that
they ask, how do you know when it's purified?
The ladies asked that question. And the men said to them, that's easy when I can see my face.
Think about that just a minute. Through this process of refining and using heat
and getting rid of all of the impurities,
the final result is that where it can be said that the product is pure,
that he can see his face in it.
When the refiner can see his face in the thing being refined. Wow.
That's amazing. It is. It has a great deal of power in itself and just a very small class.
And then in James 1, 2 through 4, count it all joy, my brothers,
when you meet trials of various kinds.
For you know that in testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
That's right. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect
and complete, lacking in nothing.
And the key to me is let steadfastness have its effect.
So stay the course. When we are suffering and find ourselves in some kind of
situation where we are suffering and we feel like we're just enduring such pain
that we can't describe it,
then it behooves us to let it happen. That's right.
To let it happen. So the proof will be not only for us other people to see but it be in us as well.
That's right. And that's what other people are going to see anyway.
They're going to see how you survived it.
So all of this, so I keep posing the question to myself, is it a miracle that
we rejoice in suffering.
And what the suffering does is produces character, it produces steadfastness,
it produces an unwavering sense in us.
And then help, eventually. Amen, amen.
And as I sit here today, I think about that, and I ask myself that question.
Is it a miracle, Is it a miraculous event that in our suffering that character
is built and steadfastness is built?
And what all of that says to me is that in that process, if we let it happen,
it does something to us. It's done something to me.
As I look back on some of the things that occurred, I had no understanding of it in the first event.
And then when James was killed, I had no understanding in that event.
And when Mitchell was killed, I had no understanding of that either.
And then when I lost my wife, I think I began to understand some of it when James was killed.
I began to understand that it was not me. It wasn't about me. That's right.
And it wasn't about right now. And Max has said that before,
and someone said that to him.
It's not about me, and it's not about now. That's right.
So the question remains,
what have you learned? What have we learned? What have we experienced as we have suffered?
Jesus himself said, in this world, you will have trouble.
But then he said also, don't be concerned about that because I've overcome the world.
Some translations say, don't fear not. Don't have any fear. Don't be concerned
about all of that. That's right, John 16, 33.
And when you think about the suffering that he went through.
None of us, I think the writer of Hebrews says that none of us have suffered
like he did to the point of shedding our own blood.
Now, maybe some people have.
And no doubt the mortars did that were killed for their faith years ago.
And may still be being killed in certain parts of the world because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
So all of that being said, we have to take a look at ourselves.
And we have to ask ourselves, what have I done to look at this process?
That's right. How have I looked at it?
And I understand what goes on.
I've been in that same place. The bargaining, change your mind, look what I've done.
Sooner or later you say that. Yeah. And I have to think, I have to stop and
think that God has to chuckle at us sometimes. Look what happened when I say that.
And fortunately for us, well, and the Apostle Paul addresses that also to the
Philippians when he says, but whatever gain I had,
whatever gain I had,
I counted at loss for the sake of Christ.
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
Christ Jesus, my Lord, for his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things
and count them as rubbish. That's right.
In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness
of my own that comes from the law, but which comes from faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
So, and the words escape me totally on how to express my feelings about all of this,
but one of the things that I've noted that I feel today as we sit here,
is I feel closer to God than I ever have in my life. That's right.
I understand when I say your son, Jesus Christ, I can understand that because,
and I believe that I've been adopted into God's family and I'm one of his children.
So that makes Jesus Christ my brother. Makes him your brother as well.
But as I've said, so through the process of suffering and the process of loss,
we have to, one of the first things we have to do is we have to be kind to ourselves
because we're made in God's image.
And what Jesus said about it was that it was not a threat.
He was a statement of fact. In this world, you will have trouble. That's right.
And so what we do, though, is we look forward to another home.
We look forward to another country.
We like Abraham, who looked forward to something that he couldn't even see. That's right.
So in the midst of all of this, we have to, it all boils down to one thing.
And trying to understand this question, who am I?
I know, and I know certain things. I know that I'm made in God's image.
I know that some way, and I'm one of his children, but at the same time,
I don't ever, I keep thinking, and I've tried to go back through my memory,
and I don't recall ever asking him, why is this happening to me?
I did not. I don't know why. I never gave that a thought.
But anyway, since we started first talking about this, about Romans 5,
about suffering and what it does to us and the trouble that we go through in
this world, it builds us up.
It makes us something that we were not. That's right.
And maybe the degree of it has something to do with how we thought about ourselves.
I don't know that, but I've wondered about that, I've pondered about that as well.
Do I think more highly of myself than I ought?
Uh, and if I do, will that speak to this kind of suffering that I may go through?
Does that make sense? It does. I know I'm kind of rambling to a certain degree
because I just can't quite get a hold of it.
And, and describe it to you like, you know, if we were talking about a hammer
or a baseball bat, you know, we could pretty well describe that. Yeah.
Well, I have a thought. Right. So I'm going to nerd out just for a minute,
as the listener will not be surprised by.
But in surgical training, when you learn how to be a neurosurgeon, your professors.
