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Welcome to The Overflow—the bonus round of faith and real-life conversation with Brandon and Susan Thomas. Every week, they unpack the powerful insights, behind-the-scenes experiences, and personal reflections that didn’t quite fit into Sunday’s sermon.
This is where the conversation gets practical, honest, and a little bit unscripted. Whether it's an encouraging word, a deeper dive into Scripture, or a hilarious moment from their week, Brandon and Susan bring fresh perspective and spiritual fuel to keep you going.
It’s real talk, fresh takes, and full hearts.
These are the conversations too good to cut and too real to miss.
Welcome to the overflow. And we've got a hot one today. Yes. I believe we have a little debate at the very top because I wanna title this podcast the idol of therapy.
Speaker 2:Yes, which is so offensive because I'm a therapist.
Speaker 1:Seven years of being a licensed LPC counselor, master's degree and all that. What was your master's in, psychology or counseling?
Speaker 2:Yeah, was in counseling, master's of education and counseling.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so we have some hot opinions We on do. And you would think that because you are a counseling, you provide help for people in that way, and we're honored always to help people in You that would think that you would be an apologist for therapy, but actually, we've got some strong criticisms for therapy coming from our big, bold, biblical worldview.
Speaker 2:Yes. So That
Speaker 1:I, do you wanna just arm wrestle me over, let's just talk, do you wanna call it the idol of therapy? Yes. Else could it be?
Speaker 2:Actually, the reality is I believe what you're saying. So I I'm all in. Let's call it the idol of therapy. And the reason that it's we're saying it's the idol of therapy is because therapy in our culture often can be elevated to a place where we think therapy is the solution to our problem. Whereas you and I believe to our core that biblical therapy, which is the kind of therapy anyone should receive Yeah.
Speaker 2:That counseling, call it counseling, That counseling is not the solution, but it is a tool in the hands of God that can be a powerful tool used by the only one who is the solution.
Speaker 1:And I'd love to affirm, and then I'm going to critique. I'd love to affirm counseling so that you don't get the wrong idea of what I believe about it. I believe you can break your arm, go to a doctor. You break your leg, go to a doctor. You have a disease, get the right treatment.
Speaker 1:I also believe that things can break on the inside. As a pastor, we have seen this, that there are spiritual breakage, and the spiritual breakage doesn't ignore your emotional well-being, your mental, your soul. We've enjoyed calling it soul care at times, But we believe in biblical counseling. We believe that sometimes you need a coach. But a concern that I've had is, and again, we started the overflow so that sometimes we could just vent on a bother.
Speaker 1:Okay? And one of the concerns that I have is the thought of therapy is just such a dominant theme in our culture. And there seems to be such authority from the therapists that even pastors at times, been concerned that, from some of our preaching and some of our commentary, I'm getting more from their time with their therapist. I'm getting more that they dove into counseling than I am getting out of their time with the word of God. And that's concerning for me, and I believe Christ followers are following their counselor, and they're not going to the ultimate counselor, the Holy Spirit, biblical counsel of the word of God.
Speaker 1:I think it's a pandemic where we've got to put counseling in its place.
Speaker 2:Counseling can
Speaker 1:become an idol where, Oh, oh, oh, this is what counseling says about boundaries. Oh, this is what my counselor said about I need to do this. How many times have we heard what some counselor said to someone else that found themselves to Keystone or found themselves in front of you, and it was wacky doodle do? And here's a little lesson. I'm to say this about you, and this isn't, I'm just gonna say this about you.
Speaker 1:You are a ninja biblical counselor.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's generous.
Speaker 1:We're gonna have some colleagues on the overflow at some point, and they'll affirm it as well. You are a ninja. You're an awesome biblical counselor. You keep who you counsel totally private, to the point it's like a family joke that I will try to get her to tell me who it is. I don't really wanna know, but it's just fun to see her.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like who'd you see today? And I just look at him.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, or I'll say, okay, now who are you meeting with today? You know, and it's just a way I try to annoy her. And it does annoy her, but it's fun for me. That being said, you will not tell me who you have met with, will not, yet I have the people come up to me. Well, know I'm seeing Susan.
Speaker 1:I don't know that, okay? I don't know that, and they'll tell me, And I'll say, just full disclosure, Susan has not told me that she's counseling you. And they'll tell me just how you saved their marriage. They'll tell me how you helped their daughter. The story's abound.
Speaker 1:I say all that to say, in the spirit of Paul, not to be flattery, I'm not a flatterer. I'm an encourager. And I want you to know that as we walk through these things, you're listening from someone who is very skilled at her trade in this regard, and has a great success record, that I can say that. She won't say that about herself. That being said, there are some people out there that should not be counselors, just like there are people that shouldn't be pastors or preaching.
Speaker 1:There are people out there that they're counseling out of their brokenness, unresolved brokenness. And so we need to be very careful who we choose to go to counseling with, and then we need to be careful lifting counseling above its rightful place. So like we said, you here on this overflow, we're putting counseling in its place.
Speaker 2:That's right. And your words are very generous and kind, and thank you for your words about I love you too. But also your words, because I know me, also absolutely underscore the point that we're making. Is the reason we cannot elevate counseling out of its rightful place is what we're really doing is elevating people. And I am thankful for the ministry God has given me to sit with so many wonderful people in really hard places.
Speaker 2:But I can also testify, and I've seen God do amazing things. I wouldn't have kept in that field for almost thirty years without seeing the miracles that have transpired and that God has done in marriages and in people's lives as it's been it's one of the greatest joys. With that said, I can point to moments where I absolutely blew it as a counselor. I can point to moments where I look back one specific where I had to go back and apologize because I became emotional. And that and I mean, here I am, like, that's I'm that's not my role, but I'm a I'm a fallible person, and I need
Speaker 1:the That was a long time ago.
Speaker 2:Yes. But I need the infallible I still remember it. The infallible god. I need the infallible god. And so that is true for every single person, every single counselor.
Speaker 2:And it's funny as you say these things. I remember in my early years, I was just right out of college, and I was in my master's degree. And I began to know some of the people in my master's program. It was a much smaller class of people. And so you start to know, not everybody, but different ones.
Speaker 2:And I gotta tell you, they were probably, if I were guessing, 50% of the people there were in a world of hurt. They were actually going through the master's program hoping it would help them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Not really ready to help others. They were in the middle of terrible marriages, bad divorces, mentally unwell, unstable. I looked around and I thought if this is who we're in the hands of, we are all in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I just think it's very important to understand that when we elevate something above God, we're already in a really dangerous space. And so what does that mean for therapy? I get so you know, you we geek out on a lot of different things. We love the bible, and I I geek out on things, psychology, just because that's the field in the pool I've swam in. Swam in.
Speaker 2:Swimed in. Swam. Swam. Swam is not a word.
Speaker 1:Swam.
Speaker 2:Swam in for a very long time. And so I just wanna share some facts about it because many of us, we we may wrestle with counseling, its role. Some of us discard it. And I would say that's not great either because there's some great biblical counseling that some of us could really benefit from as a tool. But psychology as a whole is informing your life whether you believe in counseling or not.
Speaker 2:That's the thing. Psychology is everywhere permeating the culture that we all live in. So I wanna give just some facts about it. And I I would urge you as you're listening to lean in because whether you're a parent, this absolutely affects your parenting. Whether you're married, whether you're just a person, whether you're scrolling Instagram and you're watching somebody's feed, what I'm about to tell you is some of the foundation as to why people believe what they believe in our world.
Speaker 2:And so psychology by definition is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Right? That's the official definition. It's the scientific study of mind and behavior. And what I think is already so interesting about that definition is that this scientific study is based off of human observation Yep.
Speaker 2:And theory.
Speaker 1:So good.
Speaker 2:Theories. And one of the original guys, his name was Wilhelm Wont in 1832. And psychology is not that old, by the way, as far as the scientific study. It's not that old in human history. But he was considered a German scientist, but many argued you can't even quantify the human condition or our subjective nature.
Speaker 2:You can't quantify it. So just the definition of, for me, of psychology is already a bit problematic. Not that we can't run studies and and but it's we're dealing with things that are very subjective. And then it really shows itself. It highlights itself when you look at the different theorists who really kicked off psychology.
Speaker 2:And so I'm gonna take a second. I'm gonna go through some of them because these are the, if you will, the founding fathers of psychology. And what we're really saying here when we talk about therapy this is important. Actually, before I read those, what we're really saying when we talk about therapy in the in the field of psychology is we're asking two questions. What is wrong with me?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And how do I get better?
Speaker 1:Where do you turn to get better?
Speaker 2:Where do I turn? But how? Yeah. How do I get better? And so just for a second,
Speaker 1:I'm gonna read these
Speaker 2:in a moment. Well, okay. Where do we turn? Yes.
Speaker 1:And how?
Speaker 2:Where do we turn? Where do we turn and how?
Speaker 1:Which is it?
Speaker 2:I originally said how, but I received your where do we turn.
Speaker 1:No. No. You're right. I'm wrong. It's not true.
Speaker 2:We're both we're both right. It's just different angles. But where do we turn and how do we get better? What is wrong with me? And so before I talk about these founding fathers, I would love to talk for a moment about the real human reality that we all face where have you been in a situation you're like, what is wrong with that person?
Speaker 2:Like, someone in your life, you're like, what's wrong with them? Or have you ever asked about your own self? What is wrong with me? Like, what is in in the quiet of your own life, maybe it's a struggle that you haven't been able to beat, a bad habit that just can't seem to stop, and we wrestle and we think, what is wrong with me? Like, when my kid is melting down like none other about to light the grocery store on fire.
Speaker 2:And I think to myself, what is wrong with this child? Right? I mean, examples in your life. What are examples where you just thought to yourself, what is wrong?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, the thing that pops in my mind isn't funny, honestly. When I think of I'm watching people parent, and I'm watching people make choices, and I'm like, you are utterly ruining your family.
Speaker 2:Ugh.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm watching people just give into their own brokenness, thinking that their kids are gonna be just fine, and their kids take it to the nth degree. Their kids are a mess.
Speaker 2:Can you give an example?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see people who don't discipline their children at a young age. They let them roll, they let them fly. Maybe we should do a podcast on that concept of no discipline in parenting. But just no guardrails, no boundaries, and you're just utterly so anti Bible, but that's a good example. I think another example would be a carnality in a marriage, and then it turns into a carnality in your parenting.
Speaker 1:And then you look up, and you're in church. You have one foot in and one foot out, then you're surprised when your kids have both feet out. And those are moments that are just so hard. And then when people will see this, get 75 of their theology is spot on, but this 25% that they're buying what the world is selling, it is so destructive. It is so destructive.
Speaker 1:So that's what I think of when I think of people that just, you know, it's just so tragic.
Speaker 2:Just make sure, shake your head and say,
Speaker 1:what What is wrong? What is wrong? I mean, we had someone drive up to the church and come in and talk to one of our pastors, and they haven't been in five years. And they left because of our big, bold biblical worldview. And they came in after five years being away, and they said, My wife is leaving me.
Speaker 1:And we're like, Well, you left church. You led your family away from church because you were mad about our stance on a social issue that the Bible's clear about. You, instead of staying in and wrestling with us and really walking together, you bolted. Yeah. And you went to the desert where your wife is starving.
Speaker 1:Ugh. That's just what is wrong with you.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:And this is so important because we have to get to the bottom of that question. Because here's what I wanna say today. There's an answer to what is wrong with us. I mean, even in our own marriage, there's been moments when we'll be in a in a situation with each other or maybe going through a season where we're just wrestling emotionally, whatever it is, and we can think, what's wrong with us? But if you know the answer to that question, there's great hope and there's great power in God leading us to the solution.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But we've gotta you know, and you may be in a marriage right now. You're like, what's wrong with our marriage? What's wrong with my husband? What is wrong?
Speaker 2:What's wrong with me? There's answers to those questions. And so that's what we're talking about. But understand, psychology has tried very hard to answer those questions, and our culture has bought their answers hook, line, and sinker. So I wanna give a little quick history on our founding fathers.
Speaker 2:Alright? And I'm gonna start back.
Speaker 1:This is the Tortoise. American founding fathers.
Speaker 2:No. Not our American founding fathers and not biblical, you know, bible founding fathers. This is psychology.
Speaker 1:This is The United States Of Therapy.
Speaker 2:United well, ununited as we're about to find out. Okay. So one of the first ones, super notorious. Ever heard of Sigmund Freud?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Alright. Psychoanalytic therapy. Born in 1856, he was perhaps one of the most influential theorist in the psychology field. His whole answer to what's wrong with us is that somehow we fail to meet some critical developmental task, and we got fixated. We got stuck at some early level of development.
Speaker 2:He has all these, some of them gross titles for where we got stuck. And he was convinced if we could just make the unconscious conscious and freely associate. That's what he said. Basically, say whatever you think. If we could do that, then we would discover the root cause of our problems, and we would be on the path to wellness.
Speaker 2:So that's what he believed in a nutshell. Where did you get fixated? Let's get your sub your unconscious to become conscious. And if you can freely associate in therapy, we're gonna find the root of what what's wrong with you. K.
Speaker 2:That there's a lot of that for me that sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook. Mhmm. But that was our founding father. And then not much later, listen to this, Adlerian therapy came onto the scene. Adler.
Speaker 2:Alfred Adler. Alright. Just born a little bit later, believed the exact opposite of Freud. So what he says is actually no. No.
Speaker 2:We gotta focus on the consciousness, not the unconscious. The absolute opposite of what Freud had said. And he believed Adler believed we were born innately good, and that what became broken in us was arising from our interactions with other people. So my problem is my interactions with you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:My problem are my interactions with my family of origin or with people in my life. So that's so honestly, it's very much a it's their fault.
Speaker 1:I should go forward. I'm just gonna give a little comment
Speaker 2:here. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Please. And that is that, wow. I can see both of those in our culture today.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I can see I'm throwing boundaries because you're my problem with my interactions with you, that's my problem, so I'm cutting you off, people haven't talked to their parents. Wow. And I know there's a place for good biblical boundaries,
Speaker 2:but
Speaker 1:I see Adlerian philosophy there. I see Freud, obviously. Hey, what's unconscious? You know, it's all in there. You know, let's bring it out.
Speaker 2:It's inside you. The answers are inside you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's how many times we heard that? Oh. Hey, everything that you need is inside you. Not that's not actually not true, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:We will find out. It's it's it's unbelievable when you really peel back the curtain. And so Adler, what he believed is that having a sense of belonging and developing healthy socialization, that's the path to wellness. That's the answer to our problems. So then there's another theory called existential theory, existential therapy.
Speaker 2:And in essence, this believes that we are the author of our life. We are the author of our life. We're thrust all of us, we're thrust into this meaningless, absurd world, and so we are challenged to develop meaning.
Speaker 1:Is there a person with that?
Speaker 2:I don't have that in front of me, but I know that there are.
Speaker 1:Okay. Because I think of existential I I learned I I studied existentialism. Yeah. And I saw a professor who was teaching existentialism at my Christian in my in my Christian class, and I saw people's faith wrecked Oh. On the on the rocks of existentialism.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Well and whoever started it, I don't have that in my my in front of me right now, but that became a very common style of therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm I'm I'm I'm coming from nothing right now, but it's William something. I wanna say William Bruce, but I may be wrong about that. Okay. But anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Google it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Will.
Speaker 2:Google it. Should Tell us. Yeah. So good. But the my translation, and this fits with what you're saying, is that the summary of existential therapy is basically figure it out.
Speaker 2:You figure it out, you know, and that which would just point to why, if that's our only hope, so many people's faith was shipwrecked.
Speaker 1:Kierkegaard, father of existentialism. But let me see. Yeah. I'm gonna do this too. Keep going.
Speaker 2:If if if anyone named William Bruce is in there, I'm gonna be amazed at your brain.
Speaker 1:I I know. Let's go William.
Speaker 2:Or maybe he started a pizza company.
Speaker 1:William James is what I was thinking of, I think.
Speaker 2:Is he in there?
Speaker 1:I've got a lot of Williams in William, existentialism, William. I got William Barrett. I got, yeah, maybe? I don't know.
Speaker 2:We don't know. William, we'll
Speaker 1:find you. It wasn't William Barrett who I was thinking of, but it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Figures like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre make the existential that's existentialism. Anyway, some philosophy majors, you know, turning in their grave right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Know. Because they know the answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Know what I'm doing is wrong.
Speaker 2:They know the answer. But but truly, again, just another one of those schools of therapy that became a bedrock and anchor to the counselor trying to help somebody that was an asking the question, what is wrong with me? How do I get better? Here's another one. This was big.
Speaker 2:This one drove me bats when I was in my master's program. This one's called person centered therapy. K. We already have a problem. Just person centered therapy that I mean, it already within its own name, it highlights the anti biblical message that I am the center of it all.
Speaker 2:So person centered therapy, this was born by Carl Rogers. He would say the answer is inside of you, that the answer to your problems, the answer to what's wrong with you, and the answer to how to get better, that it is inside of you. Rosarian therapy. And so let me give you an example. He he would he would say that the counselor needs to provide a very safe and empathetic environment.
Speaker 2:And in that safe environment, then that person, if given that safe space, will over time begin to answer their own questions and solve their own problems.
Speaker 1:This is funny. I know where you're going.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's bothering me. Funny. All these years later. And so we'd watch videos of his therapy sessions, And why don't we just role play it? Okay?
Speaker 2:Tell me your problems right now. Brandon, actually, let's start. Brandon, how are you doing today? Tell me tell me what's going on.
Speaker 1:You know, I you know, I just I had a headache this morning, so I felt like I had a slow start. And, I don't wanna have a slow start. I wanna start with energy and focus and excitement. And I just I'm I'm I'm I'm a little bit frustrated that I had a headache when I woke up, and I just kinda had a slow start.
Speaker 2:Frustrated. Had a slow start.
Speaker 1:It's really hard for me to take that seriously.
Speaker 2:Just keep going. Okay. Because the answers are inside of you.
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah. I was frustrated. And it I was frustrated because of the slow start.
Speaker 2:You were frustrated because of the slow start. Okay.
Speaker 1:I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2:But this is what I ridiculous. I promise you, these are the videos I watched in my master's program of Ragirian therapy.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But this is a leading founding father Yeah. In the counseling field. And so these are just examples. And then in nineteen fifties, and here's another one, behavioral therapy. This one was big.
Speaker 2:Yeah. This was really big. People are still utilizing this to this day. Honestly, all of these play different roles. But this came on the scene as a brand new therapy, and there it was a radical departure from all the psychoanalytic therapy models and theories.
Speaker 2:And this theory believed that behavior is the product of learning. So everything you do, all the actions that you're taking, it's a product of something you learned incorrectly. And so the goal is to identify and eliminate the problematic behaviors. And with proper training, you're gonna change your behavior. One of the people that was very influential in this school of thought was BF Skinner.
Speaker 2:Yep. And he was very notable. You've heard of him? Yep. Notable behaviorist.
Speaker 2:And he believed that reinforcement and punishment were the modalities to help change what's wrong with you and why you're doing these things.
Speaker 1:Is this Pav no. No. No. I was thinking Pavlov's dog.
Speaker 2:Well, that's another one out there. Pavlov's dog. The dog just, like, shock it
Speaker 1:or, you
Speaker 2:know, then it will stop the behavior. I mean, yeah, all these different things were all a part of this. One more. I could go on and on, but one of the big ones and, honestly, perhaps the one that I'm most affiliated with to, you know, to a degree, but it had its limits. They all have their limits, and we're gonna talk about why, was cognitive therapy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Aaron Beck was one of the founders of cognitive therapy, and he recognized and focused on the role of thinking. Alright? So the role of thinking was ground zero to what's wrong with us and how do we get better. And so what were we thinking about?
Speaker 2:What were our belief systems that these were the roots of our personal problems? And so all these and more, these are some of the big ones for me. But as I look at these, there's so many people with so many different opinions and so many of them contradict one another. Where do you what do you do? And I'll tell you this when I was again, but I just go back to that master's program, and I was not in a biblical college, which believe it or not, I got biblical training later to as a counselor.
Speaker 2:But in that school that I went to, I was at University of North Texas, not biblical at all. But I'm really thankful because I I was able to really see very clearly what our culture is believing and being taught by the professors, by the worldviews. And these things were taught, you know, as definitive even though they are simply theories and they all contradict. But one of the things that my professor that we all had to do as a requirement is after you studied all the different theories, you then had to choose because we were gonna move into the next phase of my program where I was gonna be counseling people. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I had to operate from a theory. I had to choose what's my theory. What is my belief? What is the modality that I'm going to counsel from? And I thought to myself, I just think about this with me.
Speaker 2:We are talking about the human condition. We are talking about the core of who we are, what's wrong with us, how do we get better. And it's like I'm walking into a shoe store to pick out which shoe I like the best. Do I wanna wear heels, or do I wanna wear flats? Do I like red, or do I like brown?
Speaker 2:Which shoe do I think is gonna get me to where I need to go? It it was so wrong that I'm gonna look at all these theories, and somehow I can arbitrarily choose the answer to it all. And yet that is the field of psychology on its own. Mhmm. It's human beings trying to figure out what's wrong with us and how do we get better.
Speaker 1:It almost feels like everybody doing what's right in their own eyes. So if I'm choosing a counselor, secular counselor, just in the world, Hey, I need a good counselor. You don't even know to ask, Well, are you gonna get a cognitive therapist? