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When life gets hard, does what we think we believe hold us up, or does it crumble under the weight of doubt? I'm your host, Dr. Lee Warren- I'm a brain surgeon, author, and a person who's seen some stuff and wondered where God is in all this mess. This is The Spiritual Brain Surgery podcast, where we'll take a hard look at what we believe, why we believe it, and the neuroscience behind how our minds and our brains can smash together with faith to help us become healthier, feel better, and be happier so we can find the hope to withstand anything life throws at us. You've got questions, and we're going to do the hard work to find the answers, but you can't change your life until you change your mind, and it's gonna take some spiritual-brain surgery to get it done. So let's get after it.
Good morning, my friend. Dr. Lee Warren here with you, and I am so excited to
be back with Spiritual Brain Surgery.
We've got Tata in the house for an episode of Tuesdays with Tata here for Thanksgiving with you.
Spiritual Brain Surgery has been on a bit of an inconsistent hiatus because
I was trying to finish the manuscript for my new book, get the school of self-brain
surgery ready, do my day job as a brain surgeon.
And also finish the book, The Handbook of Self-Brain Surgery.
So, been a lot going on, and we had the main podcast going gangbusters,
and we just haven't been able to get kind of a consistent launch for spiritual
brain surgery. But that's coming together.
We have a plan for 2025. We're going to have all kinds of special guest-hosted
episodes, and we're going to be much more consistent weekly episodes for you
with spiritual brain surgery.
And it's got a life of its own that's going to be amazing. So,
we appreciate you listening and bearing with us as we get the kinks worked out
with all the other things we have going on. And here we are today with Tuesdays
with Tata for Thanksgiving, and we are excited about this episode. Hey, let's get after it.
Friend, we're back. It is a Monday afternoon on Thanksgiving week,
and we are getting together for Tuesdays with Tata.
How are you doing, Tata? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good.
It's cold outside today.
It is. It was really cold this morning. It was 18 this morning,
I think it was low. Something like that, or 11 at the airport.
11, wow. And we just watched a bald eagle eating something in the river a minute ago.
That was pretty neat. Yes, it was. place never stopped having lunch he was having
lunch i think it was a otter or a beaver or something it was a big mammal yeah
he was eating but anyway we are getting together with you today in advance of
thanksgiving because we want to
just tell you how grateful we are for you friend and your support we have.
Been inconsistent with the Spiritual Brain Surgery podcast.
We're getting back online. I have now, I can announce this. I have finished
the manuscript for the Handbook of Self Brain Surgery.
So we'll be back podcasting more frequently now on Spiritual Brain Surgery.
And Tata and I are bringing you a new episode today. And we're thankful for
you, aren't we, Tata? Amen.
I've always thought about it, that we have a date to be thankful.
Yeah. but we're encouraged and we're
commanded to be thankful all the time
every day that's right i'm thankful for the
day i'm thankful because that it brings people
it brings to their attention that they need to be thankful because my day starts
from being thankful to be able to see the sunrise that's right every day and
of course we know on the neuroscience side why god encourages us to be thankful
because he built our minds to operate best in an attitude of gratitude,
So it's good to have a day where we focus and reframe.
Just an acknowledgement to you, friend, if you're in your first holiday season
after a major loss, we see you.
We both felt that before, and we still feel it every time we're around the table.
We have empty chairs in our family. So we see you, and we're thinking about you.
Toph, I want you to start us off with a word of prayer today as we get into
what we're going to talk about today. Okay.
Father, we give you thanks for this day that you have made, and we rejoice in it.
And father we are so thankful for all of
the blessings that we receive we're thankful that we're able
to have this time together and father we just praise your name and acknowledge
that you are god almighty and father we stop at this moment to because this
week is thanksgiving week but we are we know that it is very important to be
thankful it's very important to be thankful every day of our lives that's right and father all.
And all of the time that we just recently
for me i've been questioning why why
the things have happened in my life but and i'm
reminded what the apostle paul said forgetting the things that are past and
think about the things that he had to forget well i haven't it's hard for me
to comprehend that but anyway we're so thankful that we're reaching you and
we want to encourage you and we pray that you feel blessed and highly favored.
Father, we pray and know that many people that are hearing this will hear this
are in some stage of grief and some profound tragic trauma has happened in their life.
Father, we just pray that you will bless them and that you will ease their pain.
But thankful, Father, we know that you have that capability and you know that you're aware of.
So we ask you to come now and demonstrate your mighty power and our presence
for your glory, Father, not ours.
And we ask all of this in the sweet and precious name of Jesus Christ,
our Lord and Savior, your Son and our Redeemer.
Amen. Amen. Thank you, Tata. What do you got for us today?
I guess a word of preface. I'm spending time in the NIV again.
Of course, we know what happened to Harvey, our dog, our dearly departed German short-haired poyler.
We've been just over a year since we lost the dogs. We left them out in the
house one time in the three years we had them.
And the one day they got into Tata's room and ate his Bible.
And that Bible was very special to me. I'd carried it probably,
I know, 15 years that I'd been using it.
And when I did spend time in the English Standard Version, and I had never done that before.
And I found it very encouraging.
But I'm going back through it and starting over again with it.
In my whole ways, I start at the beginning. That's right, in Genesis.
But there's just a couple of things. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this.
I don't know. Maybe it's a point in my life. I don't know. But some of the things
that I see have really become important to me.
They just spring off the page almost.
Yes, sir. What else we're focusing right now is in Genesis chapter 6.
But I want to think about what God has already seen.
Adam and Eve rebelled against it. Cain killed Abel. Yeah.
So tragedy, and here again, we don't know how much time has elapsed during all of this. Right.
That's not important. But we need to know what God felt like. Right.
What kind of process he went through as he was looking at the human race?
People that he created. Yeah. And in Genesis chapter 6, the writer starts out
beginning, when human beings began to increase in numbers on the earth,
and daughters were born to them, the sons of God.
And there's some argument about that. Were these angels? Maybe.
But I'm taking it literally that says the sons of God. So they had some kind
of relationship with God that we don't have. Yeah.
The sons of God saw that the daughters of the humans were beautiful,
and they married any of them they chose.
They did marry them. They just didn't take them and carry them off.
And on down in the chapter, in chapter 2, the Lord, when he looked down on the
earth, he saw the wickedness of the humans, how evil they had become.
And every intention of their heart was evil.
Wow. Every intention of their heart was evil.
Wow. And the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth,
and his heart was deeply...
Think about that just a minute. Wow. He regretted that he had made it. Wow.
Does he have, can he do that? Of course he can, because he made us.
We're made in his image. That's right.
But he regretted it, and he even regretted that he had made human beings.
And I wonder what he sees now.
He looks at it. I don't want to be, this is our father in heaven,
our heavenly father, and Jesus is our brother. I believe that.
And we're adopted into his family. That's right. So we're his children.
And I don't want him to look at me and regret that he had made me. No.
I don't want him to, but I know I do, because I'm a sinful man.
And every day of my life, I ask him to forgive me for being a sinful man.
But look at what he said, that how great the wickedness of the human race had become.
On the earth and that every inclination of their thoughts of the human heart
was evil every inclination every thought that's the end result of not taking
every thought captive that's right take no thoughts captive they're going to
deteriorate to all be evil but negative,
because then we don't want we don't pledge allegiance to a higher being that's
right And we don't acknowledge that there is our being.
And this is so profound to me that, and I look at what's happening in the world
today, the wickedness that we see, I don't think God intends us to focus on
it. I think he will take care of it.
But what is troubling to me, when the Lord regretted that he had made a human
being, and he was deep disturbed, he was concerned.
And I don't want to be in that...
And there's sometimes, and I'm sure based on, and this is maybe the why,
but I'm sure some of it based on my upbringing.
Question has always remained, can I really please God? Right.
The only way I can please him is keep it. If you're out there wondering that,
how can I please God? God makes it pretty clear.
Love, justice, love mercy and do justice and walk humbly. That's right.
That's Micah 6a. That's right.
And if you're covered by the blood of Jesus, your job is not to please him.
Your job is not to earn his affection with your deeds.
You've been forgiven. You're not constantly measured by your actions anymore.
But now it's a matter of do you grieve the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?
Do you grieve him and not listen to his guidance and not take care of your thinking
because your thoughts become new things and all of that? It's not a salvation
question, perhaps, like you and I were raised to think it is all the time.
But it's more of a, what kind of fruit are we bearing in the world? That's right.
And maybe that's a throwback from the days under the old law,
the time of sacrifice and keeping of holy days. Yeah.
But Jesus came to do away with all of it.
He did. He did not destroy it. He did not condemn it. He fulfilled it.
But he insisted that we were not bound by it. That's right.
But the whole point is that this concerns me, and it concerns all of us, that God would regret.
That he had made and i don't know the
days have always been evil solomon said himself that
nothing was new under the sun maybe it just has a new address or wears a different
coat that's right it's the same thing and it all boils down to rebellion when
we rebel against god there is no one else left to rebel against. That's right.
And I think we have to draw a distinction between, it's even true of God.
You can have emotion and you can have rational thought at the same time,
and God always does what's just and right.
So even when his emotion says, I'm tired of these people, I'm burdened by them,
his sense of justice and sense of mercy supersedes his emotion.
And he says, I love them. I have a redeeming plan for them.
I'm going to carry them out. And even after the flood, he said,
I'm never going to do that again. That's right.
This is pre-Messiah. Obviously, we're in the days here where God could have
just said, you know what? I changed my mind. Let's just forget this whole thing.
He could have just nixed the whole thing and wiped us out.
Yes. But his own justice, his
own plan, his own inability to revoke his promise made that impossible.
Because as you go forward, the evil is always present.
It doesn't go away just different
people doing it that's right but god
has a bigger picture always the big picture of the fact that he intends to redeem
and save us that his son's going to die for us that he's going to restore and
make all of this new that his original plan for creation will be restored and
set right and that he gives us the free will to participate in that with him or not,
is why we have hope. That's right.
We have the hope that he keeps... And the caveat to that is that it's easy to
say and understand why people say it can't be true. Yeah. Not real.
No one would do that. God would not. You say God is good, but God is not good.
That's what they say. Yeah. That's when we get our sense of what we think the
right thing is mixed up with what the right thing is.
And that is a good bring back to remind everyone that there's not your truth
and my truth. There's the truth. And Jesus is the truth.
There's not your sense of morality and my sense of morality.
And we come to some democratic conclusion of what's right.
It's there is a right there is a truth and
it's jesus and so we don't need
to get wrapped up in these questions of what we call the odyssey
this why is there suffering why is there hurting and all of that because the
answer is they're suffering because we sinned that's right and god has a plan
to redeem that and the rescue is underway the process is already under under
process and so we have hope knowing that he keeps his word he doesn't change
his mind even when he's frustrated or mad.
He never stops being Redeemer and Savior. That's right. No, He does not.
And His plan will result in our ultimate redemption and salvation and deliverance, not just forgiving.
It's self-evident from this that even though that God regretted that He had
made them, through Noah.
The people were saved
noah and his family total of
eight people that's right and so it was
it's i guess it's hard to get your mind around
the fact that god would he would finally just put the hammer down and say that's
enough no more that's right but all of this and for the encouragement that i
find is that all of this was written for us as the apostle paulson for our for our edification.
The Old Testament is hard to read in some places.
You spend time in that because one thing that I've observed,
and I don't care where I read, I can just flip a page open in the Bible.
I see something that I've seen before, but it means something else to me now.
And that's what the New Testament means when it says the word is living and active.
It's the only book that you don't just read it, it reads you. Absolutely right.
The Holy Spirit uses the words of Scripture to reveal things to us that we can
only understand in the context of the moment that we're in.
That's why Paul talks about it in Acts 17. God put you where he put you at the
time that he intended for you to be.
That's why I always, if Lisa says, oh, I wish I wasn't having this birthday
or I wish this wouldn't happen now, I said, no.
God put you in the world at the moment that he put you for the purpose of finding
him, Paul says, so that we might seek him and perhaps find him,
though he's not far from any of us.
So the idea is that you are playing a part in a story that was written just
for you in the greater context of a story that was written about him and for
him and by him. That's right.
And that the purpose of scripture study, as you said, is to see God keeps his promises.
Yes, we frustrate him. Yes, we break his heart. He doesn't smite us and wipe us out.
He carries out his redemptive plan and gives us an opportunity for forgiveness
and salvation and mercy and justice and purpose.
And even when things hurt, even when we're suffering, we can know that he suffered
more than we have. Absolutely.
And he still persists, loves us and triumphs in the end. And so will we.
That's right. And also what God said, I keep mulling that around in my mind
is that apart from me, you can do nothing. That's right. And Jesus said that himself.
And Jesus, he said, went on to say that he was the way, truth, and the life.
And that no one comes to the Father except through him. That's right.
And again, not a way, not one way, not some of the way. He is the way. That's right.
The truth and the life. And that's what we keep hammering that home.
It feels like we mention that every week, but it's so important because in our
culture right now, there's this...
In fact, I just heard there was an interview with a woman who runs National
Public Radio, NPR. And it's, of course, heavily government funded.
So our tax dollars go to support the employees of NPR overwhelmingly vote and
support one political party.
We're not going to talk about politics here. But the point is that agency has
become an arm of one of our political parties to influence the thought process of people.
And the head of that agency said in an interview last week that truth is more
of a distraction than an assistance in doing her job.
And so if you think about that for a minute, like when we were back in the Old
Testament times and God said he's tired of people that he's made and regrets having made us,
when we continue to make choices that lead us away from the truth,
that lead us not to love the truth,
that lead us not to be burdened and brokenhearted by the things that break his
heart, and defining our lives and our choices by what popular opinion is,
that's how we become offensive to God. That's right.
And we don't want to live in that. Even if we've been forgiven,
Paul says, don't go on sinning that grace may abound. That's right. No, no.
He says, choose the right path so that you honor the spirit and don't quench
it and honor the spirit and don't grieve it.
And so I think the point of what you're trying to say here, Tata,
is that God does have times when our actions disappoint him and we need to be
seekers of truth and mercy and justice and people who live our lives in a way
that strive to honor what he's done for us.
Absolutely. And the other part of that is that sometimes I think that people
today have just absolutely given up on trying to follow the Word.
Understanding what God is trying to say.
And they've listened to someone else or they've bought into a premise that doesn't
hold water, that is untrue.
And so the question about what is true, Pilate even said that.
That's right. What is true? Yeah.
What is true? That is a sad place to be if that's a legitimate question.
And let me just bring this home for you. If you're out there listening and you're
like, where are we going with this? Let me bring it to you.
When your wife of 56 years dies, when your son is hit by a truck,
when your son is stabbed to death, when you go through that devastating thing,
you begin to wonder quickly what's true.
Are the things that I have built my life upon, are the things that I have believed,
are they really true? Does God really love me? Does he care about me?
Will he keep his promises? Am I going to find a path forward again after this?
Is that empty chair at Thanksgiving always going to feel like the biggest thing in the world to me?
And I can just tell you, if you don't have a path to discern and land on something
that is actually true and won't change over time, It won't crumble and won't
fall beneath the shifting sands of culture.
You need to be able to know that some things are true. Right.
And when you know what's true, and the only way you can find out what's true,
by the way, is to read the word of God.
Because I would just challenge you to find another document that doesn't prove
to be false in one way or another over time.
The word will not fail. It won't fall. It won't crumble.
We're learning that from neuroscience. science, if you listen to the main podcast,
we learn over time that science never invalidates something that scripture has said.
It never does. It may seem like it does for a while, but then you go the 300
years from Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein, and all of a sudden,
some of the things that the Bible says turn out to be true.
And they were never wrong. We just didn't understand them yet.
So truth is true, and there is a truth. There is the truth, and it's Jesus Christ.
And so if you're troubled, if you're worried, if you're stressed,
if you're hurting here at Thanksgiving, put your eyes on him.
Find out what he says about your life. And the only way to do that is to get
in the word. Don't let somebody else, don't let Tata or me tell you what's in
the word. Go get it yourself.
Taste and see, he says, that the Lord is good. Let Harvey taste in your Bible.
And begin at the beginning. That's right. You just can't pick and choose.
You have to come to an understanding, and you have to meet with the Lord.
That was an old song, just a little time with Jesus. Just a little talk with
Jesus. Yeah, we did an episode about that song. Yeah, we did.
And I can't stress it enough.
I finally, and I can't even tell you what came true to me, and I can't place it in time.
I can't look at it and say, it happened on this date.
I finally said to God, thank you for taking Patty Sewell. Because she was suffering. Yeah.
And she was only here at that point to make us feel better. That's right.
That's profound. And if you're able to come to that juncture in your own thinking,
if you're able to conceptualize that and understand it's not about you,
it has nothing to do with you.
We're going to suffer, yes. The loss is grievous.
Would I rather that she be here? Of course.
But I'm happy with where she is. For you, but not for her. That's right.
That's the seismic shift that I got to as a bereaved father.
And I'm sure that you got there, too, after losing Rebecca and James.
And Lisa and I have talked about it. When you get down to looking at whether
what you say you believe is really what you believe.
If you believe that we are created to be in heaven with God for eternity,
if you believe that it's better, as Paul said, for us to go home and be with him than it is to be here,
if you believe that life is hard and things are difficult and people who live
here go through difficult things, then you have to come to the conclusion that
when your child dies, when your wife dies, they are actually better off at that point. That's right.
They're where they were created to be at the time they were created to be there. That's right.
That was not that orchestrated by other humans. That's right.
And so then we get to that place where Paul says it, he says it almost on the nose.
He's, it's better for me to go home and be with the Lord. But you need me here.
You need me. Yeah. Sometimes maybe God's keeping me here because somebody else
needs me. That's right. But I would rather be home.
And if you can say that and understand that it's true, then you get to this
place where you're grieving.
As Paul says, again, isn't like the world grieves. That's right. Without hope.
As those who are without hope. Without hope. That's right. Because we know we're
sorrowful because we miss them, but not because it's a tragedy that they are
gone for them because they're where they're supposed to be.
And if you can make that switch, that's a gratitude switch,
again, that'll lead you away from that fear and hyperventilation and suffering
physiologically and all the things that happen when you're hurting and back
towards that gratitude and that
ability to think about how multiple things can be true at the same time.
And it's really sad, but it's also really beautiful that they're home.
And I'm going to tell you something. I haven't even told you this yet.
In fact, I haven't said it to anybody except Lisa.
But it's in the 11 years since Mitch died.
I hadn't had a single dream about him that wasn't traumatic and horrible.
Every time I dreamed about Mitch, it was watching him pass. It was not being there when he died.
I always saw him reaching out for me or calling out for me, and I wasn't there.
Those kinds of things. I didn't get there in time to have saved him and all that accusatory stuff.
And about two weeks ago, I had a dream in which he was there and he was happy, and I got to see him.
And we were walking along together in this beautiful place. And I said,
Mitch, I don't remember this event.
In my mind, I was dreaming of something that happened when he was alive.
And I said to him, I don't remember this. And he said, that's because it hasn't happened yet.
I woke up with this sense of just immense joy and peace knowing that those days have not yet occurred.
And I woke Lisa up and I told her about we were both weeping.
It was this gift from God.
But I'm telling you, friend, if you're suffering, you won't necessarily have a good dream.
You might not even have a good thought about that event, but there will come
a day when God is going to refocus your lens on this tragedy that you've been through.
And he's going to show you a new insight, give you a different perspective like
Tata just described. And it's going to be beautiful.
It's going to lift your heart and you're going to have new wings.
And that's when you start remembering our friend Mark Brogap said,
there's a floor to your suffering that jesus bought with his blood and so when
you can stand up on that truth that taught us,
you can stand up on that's when you can
understand why you can have thanksgiving and sorrow at
the same time absolutely yeah and the whole point is also that that we need
to be mindful of the fact that we need to be grateful that we're even here that's
right we have breath albeit halitosis someone said but we have breath yeah that's
right and the small miracles that we You see daily,
we're one of them. That's right.
We are a mirror. That's right. And so I can't describe for you,
I can't touch where you are, friends, as you think about the loss that you've suffered.
I can't walk with you in that. But I can say to you this, that it is hard. Yes.
Will it completely destroy you? It can, but don't let it. That's right.
Find some joy. Think about the good times.
Someone remarked to me at once that about this man was talking about the loss
of his father and his mother.
And he said, as I think about all the things that I should have done,
then Dennis reminds me, think about the good things. That's right.
That's right. Think about the joy and think about the good times together.
That's right. Because there had to be some.
Maybe you've lost that. That's right. Maybe you're not thinking about it,
but you've lost something.
And do yourself a disservice if you don't think about the good things. That's right.
Yeah, we talked about that on the podcast today. On the other podcast,
this self-brain surgery operation that I call the loss to legacy shift.
If you can take a piece of paper and write down three things about yourself
that are true, that are only true because of the influence of the person that you lost. That's right.
That's their legacy. That's right. Like this podcast, we're having this conversation
because we lost Mitch and mom. Yeah.
And that's not a great thing to have lost them, but it has created beautiful things out of it.
But the end of it is, I'm a better person because of her. That's right.
So write those things down, friend. Take a minute and say, I'm suffering because
I'm missing this person at the holidays.
But what are three things about me?
Are only true because of them. And if they hadn't existed, then I wouldn't have
these three characteristics that are pleasing and helpful and beneficial or
three things about my life that I love because of the influence of that person.
That'll shift from this focusing on the loss to focusing on the legacy,
and it'll move the needle for you in terms of gratitude at Thanksgiving.
And I'm still reminded, when Jesus was questioned about what the greatest commandment
was, To love God with all your heart, your soul, mind, and being.
But the second is likened into the first, he said. Yeah.
It's just like it. Love your neighbor. Love your neighbor. How?
As. As yourself. As yourself.
Which means you can't love God if you don't love yourself too.
That's right. Because he made you in his image. That's right.
As Mark Batterson said, on purpose for a purpose. That's right.
That's very true. Now, that's the subject of another conversation,
too. That's right. The purpose.
That's right. And the question always remains, can we do enough?
Because that's what we want to do. That's right. We feel compelled to do that. That's right.
But that is not what God is asking us for. That's right.
He wants us to acknowledge him and that he's our heavenly father and Jesus is
our brother. That's right.
That's right. And that's the end of the thought.
There's nowhere else to go with that until we ask him to be Lord of our lives,
Jesus to be Lord of our lives.
And if you understand that, and when you think about that, being Lord of our
lives, it means our thoughts, our action.
That's right. How we view ourselves, how we view him.
And that in itself is very profound. So the key for me is I don't want to be
in this group where God is saying he regretted making us. That's right.
I know that I can make him happy someday when I see him face to face. Yeah.
When I see him face. And my agreement with him is very simple.
I said, Lord, just let me in the city limits. I'll sweep the streets.
Just let me be there. That's right. I just want to be there.
This has been a great conversation, Tata, as always. We cover a lot of ground.
And I think there's just, friend, there's immense value in studying the Word
of God. Tata's sitting here with this Bible open to the first few pages.
There's highlights already all over this new Bible.
The fact is you can't read the Scripture two times and come away with the same
things both times because God's going to use the context of where you are in
your life at this moment to speak some truth to you.
And as Jesus said, what the Holy Spirit does is remind you of all truth. That's right.
And you can't know it to be reminded of it unless you read it. and spend time in it.
And so get after it. Get you the Bible Gateway app or the Bible app.
Get you Tara Lee Cobble, the daily recap, the Bible recap.
Get you some kind of plan. Get ready for the next year and be intentional about it.
We're going to do some sort of Bible reading plan. We'll announce that and you
can do it with us if you want to.
But get you some daily word that's the foundation of knowing what the way and
the truth and the life is.
And if you're going to do that, Tata, where should you start? Well, one last comment.
Being thankful. That's right. Right now. That's right. Not next Thursday, but right now.
You're trying to say that if we're going to be thankful, we should start today.
Start today. That's right. That's right. Happy Thanksgiving. We love y'all.
Okay, friend, thank you for your time today. We're praying for you and your
family as you get into Thanksgiving this week. We'll be back soon with more
spiritual brain surgery.
Hey, like and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
That way you'll make sure you get every episode. And if you're not listening,
or rather, if you're not subscribed to my newsletter, my self-brain surgery
newsletter on Substack every Sunday since 2014, that's how you're going to find
out about new episodes, all kinds of great stuff going on over there at the newsletter.
And stay tuned for some really incredible episodes of the Dr.
Lee Warren self-brain surgery podcast coming up soon. We have some amazing stuff happening over there.
So make sure you're subscribed to both podcasts, praying for you and your family here at Thanksgiving.
God bless you, friend. And don't forget you can't change your life until you
change your mind. And the good news is, you can start today.