They expose you to a progressively more difficult degree of calamity and complication in your training.
And so sometimes you'll be doing an operation and they'll make something
bleed on purpose and say oh no
your patient's bleeding doctor what are you gonna do about it and you
have to learn how to handle these little calamities these
little problems and they do that because they
know that there's gonna come a time when
you encounter a really unexpected problem
and you need to have a paradigm for how
you're going to handle those unexpected disasters
and so the the ninth
commandment we talked about of self brain surgery is this
what you're doing you're getting better at and and because we
know Jesus promised us in at least two places you mentioned John 16 33 in this
world you'll have trouble in John 10 10 or go to verses the the enemy comes
to steal and kill and destroy but I've come that you might have life and have
it abundantly those two verses are promises from Christ that we are gonna face
some calamity some trauma tragedy massive thing.
And so this prehab process of learning that we need to have some things to fall
back on, these scriptures that we've talked about today,
and a process under our belts to know where we're going to turn and what we're going to do.
That's right. We need to have some, in medicine, we talk about ABCs,
you know, what are the first things you do?
Airway, breathing, circulation, there's stuff you're going to do if you encounter
a problem. And on the neuroscience side, the term is, this is the nerdy part
here, the term is experience-dependent neuroplasticity.
Experience-dependent neuroplasticity. And what that means is that our brains
rewire in accordance to how we respond to certain experiences.
And so what happens then is if every time you face a small disaster in your
life, every time you run out of gas or the car won't start or some little thing
happens, if you pivot towards prayer, for example,
pivot towards, oh, I'm so glad I have a cell phone I can call for help.
If you pivot towards gratitude, towards prayer, then your brain learns that
you want it to pivot towards God, gratitude.
Frontal lobe, finding a solution, rather than panic and fear and why me and
blame and all those despair moves.
And so what will happen then is your system will get progressively more attuned
to searching for answers and opportunities from God as opposed to letting everything fall apart,
that experience-dependent neuroplasticity.
That's exactly what happens when your professors expose you to a bunch of small
disasters and you learn how to not freak out and you learn how to handle yourself under stress.
And it's the same thing that happens if we discipline ourselves to allow trial
to be a refining process for us.
Then when we go through smaller trials, we learn that we get stronger.
We see that path that you're talking about.
We start to see that God is able to see his face in us in a trustworthy way.
Then when the fire actually happens, like our friends went through,
or our children die unexpectedly, or our spouse dies unexpectedly,
or the thing happens that we weren't expecting,
this massive thing, the brain will have
wired itself to remind us
to pivot towards where the answers are going to be found and
so this is a training program but life is unfortunately is
a training program because there are hard things
coming that's right and for all of us there will be in fact we know
as christians if we're alive during the end times there will
be some extraordinarily hard times coming right and
so our whole life then is a process of
learning to trust god to provide the answers
the shelter the place to turn and that
that process of of going through that will produce character and ultimately
hope because we know that the next time we face something like that our our
brains our our neuroplasticity and our savior are all going to behave in accordance
to the way we expect them to,
because that's how the system is designed to work.
We don't have to fall apart, and we don't have to be afraid.
And the end result of that is, as we think about that, is how can I recognize
when my brother and my neighbor is in trouble?
That's right. How can I recognize how I can help him?
That's right. And a word of caution here, because the first word inside of your
mouth should not be, I know what that's like. I've been there.
That's not helpful. No, it's not. It's not helpful.
And maybe, and someone said it a long time ago, that silence is golden.
And maybe that's all you have to do.
And maybe, so what does all of this say to us as we try to be very practical about it?
We should not, if we're in the midst of some kind of suffering,
and please know that I'm not minimizing that at all, because it's some of the
suffering that I have no comprehension of.
That's right. You mentioned the people that had lost their homes.
I don't have anything. The only thing close to that I have is I can remember
when I was a kid that we had a house fire.
The house did not burn down, but we had a house fire.
So all of those things should do something to us and for us,
and make us stronger and try to make us more reliant on God. That's right.
We say that we are, but the question really is, are we?
Because God himself said, and Jesus said as well, that apart from me,
you can do nothing. That's right.
Does that mean he's standing behind me with a hammer, hit me over the head if
I try to do something? On my own, no.
But it does mean that I need to, I must solicit his blessing. That's right.
And solicit his guidance. And there's times when I need to ask for his guidance.
There's times when I can't see the end of it.
And I know that there are some people today that are listening to us that they can't see the end of it.
They can't see the quote-unquote light at the end of the tunnel.
But it's there because God said he would be there.
And we know that God is close to the brokenhearted. That's right.
And he's close to those that are overly concerned about things that they cannot
do anything about or things that they seem to not be able to do anything about.
But I can assure you, as I've said before, 1 Peter 5, 7 is our memory verse.
Cast all of your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
Try it. If you don't do that now, try it. That's right.
Because there's things that we're not intended to carry.
The pain, the suffering that we experience is not something we should try to
carry alone. That's right.
We can't make it without our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So, stop right now and think, and I know some of the questions may be,
why is this happening to me now?
