Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving Biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello. I am still in the

studio by myself, but I do have a first time guest with us. She's been in biblical counseling for quite some time, and I was told earlier this year when I saw her in person that I'm a brother from another mother. Maybe she said that or maybe it was something else. I can't remember exactly what it, but it was something along those lines. At any rate, I am joined today with Shannon Kay McCoy Shannon.

How we doing?

Good. Doing good, my brother. Yeah. Your wife is my sister, so we are in loss.

Yes. Yes. And then spiritually, you are definitely eternally speaking my sister. Alright. We brought you on because we've been going through our counseling through God's attributes series, and we are gonna continue that.

And so we wanted to bring Shannon on because of her contribution. And the particular topic that Shannon decided to focus on was God's shalom, God's peace. But before we get Shannon going on with that, Shannon, can you share a little bit with us? Before I hit the record button, you were sharing a little bit about life and how crazy things are transitioning right now. Can you just share a little bit with us of what's where you're at vocationally, ministry, church, all that?

So nine months ago, I moved from San Diego, California to Spartanburg, South Carolina. It's everything new job position as a Cytology. That's C Y T O. Some people think I say psychology. It's Cytology Lab Manager.

And I just all consuming. I was a full time job there. I have a new place to live. I have a brand new church, new people, everything's new. But the good thing is I'm now only like an hour away from family.

So that's been a tremendous blessing. Maybe to see my mom and my siblings more than once a year, because before it was once a year. So now I get to see them. I get to spend holidays with them, all the holidays. So it's been a big, tremendous change.

But I've been in counseling since 2009. Graduated from the Master's College. It was the Master's College, now it's the Master's University. In 2005, I started that program. It's interesting because John MacArthur just passed away a couple months ago, twenty years ago.

So it's been twenty years when I started, when I moved to California to be in that program. I graduated and have been doing speaking and writing at biblical counseling conferences, women's retreats, and doing some writing. And at the time in San Diego, I was director of biblical counseling at my church. And so now I'm here starting new, and we'll see what God has in store.

Oh, that's exciting. That is a lot. That is a lot. Yeah. So when you were talking about vocationally what you're doing, looking at trying to find cancer cells all day?

Yes. So as a cytotechnologist, I, look at cells under microscope on a glass slide looking for cancer cells, looking for STDs. I screen women's pap smears, but I also screen different sites. Like I can diagnose breast cancer, thyroid cancer, bladder cancer, that kind of stuff. So it's more on a cellular level that we are like behind the scenes making diagnoses.

So, yeah, that's my profession.

Wow. That is very intriguing. Very intriguing. Alright. So into this counseling through series on God's attributes, you chose Philippians chapter four verses six through nine to focus on God's peace.

Why did you choose this particular attribute of God?

So this was after COVID and trying to recover from everything, and we know the world changed tremendously drastically after COVID. So even before then, lot of people come into counseling for anxiety, but it was definitely heightened after COVID with politics and all that kind of stuff. It's just anxiety is at an all time high. And I'm sure there are reasons for that, but it's hard for people to think about God's peace and anxiety. It's like, how do we reconcile that?

So that was a big issue in almost every counseling case. I definitely wanted to just take a little piece and write something about it so that counselors can take it into the counseling room. It's like, is an option. This is one idea, one way to go in a counseling session when someone is dealing with anxiety.

Yeah, that's good. And so I want to read the text really quick. Philippians chapter four verses six through seven. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So how would you in in recognizing that text in counseling session, how would you use that text?

I think most of us biblical counselors are familiar with that text when it comes to anxiety and worry. It was like, okay, let's turn to Philippians four. He just for nothing. But in everything, prayer and supplication, we read it so fast. Okay, I know I'm not supposed to be anxious, but it's very hard putting that into practice.

So this is, I wanted to break it down. Like what is anxiety and what is peace? It's like how do you reconcile those things? So that's what I started with. And that's number one.

Recognize God's peace is active. So, as opposed to you're going through something difficult and you're just laying there. Okay God, just change my circumstances then I don't have peace. I was like, this is a lot of anxiety and I can't do anything until you change my circumstances. That's not what the biblical text talks about when it talks about the God of peace and having the peace of God.

It is active. So in this lesson, says, reflect on the truth that God's peace isn't a fleeting feeling, but a steady presence tied to obedience and trust in God. So peace comes when we take biblical action, Biblical action. Are we even obeying God in this particular circumstance? Are we trusting Him?

Or are we trying to use the world's answers and resources to fix our problem? Are we jumping ahead of God? So all these things like we are actually doing things but we may be doing things the wrong way. But being biblically active is obeying Him. Doing what He says or stop doing what you are not supposed to be doing, like sinning or something.

So it depends on what the circumstance is. Also another one is being truthful, telling the truth about what is happening. Not dismissing what you're going through, or not exaggerating what you're going through. What's factually going on as opposed to your feelings. Let's look at the facts.

So that's helpful in a counseling session. We acknowledge how people are feeling. That's part of the identification of, tell me where you are. What's happening? Can you identify?

Yeah, I'm feeling really stressed right now. Or I'm really angry about this situation right now. So it's good to identify that, but then work through that biblically with biblical truth. So it is action, if that makes sense.

No. That's really good. And then because I appreciate that thought process around when we talk about peace, it's hard for us to try to think through peace and having peace because the last thing we're actually feeling is peace. But just how much peace is actually tied to our emotion. And I would argue, biblically, the peace that Christ came to purchase for us that is already ours is and sometimes often feels like an emotion.

It's almost like a muscle that we work a little bit where it's choosing because it goes back to trust a little bit. Right? It's like everything around me feels this particular way, but I'm trusting that God is who he says he is. He gives me peace. I have peace.

I just need to actually rest in it, receive it. There's all these prepositions that we can think of that allow us to receive and sit in that peace. And then through this particular section you've got in the counseling session, you talk about identifying how anxiety works. You want to talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, so identifying how anxiety works. So in this section it says examine how anxiety builds when your heart and mind are focused on problems, uncertainties, and worst case scenarios rather than God's promises. So as we know, we are guilty of this probably, but definitely some council leads come in and they have created this narrative, right? They are creating this whole movie about what is happening in their lives. This is how anxiety is created.

So when you think about if you are just focusing on your problem, that problem becomes bigger and bigger. For example, let's think about finances. This is a serious economy that we're experiencing right now. I have friends who have been experiencing layoffs or the fear of layoffs and what do we do? Do we need to move across country?

What's happening here? You may have, I definitely have bills to pay, I have a mortgage, whatever's going on. And that ruminating on that and what can happen, what's going to happen does create anxiety. It creates worry. And we are trying to fix the problem.

We're spending our energy trying to fix it. We're praying the desperate nine eleven prayers, God help, which are good prayers. But at the same time, moving in that way keeps you from hearing the voice of God. It keeps you from calming down enough to hear the voice of God to remember His character. Think you mentioned that earlier.

Who is God? Is He trustworthy? Is He your provider? Is He good? All of these characteristics of God that brings in that peace when we remember that.

And even in the midst. So, one concept about peace I want to say is peace isn't simply the absence of conflict or stress. It is the steady presence of God in the midst of that stress. So, the boat can be rocking all kinds of ways, but you can still have peace within that rocking boat. Now that doesn't make sense to the world.

The world is saying, No, the way to get peace is you need to control everything. You need to grab hold of everything, get it all in your control so that you can have peace. But that is a lie from the enemy because we know no one is actually in control of anything. But it is okay surrendering this issue to God and saying I can't fix this. I don't have the resources.

I don't have the power. But the Gospel tells us we know the answer to the problem. It is in Christ, because in Christ, we have that peace. We can trust Him. He provides for us.

He's our security. He's our satisfaction. He's all of these things, but it requires us to act on it. That's why it's not passive. It is active.

Yeah, that's really good. And what I like about your, obviously, your scripture selection here is what's actually happening in this text. Right? And what we know in the context of Paul writing this, what his circumstances were. And his circumstances, for all intents and purposes, his understanding was he's about to die.

Right? He's cold. He's damp. He's all of these things, and he's making this proclamation on the heels of that reality to say, your heart and minds will be guarded in Christ Jesus, which is the peace of God. Like, that guarding hearts and minds, it's the idea that our hearts in terms of what we choose or what we're choosing to believe, and then our minds compounding what we already believe in this sort of this perpetual disposition that we find ourselves in.

But it's to say, again, back to what you were saying is that there's a trust there. It's like Paul can say that encouraging believers on the heels of knowing that he's about to be poured out. And then even your analogy with being in the boat, my understanding is if I'm in the boat, if I'm looking horizontally and temporally, transiently, that it looks like everything's about to fall out. I'm about to drown. I'm about to experience crazy pain.

This is this is a crisis situation. But even if I experience all that pain, like, he's still there because in the final analysis, he guards me no matter what. And that's a difficult thought, obviously, in the midst of crisis to find peace. Their minds are like, dude, you're crazy. That is the most ridiculous thought you can think of.

And that's the flesh's response, and the spirit's no. That's true, though. Yeah. Yeah. It's uncomfortable, and it seems beyond what I can deal with, but he's with me.

He's present no matter what happens. Obviously, to your point, with our counselors, right, they're coming in with different situations, and it's hard to write sometimes when somebody comes in with a crisis situation, and to them, it's a crisis. But to us, we're like, man, this actually really isn't a crisis. But, obviously, we're not leading with that.

Right.

But going to the text and then walking them to that realization that this actually it may feel like a crisis. It might seem like a crisis for all intents and purposes, but the truth of the matter is that Christ is with you. He, like, he walked through that. There's there's nothing that we're going through that he hasn't went through already, and there's not only is that true, but there's a level of comfort if we just sit in that for a second. And that that's obviously, like, one of the goals in counseling when we're with counselors that are experiencing that level of struggle in their circumstances and situations, or they're just waiting for something to break, and they have to they have to wait on the Lord, and that's hard.

That then all of a sudden that peace does not feel obtainable. And so obviously this tax grounds us back in that reality. So that's good. Any thoughts on that, Shannon?

Yeah. It goes back to the action because a lot of times we ask we are asking, what do I do? Tell me what to do. That's what they're looking for when they come to counseling. Just tell me what to do.

So in our number two here, the observation is anxiety often rises from misplaced focus. When your thoughts dwell on circumstances or potential outcomes instead of God's character and sovereignty, anxiety gains ground. He's come to when you realign your focus on Godly wisdom instead of worldly wisdom, what you were just talking about. So how do we get our counselors to do that? First we have to ask, we have to take each thought.

Take those thoughts. Don't be afraid to ask, okay, me what thoughts are you having about, what's your fear about finances? What's the worst thing that can happen? That's a good question to ask. I will lose my house.

I will lose my car. Those are real things that we can fear. But again, we have to take those thoughts and challenge them with Biblical truth. I could lose my home. What does Matthew six say?

Do not worry about these things. I can't quote it, but it says something like Matthew six thirty three says something, Basically focus on the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto

Yes, seek first the Kingdom.

Yes. So, that means, what are you focused on? Are you focusing on all the circumstances, all the things that could happen? Or are you, yes, those are there, but you're turning towards Christ and reminding yourself, God is my provider. He has provided for me up until this point in my life.

I don't know how He is going to do it, but I know He is going to do it because God's Word is true. So, that just breaks it down a bit to where even you can do a chart. We may get to that later. Maybe that's the after session assignment. We'll talk about assignments later.

But in the working of the counseling session, you want to take their thoughts. Ask them those questions. Even have them write it down in one column. Say it like the left hand column. Have them write it down.

And then go through biblical texts that talk, that dispute that thought, that expand upon that thought and get biblical solutions for that thought. That's work.

That's really good. And what I appreciate about that is because it's acknowledging the truth that our thoughts are not neutral. Right? They're active. They're trying to pursue something.

Right? And it could be full of fear. So, yeah, yes and amen to that. And I think that that's hard to do sometimes in this session because when they're frantic and their thoughts are just racing and they're thinking about outcomes, something I often try to use in the counseling room a little bit when that's a context of what's going on is when they're focused on outcomes, the what if thinking, I think about the omnis of God. You're concerned about the outcome, but the omnis of God meets you no matter the ending of any of the thoughts that you're having.

If we take these to a logical conclusion, God's still at the end of that. Even to your example, if you did lose your house, is God still good? Obviously, I'm not going to start there. I'm going be a little bit more compassionate about that. Yeah.

Yeah. But that we know the end result truth to that, And the skill of a counselor is getting that person to that truth without just spoon feeding it to them. We want to lead them and guide them there.

Or so I was just you say spoon feed like that's one side of The other one is like force feeding where they're choking on the spoon because it's in their esophagus. It was like

Open your mouth.

Yeah. It's chokey like force feeding God's word of No. This is the right thinking. No. We can't start to that's obviously that's again, that's why this resource exists is to try to this is part of data gathering and trying to help our consolees think at the at a deeper level with the Lord because it is.

It's difficult. Right? Because it all comes back to suffering. It's all about, like you said, conflict. Right?

Peace is not the absence of conflict. It's peace in the midst of conflict. Yeah. And and, again, that's why a lot of this is so difficult in biblical counseling because there is this paradoxical tension that we have to help our counselors realize this may not be resolved. Like, this particular matter that you're wrestling with, this side of heaven may actually not get resolved.

But the goal is to try to get you to trust the Lord in the midst of this tension and trust him and rely on him. And so that's that's good. So to your point, though, getting to that, the end of session, the after session, you've got some things to work through. You wanna share some of your action plan on the after session, the things that we want our consulates to walk away with?

Yeah, these are just four here, but there are plenty that you can think of and that's already out there probably. But daily scripture focus. Remember, because when you have anxiety and you're worrying, you're focusing on the wrong thing. So, it's misplaced focus. So, we want to get that focus back on what is true.

And speaking of that, Philippians four:eight tells us what to think about. Think on these things. Remember that? What is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable. Each one of those, I'm thinking ahead.

This is actually an assignment you can do where you can put this in a column. You know, what is true? Okay, you can take that situation, that circumstance, and talk about all the things that are true. What's honorable? What's just?

And just, when you think about what's just, okay, what is right? What is righteous? You want to align your thoughts with God's justice and revealed will, not your personal preference. So there's a difference there. I think this is wrong, or I think this is You have to think about God's perspective on that, and not the worldly influence or the cultural opinion.

Sometimes we don't realize how influenced we are. Our thinking is based on the world. And this is a good practice to say, oh okay, this is what God says is true. So daily scripture focuses one action plan. You want to begin each day by reading Philippians four:six-nine.

Write one actionable step for the day that aligns with this passage such as thanking God in prayer or focusing on praiseworthy things. So, it's just an example. And another one is the thought journal. I'm a journaler. I like writing things down because things stick in my brain more than if I don't do it.

So, here you track anxious thoughts this week. Alright, so you had your counseling session and this is the homework you've given the person. We're going to meet next week, but throughout the next seven days, you don't have to do it every day, but maybe three days out of four. I want you to track any thoughts that you have this week. And for each thought, I want you to write down a corresponding biblical truth.

That means they have to get into the Word of God. Right? That means they have to search that out. And then you want to pray over each truth, asking God to anchor your heart in His peace. And what we don't realize there's in Ephesians four twenty two, twenty three and twenty four.

I always say that's a type of formula that God has given us. So, Ephesians four twenty two is put off. Every biblical counselor knows this. You put off. Verse 23 is be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

And verse 24 is put on the new. So even the world knows that how many days does it take to change a habit? Mike, how many days does it take to change a habit?

Thirty days or thirty five days or fifteen. It depends on who. One do you go with?

This is a good question because it used to be twenty one days and then realize, no, we need more than twenty one. It looked thirty days. Now it's sixty days. Now it's ninety days. That's the whole point.

It's like, none of that works because we're not doing the verse 23 which is being renewed in our minds. So it's one thing to say, okay I need to put off worrying and I'm going to put on trust. You can't really, you probably can act that way for a couple of days but you're going to fall again because you're not doing verse 23, which is you're changing your thoughts from believing the lies to believing the truth. So, that's a transformation. So, my point is, as we are doing this, the Holy Spirit is working behind the scenes.

We can't see it, but we begin to change our thoughts so that you can look back like a year ago. Look back a year ago. Remember that thing you're worried about? What thing? Oh, yes, we were praying about that last year.

Here you forgot about it because God changed you. You were transformed. You're not worried about that anymore because your mind is different. You don't think the way you thought a year ago about this particular situation. So that is the power of Christ and that is the difference Christ makes when, you know, we're all human, whether you're a believer or an unbeliever.

We struggle with all the same things. The question for Christians is, what difference does Christ make? That's our witness. You have two coworkers at work. They are both going through breast cancer, let's say.

One is doing the, I am just going be positive. I am just going to be positive. Keep it positive. We are not saying the C word. And that is the unbeliever.

And then the believer is saying, I'm trusting in Christ for my life. Yes, I've heard what the doctors said. I'm looking at the reality. But there's peace there that surpasses all understanding when the non believer is just full of fear and trying to push that fear away by just being positive. So that is the difference Christ makes.

This is what I would unravel in a counseling session is getting what they believe. What are they truly believing about their situation versus what is the biblical truth. So those are just some things I would go over.

Yeah, no, that's really good. And just for those of you who are listening, counselors, and even just as it relates to discipleship in general, like the informal reality of counseling and discipleship, The truth is like the spiritual disciplines are so important. I understand sometimes we gotta be careful with that because sometimes it can feel legalistic, but we have to remember there's a difference between earning and effort. And the effort piece has to do with the spiritual disciplines of everything that Shannon just said of a man that the weight of some of these consolees' issues and how entrenched they are in some of their own thoughts and fears and all of these other things is gonna require some laborious work in the spiritual disciplines like writing out like those categories, taking Colossians or excuse me, Ephesians four, the put off to put on, the renewing your mind, which Paul makes that same point again in Philippians, what we just talked about the text that we started with, is that Paul's making that same point. There's a renewal process.

This is what I love about scripture is it continues to demonstrate the reality of the whole person, our thoughts, our hearts, the spirit is transforming every bit of our faculties. And this is how that transformation happens. And the cool part is that part of our persuasive effort as a counselor is to encourage the counselees. God's actually glorified and honored in this pursuit, and he honors that because he guards you in it because those are his thoughts after him anyway. Because they may not believe it, and we may have several sessions with this particular individual just to go along with Shannon's contribution here about peace where you got a consulate who's really struggling, and maybe this is your fifth or sixth session, and they just seem to be regressing and not doing their growth assignments, or they've done a few growth assignments, but it doesn't seem to be powerful enough to eclipse their fearful thoughts that they continue to have or you know what I mean?

There's just these continuations of these things that really we might continue to have them do the same growth assignment three or four times until it becomes a little bit going back to Shannon's point about habit, where they just begin to practice it a little bit more, helping them realize that grace affords it, and there is a period in trusting the lord of and I don't feel it, but, like, I I have to learn to lean into that a little bit. And me leaning into that looks like me writing my thoughts down. That looks like me being honest and transparent about my weaknesses and what I'm fearful of in writing those things out so that we can actually address those. And that's the hard work a lot of times where consolees aren't really prepared for the deep work that goes into transformation. It's like they're asking for it from us on the front end, and we're like, yes and amen.

Let's dive into that. And then we start waiting our way to the deep end, and they're like, I don't have got my floaties. I'm tired. Can I get, like, a float pad and just chill out here for a little bit? No.

That's yeah.

Have the couch lay down, close your eyes. Yeah.

Yeah. There there is no pina colada in a foam chair over on this side of the pool. Like, this is deep work. This is military. Like, you're waiting in the water.

You're kicking your feet. You're staying up, and it feels like a lot of effort, but the Lord honors those things. And any concluding thoughts on that, Shannon?

Yeah. I just wanna encourage people that, yes, it is hard, but God enables us to do it. So if you're looking at it as no I can't. If you think about praying that is just so hard it's taxing but so is ruminating on what you're worried about. That's a lot of effort when you're just constantly thinking about what's scaring you, you're afraid of, it not only affects your brain, it affects your physical body, it's like you can begin to get sick if you're constantly ruminating on what is negative.

Even the world knows, that's why they have positive thinking out there, but we know what is solid is thinking it's like trusting God that yes, I'm gonna be willing to start praying about this. I'm gonna I'm willing Lord help me to be willing. And you start where you are. That's the grace of God. You don't have to sound like some seasoned believer.

I got to pray in this way. It's no start right where you are. Gratitude. The world has taken that tool and turned it into something else of human empowerment. Gratitude three.

But biblically speaking, gratitude is super powerful spiritually because that has to do with the Holy Spirit to be truly grateful for something. And I wanted to say that God's peace does not equal feeling. God's peace equals the fruit of obedience and trust. So you're not looking at your feelings and trying, if I say my three gratitude top points every night, it's going to make me feel better. That's not the goal.

Transformation is the goal. God's going to transform my thoughts, my mind, my words, and my actions. And as I do that, I'm going be transformed. I'm going to experience the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. People are going to look at me and say, I don't see how you do it girl or Mike, how you're doing that with all that stuff that's going on?

It's because you're walking in that piece. You've put the work in spiritually speaking to have to walk in that piece.

Yeah, that's good. That's really good. Shannon, thank you so much for joining us on this episode to speak the truth. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you guys next time.