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The Debrief Podcast with Matthew Stephen Brown. Author and lead pastor of Sandals Church, Matt Brown debriefs current issues shaping our culture from a spiritual perspective.
Welcome to the debrief podcast with Matthew Stephen Brown. On this show, pastor Matt sits down with his friends to answer your questions about life, Jesus, and the bible. Let's get into the episode.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Hey, guys. Welcome to The Debrief, and I'm super excited. We have been trying to get this together for some time. We have. But it is the holiday season, and it has been difficult.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But I'm joined today again by my friend Josh Knabb, silent k for killer. Right? But he is just an amazing guy, professor at CBU. You're actually, what, the dean of something?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Division dean for psychology, so you kinda oversee all the psychology programs. Right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And you write for was I I some Christian
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. The Journal of Psychology and Christianity, so I added that journal. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There we go. Some some some, you know, blog. Right? No. He's a big wig, and we're excited to have you here today.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm super excited, and I was sharing this with you before the show started. One of the things that I think that the church needs to very delicately handle, and I wish that people in your profession would handle this as well, is let therapists be therapists and let pastors be pastors. And some of what I've experienced is when pastors act like, you know, they're counselors. And I've seen great harm happen. And what would say all the time to pastors is information is not expertise.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But what I would say to the academic arena is academic degrees is not spiritual gifting. And so like you've met counselors that are gifted, like they're just gifted, and then you've met some that got a degree.
Dr.Josh Knabb:That's right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And the same unfortunately is for pastors, and so what I'm hoping that people will be released in this is to just say, okay, there are things that I need to see a therapist for, a counselor, and there are some things that I need to talk to my pastor about. And so I was just at Kaiser yesterday, and I'm getting my back x rayed. I'm hopefully going to get a shot in my back, and I'm hoping that it's going to help. But my nurse was lingering in the room, and I was like, okay, what's going on? And all of a sudden she just said, hey, I go to your church, you know, would you mind praying for me and my marriage?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I was like, absolutely, I can do for that. But I said, I'm not a counselor, you guys may need that. Here are the programs that we offer at Sandals, but we also point to counseling, and some couples need counseling. And I just want you to be aware that church is not a one stop shop for all issues. And she was just like, okay.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, because sometimes people come to the church, and really what they need is to go sit down and pay a therapist, and what they want is unlimited forever coffee sessions. It's like, look, we're going to guide you and direct you, but there are some things where I'm just like, man, I don't know. And I wish more therapists would be like, I'm not a theologian, and I don't know. And so I'm grateful to have you on the show, and one of the things I love about you is you sent me a document just unpacking emotions. And you know, you're a man, obviously, and I think for men that's harder, usually.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But you were in your doctoral program, and you got overwhelmed with anxiety. Kind of talk us through that process and how you really became a specialist in this field, helping people get out of kind of what they're thinking and and how they're feeling, so.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. So my anxiety and worry started a bit earlier in life, so in my adolescent years, my dad left the home, and so that left me really anxious about the future, uncertain about the future, and I often engaged in chronic worry, which was my attempt to try to fill in the blanks, fill in the gaps, to try to create some uncertainty in in an uncertain world and uncertain time. And so I started, which, you know, thirty something years later, I still struggle with, which is anxiety. And so I can remember in graduate school seeing a therapist. I had to see a therapist for for hours for for part of my program requirements, and and this therapist, at one point, I was talking about my anxiety, and and he kind of leaned in, and he said, what if your anxiety is telling you something?
Dr.Josh Knabb:And that blew my mind because, essentially, I thought the setup was I go to see you and you help me get rid of
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:this thing. Right. Right.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so that was a a paradigm shift for me because my anxiety wasn't going away. I had had my anxiety at that point for for a couple decades, and now I'm 46 years old, and I still have it. And so the question I think for Christians, for for all human beings, but Christians in particular, is what do we do with our emotions in the Christian life? Are our emotions God given signals? Even something like anxiety.
Dr.Josh Knabb:So what is anxiety? Well, anxiety is a, I think, a signal that that tells us something we're anticipating might go wrong, something's dangerous ahead. And so do we need anxiety in a fallen broken world? I I think we do. You know, God gave us an amygdala Yes.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Fight or flight, and so but but when I'm anxious, I've I've changed the way I relate to it. So Okay. Whereas I used to think anxiety bad, so almost like I had shame and anger about my anxiety, my the meta emotion, if you will Right. Now I actually have more compassion for my anxiety. I recognize it comes from a place of woundedness.
Dr.Josh Knabb:It comes from a place of care. It comes from a place of, you know, wanting to make sure I get things right. I mean, I'm anxious right now on
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:the deep And
Dr.Josh Knabb:that's but that can be a good thing because it tells us we care. What's interesting is I was this week, I've been meditating on Luke twenty two forty four, so Jesus in the garden.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah.
Dr.Josh Knabb:What's interesting in in Luke, the the Greek word agonia is used, something along those lines, which is agony, and if you if you look at the the the actual interpretation, it's anxiety. Yeah. And so, now, I'm not a theologian. I do my best to to stay current. You know, on my best day, maybe I'm an armchair theologian.
Dr.Josh Knabb:I don't know.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right. Right.
Dr.Josh Knabb:But but it's interesting to think about Jesus anticipating what was next, and he was in agony. If you think about the context for that word, it's it's like a, you know, an athlete anticipating an event or or a soldier anticipating battle. So Jesus, even though he's the son of God, felt agony, felt anxiety. And so that brings me a lot of peace in recognizing that maybe the solution isn't for my anxiety to go away, but to recognize that God is speaking in and through it. And the disordered part of anxiety is maybe battling with that meta emotion, my feeling about the feeling, which is often shame.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. Thinking there's something wrong with me, broken in me for feeling that, but what if God is speaking to me through it? So that's been kind of the battle that I've gone through and trying to help other people in the same way. If we think about the most common types of disorders, they are what we call emotional disorders. So depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, anywhere from, you know, one in five to one in three people will experience in them in their in in their lifetime.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so what do we do when the anxiety doesn't go away? Mhmm. And I think that's where we invite God to be with us in it Mhmm. And to see it differently as a signal that reveals important information to us.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's so good. Do you remember the movie from the nineties, I don't if you're old enough, As Good As It Gets? Mhmm. Where he interrupts the counseling session, and he just looks at the patient and says, what if this is as good as it gets? And I think the fear is sometimes that we have to sit in something that God's allowing us to feel forever.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I remember, you know, my mom and dad didn't leave, but I had trauma in elementary school with an airplane crashing.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:it created really out of just this world fear and anxiety about flying. Both airplanes above me, like I remember being in Little League and a plane's flying over me and I'm afraid it's going to fall on us, to then I become a pastor traveling around the world and I'm having to get on these things. And I remember asking God one night, my family and I had gone to Hawaii, it was a great trip, but you have to fly to Hawaii because I don't have six months to get on a boat and go. And we were getting ready to come home, and the girls were asleep, but when my son wasn't born, my wife was asleep, and I'm just in full blown panic attack all night about getting on an airplane. And I remember begging God to take the fear away.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. And that was not helpful for me. Yeah. So I think it was Carl, is it June? June.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:June. Mhmm. And it was one of those tiles that comes up on your Instagram, and it just, it it struck me. It said, whatever you're afraid of, that's your next step.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so I had to embrace that, and I realized it wasn't God taking the fear and anxiety away, it was stepping into that encourage and saying, Lord, I'm going to do this because I feel like you've called me to do this. And if it's your will for the plane to go down while I'm on it, and I'm in your will, then I'm okay with that. And then there's been some other thinking that God's had to work through that, but I wasted so much time wanting the feeling to go away, rather than just saying, okay, this is part of my brokenness, and I'm going to step into this. And there was actually a pilot at our church that helped me through that. So we got on the plane together.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He talked me through it. You know, here's what's happening. You know, these are why the plane makes sounds. You know, it's not the plane blowing up, those are landing gear going up and And you know that feeling when you take off and then it kind of sinks, well, they're throttling back. And he began to explain all that stuff to me, because you don't have to be a rocket forever with all that thrust, and it was so helpful, but it wasn't God taking away the feeling, it was me stepping into my fear, trying to understand it, and then trying to control what I can control.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And you know, because I can't mind control the pilot to keep the plane up, and so it was really helpful for me. But what I want you guys to hear is here is a PhD in psychology, you run your own practice, you're 46 and you still have anxiety, and yet you're functioning, you have gifting, you have a beautiful wife, amazing kids, you're successful, and it's not all gone away. And I think too oftentimes what we think the miracle is, it's all gone. And some of it is, you know, like the book Wounded Healer by, what's his name, Henry Nouwen? It's, no, no, it's learning to walk with a limp.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right. And that's actually how we become the best version of ourselves, and so I love that about you, and you know, really learning to think about the feeling that I'm having or the anxiety. And then we had a couple questions here about anxiety, but if I'm battling anxiety, what can I learn about that? What did you learn about your anxiety? You said it was telling you something.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. So so often with anxiety disorders, I've I've heard it said that the fire alarm is worse than the fire. Yeah. Meaning that anxiety is a signal, and it points us to something. Right?
Dr.Josh Knabb:It should, I think, optimally, in a fallen, broken world, of course
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right.
Dr.Josh Knabb:It should push us to action. But what anxiety ends up doing is we end up worrying Yes. Right, that goes along with the anxiety, and the worry is an attempt to create certainty. And so many researchers have now pointed to what's called intolerance of uncertainty as really a core feature of anxiety. So I have a hard time accepting the ambiguities and uncertainties of life.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so anxiety for me points me to my struggles with feeling out of control, feeling powerless, feeling uncertain. And I know I could trace that back for me to that experience in my adolescence where I felt so out of control and life was so uncertain. And so I think from a place of compassion, anxiety tells us that we're uncertain about something, and so we need to kind of move through the steps of problem solving. Is there something I could do? But also inviting God to be with us in and through.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And I think there's an element too of what we might call endurance through anxiety. So one of my favorite New Testament words is is hupamane. Mhmm. You know, it's it's differentiated from from macrothymia. Both are patients.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Macrothymia is patients in relationships, and hupamane is patience in suffering. Mhmm. My understanding is it's the theme of revelation. Yeah. You know, early Christian martyrs prayed, may you endure to the colise marching to the coliseum.
Dr.Josh Knabb:The early desert Christians talked a lot about enduring in their monastic cell, basically staying put and facing their inner experiences. But I think endurance is really about inviting God to be with us in the experience, and we might say to console us or to comfort us. Mhmm. And so instead of asking God take away my anxiety, I think from a place of compassion, given we worship and follow a God of compassion, we can ask God to be with us because Jesus empathizes with our weaknesses. Jesus knows I mean, the example before in the garden.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? Right. Agonia or whatever. Jesus knows what it is like to anticipate future danger. And so if anyone can be with us in it Right.
Dr.Josh Knabb:I think about, you know, growing up. Early on in life, if we had a caregiver who was responsive, we just naturally express our emotions. Right? Fear, anxiety, sadness, guilt, shame. And the idea is it's a signal to be consoled.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? But what happens, I think, over time is we get messages saying, don't feel that way. And so what we end up doing is walling off our emotions instead of being real, expressing them, and then looking for consolation, looking for soothing comfort. And so I think as Christians, we have an opportunity, one, to lament to God, to ask God to be with us in our anxiety and uncertainty and worry to soothe us, and then also to be open and honest about these things in Christian relationships because it provides other people an opportunity to walk alongside us and comfort us.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. I loved what you said, that people who battle anxiety struggle with uncertainty. Yeah. So this is budget week at Sandals Church, and one of the things, when I try to wrap my mind around 15 campuses, millions of dollars in payroll, bills, you name it. And sandals is not funded by one or two or three wealthy people.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's like you and your wife that give. My wife and I that give, single moms that give. Right? I told my wife it's like a paper mache budget. And a lot of young people don't know what paper mache is, but you would blow up this balloon, and then you would put newspaper, and I think glue around it, and then you pop the balloon, and you have this seemingly solid thing, but it's very fragile.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And there are always moments every year when we're talking about budget numbers, and for those of you who are new to church work, we start at zero every January. So there are $0 in the account, and we fundraise all year long trying to fund the missions of God's work. And just so you know, that's how every church everywhere works. Like it's, you know, even you at Cal Baptist, right, they start and they have to fundraise, and it's through tuition and grants and endowment and all of these things that come in. But people don't realize that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We feel it, I think, on an individual level. I have to pay these bills, I have to pay my rent. But when I focus on will it happen, and I can't be certain one way or the other. I know in the past for twenty six years the Lord has provided, but you know, is this the year where he just is like, you're on your own? And I just have to just stop and go, okay, I can't have certainty.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, I have two things as I move forward. I have wisdom, I've to make the best decision I can, so is this a budget that I feel like is doable? And then I have to have faith, and I trust God. And it's this give and take, but it's not certain. And I think that we want faith to be certain, and it's part of the reason I think that pastors and Christians hurt people is we try to give them a buttoned up certainty.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Well, had this wound, but God's gonna make it good. Well, how? Well, the truth is I don't know. So I just really appreciate you, but I just, guys, I want you to hear someone who's an expert and yet humble, someone who has grown yet struggles, and that is the best place to be in life, just acknowledging that. Talk to me a little bit about just kind of our how anxiety sometimes prevents us from feeling the feeling.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You had mentioned that previous to the show. We were talking before the show. Sorry, It was great. We should have recorded. But talk to me about that, how we anxiety is actually preventing you from feeling.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. I I think it can. So so oftentimes, when we end up getting involved in rumination and worry, these can be what we might call cognitive avoidance strategies. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And that that blows my mind. Yeah. So explain that to me. Just act like I'm dumb. I know it's hard.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah.
Dr.Josh Knabb:So what we're finding is that when you know, with anxiety, there's worry, and then often with, like, depression and trauma, there can be rumination. Right? And so each of these experiences brings with it distressing emotions and then a corresponding kind of cognitive stuckness, if you will Yeah. Perseveration. But sometimes with worry, it can be our attempt to try to reduce the anxiety by creating certainty.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:But it ends up backfiring because we end up getting stuck in this perseverative cycle of worry, and that's what we're preoccupied with. I mean, I get into these cycles where I just worry and worry and worry and worry. You know, it might be at night. It might be during the day. It might be for me, you know, it's more of a generalized anxiety.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so, you know, generalized anxiety is one of the most common types of anxiety disorders where you worry from topic to topic. It's been described as the what if disease. Right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Oh.
Dr.Josh Knabb:In the sense that you're just and so before you know it, you know, being one day late on a bill turns into being out on the street, you lose your family, and you're on your deathbed or something like that. Right? And and that's where the mind goes. Now
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:For a there, thought you were my wife. So these are hard conversations.
Dr.Josh Knabb:That's right. So so worry is a way to try to create certainty. Yeah. And I try to reduce uncertainty, and then it's attempt to try to reduce the anxiety, but it ends up creating more anxiety because can I really attain certainty? And so the solution, I think, to worry and intolerance of uncertainty is not to create certainty, which we think it is.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And sometimes even in our faith, we try to create certainty when, you know, only God knows the answer to many of our Yeah. Existential questions in life. And and even the well intentioned pastor cannot give certainty. Yes. Right?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Even theologically, we have promises in scripture, but there's a lot of ambiguity. Mhmm. We know the end. We know what the end looks like, but until we get there, there's a lot of uncertainty. So the solution, I think, is to recognize when we're worrying, recognizing that it's an attempt to create certainty
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Recognizing that it ends up kinda making things worse, and I think it's to begin to trust in God's providence. Mhmm. And that's a hard thing because that doesn't give us all the answers, but it's this unique combination of God's sovereignty and goodness Mhmm. Together, meaning God is the good governor or the benevolent king, and I can trust in that even if I don't have all the answers. And that's a hard thing, but I think that's what's necessary given control through worry doesn't actually work.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So how do I go from this rumination anxious loop to actually experiencing the feelings that I'm avoiding? How do I do that?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. I think I think it's recognizing when I'm worrying. I think it's also sitting with the experience. Right? So we might engage in a practice of solitude and silence.
Dr.Josh Knabb:I think one of the most important and often neglected things is to you know, there's an old saying, you know, don't just sit there, do something. I think we need to reverse that, and it needs to be don't just do something, sit there. Right? And so for Christians in the Christian life, solitude and silence, coming out of the monastic tradition, I think we learned the benefit there. They had some challenges.
Dr.Josh Knabb:You know, they didn't evangelize and and, you know, and were kind of isolated, but they can teach us a lot about learning to be with our inner experiences. I've I've heard it said it's sort of like a spider on its web remaining still to sense the vibrations of whatever the prey
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:is that lands on it.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? Likewise, I think stillness, outer stillness, leads to inner stillness to where we can ask God, God, what is going on within my inner world? Including letting the anxiety be there. I think paradoxically, when we feel what there is to feel, we end up actually letting it to run its natural course.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:The solution is kind of not to feel better, keyword better, but to feel better, keyword feel. Meaning, we wanna feel all there is to feel and have compassion for our feelings and invite God to be with us in and through them. And so, yeah, I think that that sitting in silence and solitude and asking God to be with us in our anxiety, not expecting it to go away. There's a prayer that comes out of the contemplative Christian tradition called the welcoming prayer. And in the context of anxiety, it's welcome anxiety.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Wow.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And then it's it's God, be with me in this experience. That's a very different prayer from God, take this Mhmm. From me. And I think what it does is it helps us to have more compassion for our anxiety. So Yeah.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah, we need to learn how to feel what there is to feel and see that God is moving in and through these experiences, not somehow punishing us for for having them.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. And I would just say having inner humility to say, man, I'm just not as strong as I want to be or as healthy as I want to be or you know, whatever it is, and having compassion for yourself and saying, okay, I need to I need to give myself some grace in this because I can get wrapped up in that. Man, thank you so much. It's interesting that people in my life, like in my community group, that struggle with anxiety have a hard time crying. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Is there is there a connection there? I've I've noticed that. Like, so the more anxious they are, they're so wrapped up in their head they can't feel.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. So that's that's interesting too because some might say that actually anxiety is a secondary reaction that masks or covers up sadness.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:So there can be this fear and anxiety that we go to, and I'll say, you know, in my own life that oftentimes where I'm anxious, it's a defense against a deeper sadness.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Because for me, sadness is harder to feel.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yes.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Sadness feels so so difficult, so so powerless. And it it goes back for me to the earlier experiences I had that that I've, in some ways, grieved and in other ways not. Like like, to this day, I mean, my daughter is 12 years old now. She's in middle school. She's the exact same age that I was when my dad left.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so a lot of feelings are coming up in me, and I noticed that when I'm anxious, I'm actually needing to experience a deeper sadness. What is the sadness of? The lost opportunity that I had with my dad. Yeah. But there's still also hope in breaking that cycle Amen.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And giving to my daughter what I didn't. But but for me, I would say, yeah, the anxiety can be a defense against anxiety and worry can be a defense against feeling all of the feelings that so that's where I think asking God to be with us in these experiences and reveal what what was really going on can be helpful. But we do need to stay put in our monastic cell, so to speak Yeah. In in order to allow the feelings to come up.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's so good. I feel like I'm in therapy right now. It's interesting that, you know, while you were saying that, you know, my dad is battling dementia, and he's doing better in case he's listening. He's doing better than what we were worried about, but there are days where it's challenging, and I got all in my anxious thoughts worrying about the speed of his disease, the necessity of me as a son to provide care, and I just really got it in an unhealthy place in my mind and was anxious, and I was doing exactly what you just said, it's because I was afraid to feel sad. And so I went to this defensive strategy of micromanaging the course of this disease, and what's going to happen in my response to that, then my overwhelm rather than just saying, I'm really sad that my dad is battling this, and I'm losing my father.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was talking to a friend of mine whose dad died instantly, and he was comforting me on the phone. His dad's death was tragic and shocking. And mentioned to him, I said, your dad's death was shocking. My dad's struggle is like this horror movie that just keeps going. And so it's sad to watch someone who is very cognitively able, you know, not know if they had breakfast, you know.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so, you know, so but I was denying myself the perm I was not giving myself permission to feel.
Dr.Josh Knabb:That's right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And what I needed to do was just cry and be like, man, this is this is really sad. Yeah. So instead of doing that, I'll just be anxious all day.
Dr.Josh Knabb:That's
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:right. And it was actually for a week, and I was like, what is going on? And I had to unpack that with my wife. Yeah. And so, but what I if I could go back after, you know, I should have done this session with you before, I would go back and say, I need to feel this
Dr.Josh Knabb:That's right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because this is sad to me. That's right. And this is hard. And so, yeah, It was really good. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You're excellent at what you do. Oh, wow. Yeah. Thank you. I feel like we all just got saved.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's good.
Dr.Josh Knabb:You know, it's I mean, on this side of heaven, life is a series of losses. And and what is sadness? It's an emotion that tells us we've lost something significant, we need to slow down and grieve, so that we don't impulsively try to, you know, replace what was lost, but we can be more intentional. It helps us conserve energy. And sadness actually, through, you know, nonverbal expression, tears, etcetera, invites consolation, going all the way back to a child and a caregiver.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? And so as as men often, we don't wanna feel sad, and yet we know we need to be consoled from God and from others. And so, yeah, if we're frantically scurrying about in our anxiety, we're missing the opportunity to be comforted in our loss. Yeah. And and your experience is so so hard because it's a slow grieving that happens, and but the sadness is necessary to express.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. And my deflection of it man, what you said, I'll never forget. The fire alarm is worse than the fire.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Mhmm.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:In my attempt to protect myself from the fire That's right. I created a fire alarm that's actually worse. That's right. And so, you know, because there are just moments, and it's interesting, you know, I was in a small group last night with a young well, she's not young, she's 40, a middle aged woman in my small group, and it's weird when you're 53, 40 feels young. And you know, I just said, are you trying not to cry?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I said, why don't you why don't you let it out? And she said, oh, no. I can't do that. Yeah. And I thought, oh, man.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So I can see it in others, but I I failed to see it in myself.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. And it's so hard because, you know, kind of going back to this idea that early on in life, we get these messages that say don't feel that way. And and so what ends up happening, some would say that's where the the unconscious develops. It's really a walling off of our emotional life, and so therapy is about essentially helping clients to verbalize what has been walled off or stuffed down or disavowed so that they can be a more integrated person, because we our emotions are still there. Just because we try to wall them off doesn't mean that they're not gonna come out in some ways, and so can we, at Sandals Church, and I think we can, by being real, invite people to feel what there is to feel Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:As God is at the center of of these conversations in small groups so that people can have really a corrective experience and and be more integrated so that they can see their emotions as as revealing important information instead of shaming and and and getting into a battle with our emotions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. You know, my dad's dad, my grandpa, who's in heaven, you know, he he fought in World War II, he came home, he married his high school sweetheart, and they had my dad at 20. Yeah. And my dad always said that his dad would say, stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Mhmm.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So that's my dad. Mhmm. Know, like he's he he he was not given permission to feel. And I don't say that to shame my grandfather at all, they were doing the best they could with the resources that they had, but that, you know, prohibited my dad from learning to feel in a safe way, in a protected way, and you know, I'm grateful that I think he did better than that for me, and hopefully I'm doing better for my children. But I think there's a lot of men that weren't given permission to feel.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And Jesus wept. Amen.
Dr.Josh Knabb:I think sometimes that brings me comfort just just kind of slowly, gently meditating on that when I need to feel what there is to feel. Jesus wept.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Yeah. Shortest verse in the Bible. That's right. Alright.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Let's go ahead and tackle the questions. Which one do you have
Dr.Josh Knabb:Oh, let's see. I just turned 30.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Okay. We go. Yeah, page. Okay. Thank you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I wanna make sure that we're on the same page.
Dr.Josh Knabb:That's right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Four page. Here we go. Page from La Mirada, California, you just turned 30. Congrats. I remember this movie in the seventies, it was called Logan's Run, and he turns 30 and they kill you in the city when you turn 30, so he tries to escape.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's like one of the movies I remember watching at night, sneaking up late when my parents were in bed to watch an inappropriate film. So Paige, we're not gonna kill you, but in that movie they killed you when you turned 30. So I just turned 30, and I've been struggling, woah, here we go, with anxiety and fear since the beginning of my life. They say if you have a relationship with God and then everything else will fall into place, but I haven't done that since the beginning of my life, so everything is out of order. What can I do?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What do you say to Paige? Man, that's a Paige, thank you for that. Yeah. Appreciate you trusting us with that.
Dr.Josh Knabb:So anxiety, again, really tough, especially when it gets into the disordered category because you have not only the anxiety and related symptoms, but then your functioning seems to be impaired. You can't engage in work life and family life and church life. And so I want I wanna say from a place of compassion that that anxiety is really tough. Paradoxically, I think the antidote to anxiety is to be more accepting and compassionate towards it. Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Because, again, the fire alarm is worse than the fire. So if some anxiety is helpful in a fallen, broken world, if Jesus potentially experienced anxiety in the garden, if we have a full spectrum of emotions expressed by the psalmists in the lament psalms Yeah. We have a if Jesus wept, we have example after example of not only the experience of of biblical characters and writers with these emotions, but they made a point to include them there for us in our learning. Think it's so I think it's it's finding, you know, a place of compassion to be with these experiences. If we think about compassion being to be moved by suffering and responsive to it, God is a God of of compassion, of of mercy in the sense of loving kindness and responsiveness, and so if if God and biblical characters and authors all experience these emotions, can I give myself permission to make room for Mhmm?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Instead of the the challenge with trying to avoid anxiety is one metaphor might be I I just just read this the other day. Think of, like like, anxiety like a monster. Right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Or at
Dr.Josh Knabb:least in our our mind, it is. Right? And so let's say on Sunday, I'm traveling to Sandals Church. I'm excited about the day. I'm gonna serve in ministry.
Dr.Josh Knabb:I'm gonna hear a great message. I'm going to worship. I'm gonna then maybe go to small group later, and have all these things to live out a set of values, right, to be loving and compassionate, and I'm driving down the road, and here's the this monster comes out in front of my car, and it's the anxiety monster. Right? And it's it's getting in the way, and oftentimes, what we do when we see that anxiety monster is we say, I'm going back home.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so short term, it might provide us with some relief. Right? In the moment, I can go back home. I'm not gonna maybe feel socially anxious or have a panic attack or or worry at church, but long term, it prevents us from following Christ, living out our values, being in community. And so I think the solution is, one, to recognize that we're not alone in that car, that either, you know, you can see God in the passenger seat, I'd say God is driving.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? And so we're always with Jesus as we, you know, deal with the anxiety monster. But two, can I, instead of turning back home, can I invite that anxiety monster to be with me in the car and to still go to church, and to bring it along for the ride? And upon doing so, maybe I begin to recognize that it's no longer a monster, and maybe it's because God is with me in the car, and it helps me to recognize when I care about things, and I feel alive, and and it helps me to to look out in the future from from a place of, like, this is important, and so can I change the way I experience the anxiety monster? So not only is it no longer a monster, but it's a part of what it means to be human, and I can move through life bringing it in the car with me.
Dr.Josh Knabb:I think if we call it the great reframe in life Mhmm. Is seeing emotional pain differently.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And we all I think I think from, you know, biblical authors to, you know, Paul's thorn in in his flesh that he had to reinterpret as God giving him grace, we can pray for these thorns to go away, but what happens when they don't? I think we need to reframe how we see them, that meta emotion, and I think it's recognizing God is with us and providing comfort in and through them. So I think that needs to happen for all of us because avoidance doesn't work, and then it gets in the way of living a full Christian life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So Amen. So, Paige, let me just pastor you a bit here, and a podcast is not a pastor. So you just said, they say, and I don't know who they are, but thank God for they, if you have a relationship with God then everything will fall into place. And so here's what I would say is following God certainly puts you in a better position in life than running from God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But Jesus followed God perfectly, so let's look at his life. He lost his dad, so Joseph's not in the picture. His own family thinks he's lost his mind. His mother and his brothers come to him when he starts preaching. He's betrayed by one of his best friends, Judas.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He's arrested in a kangaroo court at nighttime by his pastors and priests. I mean, think about that. And then kind of a neutral secondary government. It's like, yeah, you're innocent, but I'm gonna wash my hands of this, and they murder him. And so he had God and still experienced suffering.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So I think we need to not fall into the trap that if I just love God enough and if I just get God right, everything else will work out. Life is unpredictable and it is uncertain, and we have to embrace that, trusting that the faithful, steadfast God will somehow guide us through this chaos. Then there's another thing, Josh, that I see here. She said, since I haven't done that, and I got my life out of order, I kind of hear like a, well, I've already screwed it up. And what I would just say is, look, we can't change the past, but we can change our ending if we change some things today.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so oftentimes, you know, I'm a three on the Enneagram Achiever, I just used to spend a lot of time ruminating about all the mistakes I've made in the past. I call it the game woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:then I just feel like I've kind of blown my life, and the truth is, no, this is the day the Lord has made, I'm gonna rejoice and be glad in it, and I'm going to move forward. And so I would just say, man, chalk up the mistakes that you've made to ignorance, you know, I mean just whatever, somebody did something new, and just say, okay, what can I learn from that? How can I grow from that? And how can I change today and tomorrow? And I think that's hopeful.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What feels very helpless is yesterday. Yeah. Especially if something's been done to me, or I did something, or I've I've blown it. And I've had people say that to me at church, I've destroyed my life. I said, well, I don't know that you're that powerful, let's see.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, and let's try to write this, you know, ship by making better decisions, trusting God, and moving forward. But there seems to be a sense of almost like it's too late. And Paige, don't want that for you. It's not too late, you're only 30, your life is not over, there's still a lot of life ahead. I was at the Dream Center and I was meeting some of the, I don't want to call them inmates, but a lot of them are there, they either choose prison or the Dream Center, so it's a lot like prison.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And this gal steps forward, and she's sharing her testimony, and it's awful. And everything in me just wants to grab her and hold her and say, I'm so sorry. And then she ends with, but I'm 22 and I've been through a lot, and I just thought, and I just said, yeah, but you're only 22. Yeah. You have more years ahead of you than you've experienced.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And now certainly, it is right miles and not the years, so there's been a lot of miles on that car, but I just thought, there's still a lot of hope for you. Yeah. So let's get rid of this addiction, let's work through these classes, let's do this, it's a year long program. I said, I'm excited about the potential of your future if you really work through this healing. But I think we tend to go, it's too late.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So even a 22 year old, in this case, and you and I would both go, you're 30, you got time. So Paige, I wouldn't be overwhelmed by getting things out of order. I would say let's look forward to the years in your life ahead where you're gonna get it in the right order. So God's gonna be for and we're never gonna do this perfectly.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But we're gonna trust God in this, and God's there for you. Is there anything else that maybe I missed that you'd
Dr.Josh Knabb:wanna
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I
Dr.Josh Knabb:I just think about, you know, what is the ultimate purpose in life? Right? Purpose in life has been wrestled with. Theologians, philosophers, and psychologists now are even wrestling with purpose in life. I would say the Christian purpose in life is to commune with God, to walk with God, you know, all the way home to the outstretched arms of the father.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so at any given moment of life, we can pivot from trying to go it alone to communing with God. Yeah. And that's so so important for consolation, comfort, and recognizing that we follow and worship a suffering servant. So at the end of the day, Jesus understands us, and so I think turning back towards him and walking with him is the ultimate aim in life, and so it's never too late to to be able to to do that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's a good word. Alright. We're gonna go to Scott to Moreno Valley. Love Movale, got to go to Sandals Movale a couple weeks ago. It's funny, I had so much anxiety when Melody was preaching.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was there, and the projection screen shut down. Oh, god. And I'm panicking, and I'm like, somebody's gonna have to jump up and preach this sermon. I literally opened the Real app, the Sandals Church app, click on the sermon notes, and I see the rape of Tamar. I'm like, I wanted to just yell at Melody.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm like, are you kidding me? This is the message you picked? This is like one of the top 10 most difficult passages, and then the video came back on, and she taught, and we were fine. And I literally, I did the you know, I jumped into the future, and the fire alarm was worse than the fire. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And all it was was one of our production assistants had bumped the computer and hit a button, and it just reset it.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Mhmm.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But I was like, I'm gonna have to preach this message. It was horrible. Yeah. That's like my biggest fear. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So it didn't happen. Alright. Scott from Moreno Valley. Love you in MoVal, and I love our production people in MoVal, except that you gave me anxiety. I understand that bad things happen because of sin in this world, and that God uses all things in a Christian life for good, but how does God use suffering for good?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It just seems pointless sometimes. Amen, Scott. Welcome to endless commentaries on why is life so difficult. I remember I was a Poli Sci major, and I think it was Nietzsche who said life is brutish, nasty, and short. It may not have been Nietzsche, may have been somebody else, but if you guys can find that quote, but it's life is brutal, nasty, and short.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And the truth is it's not short. It can feel really, really long. So let's unpack this. And God uses all things in a Christian's life for good. That's not actually what Romans says.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It says God causes all things to work for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Words are important, and it's important that we unpack that sentence, because you know, God is going to ultimately work out all things for good. And so you used the example, I think it was before the show, if someone grabs you as a vase and shatters you on the ground, remind me of what you said. You said you may not be able to heal completely from Yeah. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:All of those pieces, but but the resurrection is that one day there'll be a new vase.
Dr.Josh Knabb:That's right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's right. So but so Josh, or excuse me, Scott, in this life, we're going to do the best we can to glue those pieces together, but there's wounding, there's hurt, there's pain, there's suffering, and that's real. And there are going to be days when the brokenness of the vase seems to outweigh the beauty of life. And it just depends on how much brokenness there is in your life. You know, got a cousin of mine that runs a kayak company in Kauai, and he thinks life is great.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I'm like, you need to get out. You need to get out and see the world, because you know, he interacts with people on their vacation for seven days. You know, people are at their best. I'm like, these are not how people are. I deal with them the other fifty one weeks a year.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So he said, and God uses all things in a Christian life for good. And I think we need to be very, very careful how we handle that verse, because you know, I was sharing with you that in our small group we have a woman that's had enormous abuse, you know, sold into prostitution by her mother at 12 years old. I mean, I don't know that I can even imagine what that's I don't have a category for that. I had parents that protected me, people that loved me, and I was not abused. And so she just wrestles with when people say, well, God's going to bring good out of this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I just say, maybe not in this life. You may have to wait till the resurrection. And I shared with her, I said, just imagine with me for a moment that when Jesus returns and he sets all things right, I said, what if all of a sudden he brought you right back to being 12 years old the day before that event happened, and he wiped it away, and then in the new kingdom, on the new earth, and the new heaven, you get to start over from that point, knowing it happened, but no longer having to experience its truth.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know? I said that's what Jesus can do. So I think ultimately that can happen. But there is some suffering, Scott, that I don't know that I would use the word pointless, but there is some suffering that I think causes us all to go, why? And that's why Jesus says on the cross, why, why, Lord, have you forsaken me?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I think what the Lord is processing, you talked about Agone, I think the Lord Jesus understands cognitively, okay, I've seen the crucifixion, so every Jew would have been aware of crucifixion. Romans crucified people in public areas so people saw that. So you know what I'm saying? It's not like he's, you know, when we put people to death now, right, it's kind of tucked away, it's an injection, and maybe a blip on the radio. You know, the Romans did this in the public square, well, the grocery store.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Like imagine your grocery store and your mall, and your lawyer and your doctor are all in the same place, that's where they crucified him. Everywhere where you went for life, the Romans, this is where they kill people, you would see not to mess with Rome. So Jesus had seen that, but he hadn't experienced it. But one of the things that surprised him, I think, in that moment, we'll have to ask him when we meet him, was not only did he feel the excruciating pain, which that word comes to us from the Latin, excruciate, comes from the crucifixion. It's a word derived out of that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But he also experienced loneliness in And so what God is saying is, why did I have to go through this? So Scott, I think that you and I, like Jesus, experience things where we say, why? I haven't had something that was pointless, I feel like I've always been able to learn something from suffering, but I haven't gone through what my friend has gone through. I wasn't raped at
Dr.Josh Knabb:12 because
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:my parents made money off me. So there are things that I haven't experienced, but there does seem to be evil in this world that causes us to think, well, how could God be good if he's allowing this to happen? And you know, I want to share something that I shared with you before the show, but I want to read a passage of scripture that I often go to when things are very, very difficult for me, for someone. So Scott, I'm going to be reading out of Jeremiah 33 verse 34, and let me set the context. The people of Israel are sacrificing their children to the God of Molech, and they're making them walk through fire.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They're burning them alive glory and honor of this demon. You know, he's not God, he's a demon. And listen to what the Lord says, this is God's word. They have placed their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, and they have defiled it. They have built the high places of Baal in the Valley Of Hinnom to make their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Molech.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to these words. Something that I had not commanded them. I had never entertained the thought that they do this detestable act causing Judah to sin. So let me translate that. God is saying the people of Israel are doing evil, and we have to think about this in the context of an all knowing God, and he's saying that evil never crossed my mind.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You have become so creatively extravagant in the evil that you're doing, it shocks even me, the God who is all knowing. And we see this in Genesis six. The Lord saw that the deeds of man were evil and that every intention of their heart was to do wrong. And it says, and he regretted making man. That's Genesis.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I mean, we're not even into Abraham yet. So what happened? We don't know. God created a perfect world, a sinless world, and we're talking about this this week. I don't know when we'll drop this episode, but we're talking to this next week, so I don't know when you guys are gonna drop this episode.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:After things. So the week after. So you guys will have heard this sermon, so but the sermon I'm talking to you, you haven't heard yet. It's be careful what we listen to. And Eve is all of a sudden having this conversation with this snake.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The world is perfect and sinless. And he's saying, did God say you'll really die? Yeah. Well, God knows that you'll be like him, knowing good and evil. And so then she does this, and then just in the next chapter, her son is killing her other son.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I mean, man, when we get outside of God's protective, perfect place, and we choose to act on our freedom, we invite the knowledge of both good and evil. And so what we're experiencing now, Scott, is the knowledge to So the word, the Hebrew word to know is like Yoda, Yodei. Check this out. It means like I know you, but it also is used like if you're intimate with your wife. So Eve knew her husband, Yode.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Which is why Steven Spielberg write Yoda. It's knowledge. He's he's the knowing one. But the word means to intimately know something.
Dr.Josh Knabb:So
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Satan is actually not lying. God knows if you eat of this, you will be like him, knowing both good and evil. So God somehow can know good and evil, but not be compromised by it. We are unable to do that. And so Scott, that doesn't answer all the questions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But we live in a fallen world, and evil happens and suffering happens, and it is awful. You know, like one of our friends, Scarlett, works in the cancer ward at Loma Linda. Man, you want to wrestle with good and evil, go see a child dying of cancer that's four and five years old. It's just impossible. And the only way that I can kind of function in that is I just think, well, imagine if human beings didn't kill each other in war and we spent all our money on research, probably wouldn't be as many kids that died, but we don't do that, because we have to protect each other from each other, we to spend a lot of money on real evil, which is each other, and then we're not able to actually understand disease and then prevent it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, it's like one of the reasons I'm super excited about Robert Kennedy is America spends the least amount of money on preventative medicine. You know, we'll give you a bunch of drugs when you're sick, but we don't talk about what makes you sick, and so I'm super excited about that. So there are just some things, Scott, that are difficult. How do you, from a psychological standpoint, wrestle with evil? If God is good, how is there evil?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah, I mean, that's really tough, and that's one of the great paradoxes, that a good God And so what is what is the solution there, right, from a maybe you might say a spiritual and psychological perspective for mental health and spiritual health. Right? Well, I think I think some questioning is healthy. Right? Yes.
Dr.Josh Knabb:God designed us to wanna have meaning in life. I think about, you know, the the late Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, his book Man's Search for Meaning. He was in a Nazi concentration camp, he found it, you know, quoting Nietzsche, you know, people who have a why can survive almost anyhow. So we search for the whys of life. Psychology doesn't give us the whys.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Theology gives us the whys. Psychology gives us the hows. But I will say this, that when we think about trauma, for example, which is inevitable in a fallen, broken world, that people end up oftentimes ruminating on those why and what if questions to try to make sense of the traumatic event. Sometimes that can be productive and sometimes and and lead to what we call post traumatic growth.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And sometimes it can be counterproductive and keep us stuck. So I think I think counterproductive rumination can often, you know, kinda be what we're talking about here. When we spend too much time ruminating on suffering Mhmm. And the whys and the what ifs, I think that can sometimes keep us stuck in life and actually exacerbate the very symptoms we're looking to avoid, like, you know, memories of the traumatic event, like distressing emotions. And so I think, you know, some questioning is okay, but at some point, we have to, I think, accept the paradox, which is that there we our god is omnibenevolent, and at the same time, there is suffering, and we will not have, you know, a full answer on this side of heaven, and being accepting of some of that is is, I think, important so that we can commune with God, walk with God, and not get caught up in in so much rumination that we're on automatic pilot all day long and unable to really enjoy God's world.
Dr.Josh Knabb:I think about the the hymn, This Is My Father's World. Right? And so there is suffering, but there's also tremendous joy and blessings on this side of heaven, and so I think having more of a a balanced approach is important. We we do need wise, but we also need to be fully present in each moment so that we can enjoy God's blessings too.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. I see a lot of times, and Scott, I'm not saying this is true in your case, that people throw out a flippant why, and it's really their excuse not to probe or press into who God is. So it's an excuse not to believe, not to be religious, you know, well if God is good, why is there all this evil? And that's kind of the end of their thinking, and Scott, what I would say is I think at the core of all of this, every human being has a longing for things to be better. And here's the insanity of life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There are desires and longings that we have in this life that cannot be satisfied with this life. And CS Lewis said, you know, because he was an atheist, he said that must be the evidence that there is something beyond this life that satisfies. Because I have these longings and these desires for a perfect world, for wholeness, for healing, for a life without suffering, why would I have those things within me? And they're not just in Scott, me, you, or CS Lewis, they're in every culture, they're, you know, men and women, they're in every person, believer and atheist, a desire for something better. And so that must be because that exists.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And somehow God has placed that knowledge in our heart. And so I think that there is suffering that's pointless, and I think that that's where a psychologist comes in to help us cease pointless suffering. Like, so pointless suffering is I keep doing the same thing over and over again, but expect different results. That's pointless. And oftentimes, I think that we, if we spent our time, and this is, you know, the one day at a time prayer that AA goes through, Lord, you know, help me to focus on the things that I can control and change those, and the things I can't, let them go.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And really insanity is trying to control the things I can't, and then neglecting the hundreds of things I can control. Man, that's a great question. All right. Mikaela from Los Angeles. I struggle with anxiety and OCD thoughts.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this. Josh, because of this struggle I because of this struggle I can't read that sentence. Because of this struggle I tend to I'm going to can you make sense of that sentence?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Because of this, let's see, I struggle to differentiate There we go. I
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:struggle, okay, see, I have dyslexia, there we go. Because of this I struggle to differentiate intrusive thoughts from God. There we go, thank you Josh, he's not only a professor, he's a grade English instructor. Thank you. I interpret some of these things that repeatedly come into my head as warnings from God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:For example, you need to call your mom or something is wrong, but nothing has ever been wrong. It has been exhausting, amen, OCD is, it has been exhausting to try to determine is this from God or is this my anxiety? I am terrified to unintentionally ignore a message from God. So let me tell you what I know about OCD, and then you correct me. OCD is oftentimes these ruminating thoughts that if I don't do something, something bad will happen.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So if I go to bed and I haven't done the lock on my front door three times, my family will be raped and killed, that's my fault. But if I do it three times, then that gives me peace that it is in fact locked. And then sometimes people will have to get up and do that multiple times at night, because every time they question, so that's where it comes from. And so what do you what do you think about that in terms of OCD?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. I mean I mean, you really have the intrusive obsessive thoughts
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And then the compulsive behavior in response to So what do we do with those thoughts? That's the challenge. Right? And and more broadly, I think we all, on some level, struggle with it, but there are some unique challenges with OCD and related kinds of disorders. What do we do with these perseverative, repetitive thoughts?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Mhmm. What do we do with an overactive mind that's very convincing? And so I think the the challenge is differentiating, you know, helpful versus unhelpful thoughts. Mhmm. I think pragmatically about, you know, will this thought help me to better follow Christ where he has me go?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? Or or will this thought help me to live out, you know, scripture and Jesus' teachings? We we know that there's a a content independent type of repetitive thinking that is linked to all kinds of disorders, depression, anxiety, OCD, panic kinds of disorders. And so what is the solution? It's it's to step out of the stream and sit on the bank of the stream to watch the stream go by.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? So, you know, the the early desert Christians, the Greek they used the Greek word nepsis or watchfulness to be watchful of the inner world. You know, they ended up, you know, of course, categorizing the thoughts into what eventually became the deadly sins. Mhmm. You know, evagrius Yeah.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And you know the history there, but he ended up writing a book called Talking Back where he had scripture to talk back. Do we try to directly wrestle with the thoughts Mhmm. Which I call a direct method, or do we engage in an indirect method, which is noticing the style of thinking and then pivoting or shifting? I tend to like the indirect method, not the direct method. And I the early desert Christians in some ways used that indirect method looking at Jesus and and how he responded to the devil in in the wilderness.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? Mhmm. He basically didn't get into a a, you know, a back and He's quoted scripture and then let that be. So inspired by that, they recognize that we have these tempting compulsive thoughts and that the solution is to notice them and then shift towards what? Towards scripture.
Dr.Josh Knabb:So I have a colleague, a psychologist, Christian psychologist, who says we can ask two questions about our thoughts to kind of question them. One would be, you know, what does God think about this? Mhmm. And another be would be what does the Bible say about this?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so I think as we're trying to differentiate, is this thought from God or not, I like more of a practical, pragmatic approach, which is, is this thought gonna help me to follow Christ? Is this thought consistent with Scripture, but to not get into a back and with my mind because we end up spinning our wheels, ruminating, worrying, and engaging in that repetitive negative thinking, which takes up all our energy and prevents us from living the life that God has called us to live. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen. So I think we need to answer this in two ways. So her question is, she's terrified to unintentionally ignore a message from God. I would say in Mikaela's instance, I think there's a pattern of it not being God. And so we can probably usually say, this is not the Lord.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But for many of our listeners, if you feel an impulse, you feel led, and I just say this, you know, like today on the way here, I called someone in our church I haven't talked to in a while. I just said, hey, feel led to call you. How are you doing? But I don't think it would be the Lord that if I don't make this phone call, they're going to be in danger. But I did have with one of my friends, Karen, here at Sandals during COVID.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The Lord woke me up in the morning and said, Karen needs to go to the hospital. And I called her husband. And I said, the Lord told me that Karen needs to go to the hospital. And he said, how certain are you? And I said, I'm not certain, but I'm convinced.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Why don't we call a doctor from our church and then I would feel more comfortable? So then we involved the medical professional, and thank God he called, he's like, yeah, you need to go to the hospital. And she was hospitalized for a week, and she was going down. But don't have OCD, you know what I'm saying? And so that's an instance where I think we need to listen to that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And it was an unusual thought. I mean, if I called you and I was like, hey. And I like saying the Lord said, but I said, I'm convinced I needed to call you, so I did. But I'm not a person with this struggle or this pattern. I would say anybody with OCD in this instance, I would say it's probably not God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And like for an example, Mikayla, there's a guy in our church struggling with schizophrenia and paranoid disorder, I saw him on the street corner talking, so I stopped my car, he said, who are you talking to? And he said, God. And I said, you do know that you talk to people that are not there. I said, that probably wasn't God. Will you come with me, and I'll drive you to your treatment facility.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Are you on your medication? He believed he was talking to God. I believe probably not, Because he doesn't know who he's talking to because he has a mental illness that I knew of. Now he was hesitant because he had paranoid schizophrenia, so now he's looking at me going, and eventually, you know, we lost contact because the paranoia took over. But when we know that we've been diagnosed with something, we to allow ourselves to say that, look, I have this issue, and so, you know, I mean, how am I thinking about my thinking, which is what you I would say this probably isn't right, because I tend to overthink this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And the truth is we are not that powerful, Makayla. I don't have the power to not do something and cause harm. God doesn't work that way. Like, if I don't call Josh, Josh will be harmed. The Lord doesn't work that way.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now, he can warn us, but even like the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts, the prophets all say, God has warned us, if you go to Jerusalem, and what does Paul say? That's what I feel led to do, and he goes, and suffers. So I would say in Michalah's instance, I don't want to say it's never God, I would say it's probably usually not. It's your illness. And so if you could talk yourself through that, because God is not punitive in that way.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:If you don't call, I'm going to. That's not the Lord. That sounds like an illness or a personal struggle. What what are your thoughts on that?
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah. No. I agree. I mean, and thinking about the type of compulsions, I think a Christian life, walking with Christ is not a compulsive life. Yes.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And so I think we can work backwards from does entertaining this thought lead to compulsive behaviors? And if so, is this really from God if I'm end up compulsively washing or checking or doubting or seeing myself as a a sinner and have intrusive thoughts that I'm going to hell even though I know I've been saved? And and so I think we can work backwards from the compulsions to ask this that question, because I think that a compulsive Christian life is is not a life of freedom. I I think of a Christian life as a a life of being psychologically flexible
Scott Schutte:Yeah.
Dr.Josh Knabb:To to be able to move where Jesus would have me go, to be open to the promptings of the spirit. And so as I have rigidity and compulsiveness, I think we can then trace, you know, back to the thoughts and then question, are these really from God? So Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Well, think the theological error, and don't, Mikayla, don't mean this for you at all, the theological error is turning my faith, Christianity, into magic. So right, so the magician says something or does something that produces a result. So I wash my hands and I'm free of this, or I do this three times, or there was one guy in our church, like every time he would drive across a bridge, he had to turn around and do it again, otherwise his family would die. And I'm like, so you believe you have the power to save your family through this magical repetition. And I just said, that's not the way God works, and you're not that powerful.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And the only way you're gonna know that is by not turning around and driving back. Because really, I mean, you're putting the weight of God on your shoulders. Like, I have to do these things to keep my family safe, and there are some things that we should do. Like, my wife asked me to lock the doors, you know, so I do. But I don't do it obsessively three times, so I think that we have to be careful that we don't turn our faith into I do these things, and then God does this.
Dr.Josh Knabb:In order to, yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's magic. That's not our faith. And Christians do that with, I go to church, I tithe, I pray, I shouldn't lose my job. Well, okay, you did all the right things, but your employer made bad decisions, and so now they have to let you go. And it has nothing to do with what you did, it's their poor decisions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You were doing everything right, but because of their decisions, now they have to let you go, or they're choosing to let you go. And so we need to get real again, it's like what you said, I do these things and then I have certainty. No, you don't. No, I don't. And so I would never want anything bad to happen to her mom, but simply calling our mom doesn't give us certainty that nothing bad is going to happen.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Life is uncertain. So what would you say that people can do if they have OCD? What's some some practical steps? Get a therapist or
Dr.Josh Knabb:I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think there are a lot of great resources out there. There are a lot of great Christian therapists that that work with OCD. You know, I I think I mentioned last time on the podcast, I'm a huge fan of acceptance and commitment therapy Mhmm.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Which is the idea that we are more accepting of the inner world, but our inner world, including our thoughts, aren't the guide for life. It's a set of values. Yes. Right? And I think for Christians, it would be biblical virtues.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Right? And so but not in a compulsive way. And so the idea would be that I'm not allowing these obsessive thoughts to determine the, you know, what would be compulsive behaviors, but instead, it's more of a freely chosen set of values following Christ. But, yeah, there are a lot of resources out there to help sort that out, to to relate differently to the intrusive thoughts so I don't engage in compulsive behaviors that are, you know, not consistent with God's will
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:for my So let's wrap this up, and just again, let therapists be therapists and let pastors be pastors. Years ago, was in a small group with a guy. He's no longer with us, he's passed away. But he was in my small group, and you know, I was not a therapist, it was my encounter with a young person that became schizophrenic, and so just for those who don't know, I met him when he was like 19 or 20, very normal, and then through about a two year process in our small group, he became almost unrecognizable.
Dr.Josh Knabb:And
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:there were just things that were happening that I was unaware of. And you know, just to say how blind Christians can be, he applied to a Christian university, not the one that you work at, that's well renowned, and he gave me his application. And I said, you don't want me to fill this out, because he was doing weird things. It was bizarre. And I wrote on the admissions paper, imagine receiving this in red ink, do not admit.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And the school called me, and then they admitted him. They said, we've never received an admission, like a what do call it? The letter, a recommendation letter. We've never received I said it wasn't a recommendation, it was do not admit him. But because I was a pastor, I didn't have the clinical expertise to say, here's what's wrong.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so because of that, I didn't help him, his marriage failed, obviously he dropped out of school, he became homeless, and like a lot of mental illness in California, we don't do anything, and then he turned to drugs and then died. And I wish that I would have been able to raise my hand and say, okay, this is beyond me, and turned to a therapist and said, there's some bizarre things, and I don't have language for this, but a prayer isn't going to fix this, and he's scaring my wife in small And I think we could have better helped him. And then I could have said to the school, hey, he's been diagnosed as schizophrenic. I would not admit him. So I would just say that's an instance where I think we really need people like in your profession that can notice some things, that have some training, and so a lot of Christians, man, Josh, I still experience this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Is it a sin for me to see a counselor? I hear that five times a year. And the shame that we put on people, and I think it's an arrogance from pastors, like I am the healer, and it's just like, man, I don't have the time, the resources, or the training to be able to diagnose things. So I love your profession, I appreciate your profession, and for everybody listening, I'm not a therapist, I'm learning. Every time you open your mouth, I'm like, okay, that was good, you know?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I appreciate that, and I think we need each other.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Yeah, absolutely.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Especially for those of us at Sandals to live out our vision of being Yeah,
Dr.Josh Knabb:that's right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So thank you guys, send in your questions, I appreciate you guys. The show is as good as the questions in today, as good as our guests. So thank you for being on the show, and you are fabulous, real, and amazing.
Dr.Josh Knabb:Thank you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm blessed that you go to Sandals Church. Thank you. So thank you guys, God bless. Hope you'll join us again for the next episode.
Scott Schutte:Thanks for checking out this episode. If you'd like to support this podcast, you can donate at sandalschurch.com/support. This podcast is a way for pastor Matt Brown to answer your questions about topics like the Bible, God, relationships, and culture. Like pastor Matt often says on the show, a podcast is not a pastor. If you like prayer or need to speak with someone about a specific situation you are going through, you can email us at help@sandalschurch.com.
Scott Schutte:If you enjoy this podcast, please like, comment, and subscribe. Thanks for being a debrief listener.