What did I do to deserve this?
And maybe that's where the problem is.
We try to personalize the situation that we're in, and what that indicates is
we want to have some ownership in it.
We feel like we should be doing something more than we're doing,
but what does cast look like?
If you're a fisherman and you cast your lure, you throw it away.
That's right. That's on the end of a line.
Don't really back in. That's right. That's right. But it's a profound thought to cast.
And here again, no one, no one, the other part of it is that we don't like it. That's right.
We don't want to be in the midst of suffering. We don't want to experience that.
We don't want to experience all of those things that we know happen all around us.
And maybe we're too sheltered and maybe that tells us that we need to be more
aware of what's happening to other people because I can guarantee you,
well, I really can't guarantee you that, but I can assure you that every person
you encounter has a story. That's right. They absolutely do.
They have some point in their life But the question remains at the end of all
of that is, what did it do to them?
Because no matter what kind of situation, how strong you are,
how powerful you are, if you encounter suffering and you encounter a situation
and you let the situation just overcome you, you'll never get through it. That's right.
And worse, your brain is going to learn that that's how you want it to handle trauma.
And that's what will happen the next time. Because there's almost always a next
time. And so the whole process, that's Isaiah 48.
I have refined you, not in the way silver is refined, but I've refined you in
the furnace of suffering.
He's telling us that, and then he comes back in Romans and tells us again, in case we didn't get it.
The process of becoming a fully formed human, dependent on God and able to withstand
hardship, involves withstanding hardship and going through hard things.
And ultimately, as Paul says, or whoever wrote Hebrews says,
it's running this race and casting off everything that hinders and throwing
away everything that holds us back and fixing our eyes on Jesus because he's
where we're headed that allows us that strength to persevere and endure.
And so all of that being equal, we ask ourselves the question,
too, what has it done to me?
Has it hardened me? Has it made me callous?
Has it caused me to not be mindful? But if we encounter it, that's when we need
to lean on God. That's right.
And if you don't know him today, get to know him. Amen.
And get to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
Because he'll be with you. That's right. You won't have to do it alone.
It's a beautiful invitation. As you said a moment ago, that verse,
Psalm 34, 18, is the Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
Earlier in Psalm 34, he says, I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered
me from all my tears, from all my fears, sorry, all my fears.
And just after that is that invitation verse, taste and see that the Lord is good.
And so he's saying, if you're not sure about this, friend, And if it sounds
impossible to find a place of gratitude and trust in the midst of your trials,
or even to land on hope in the midst of your trials,
God says, just try me.
Just try me. Turn to me once and see what happens. Yeah, that's right.
He's standing there. He's not going to smite you for needing help. No.
He's going to be trustworthy. And I can tell you, you mentioned a minute ago
how appropriate it was that you found this passage in Paul David Tripp's book.
And I remember somebody sent us the devotional from Jesus Calling on August
23rd of 2013, the day we buried our son, Mitch.
You were there with us at the funeral in Alabama. and somebody that morning
sent us the Jesus Calling devotional. We weren't reading it at the time.
And on August 23rd, this is the very first time I ever read Jesus Calling.
On that day, the devotional says, Entrust your loved ones to me.
Release them into my protective care. That's right. They're much safer with
me than in your clinging hands. That's right.
On the day I buried my son, that devotional was there. And so God's just saying,
trust me, like, trust me, whatever you're going through, trust me,
taste and see, I'm good, I'm safe, I'm a reliable place to turn here.
And aren't we just so ridiculous because we can't see him, we can't touch him.
But what did Jesus tell Thomas? We talked about that just a couple of weeks ago.
When he said, blessed are you because you've seen, but blessed are those who
believe and have not seen. Have not seen. That's right.
Well, it's a wonderful grounding conversation, Tata, because none of us get
through this life unscathed.
No. And so even if you haven't been through some sort of massive trauma yet,
sadly, it's coming. And so we need to be prepared.
We prepare ourselves by how we handle the small things.
And so I would just invite you, friend, to get serious about this process.
Spend some time in Romans chapter 5, Psalm 34, these other passages that Tata's mentioned today.
Paul David Tripp, by the way, wrote a beautiful book about suffering called
Suffering. It's a tremendous book.
One of the books that was helpful to me in recovering from losing a son.
And it's funny how people send you books after something like that happens.
But Paul David Tripp's book is really helpful.
So Tata, I guess if we're going to begin this process of learning to trust him.
When the world would say he's not trustworthy, when there's evil,
when there's hard things, I guess when should we start? Start today. We start today.
Friend, I know that was helpful. It was a great conversation with Tata,
and I'm incredibly grateful for the time that you spent with us today.
I hope you gained a new way to look at suffering.
And if this was helpful to you, I'd love it if you would leave a rating or a
review wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure you subscribe to the show.
That's how new people find out about it.
And to make sure you never miss an episode, go ahead and click that subscribe
button wherever you're listening.
And we'll see you next time on Spiritual Brain Surgery. Don't forget the newsletter as well.
Drleewarren.substack.com drleewarren.substack.com God bless you, friend.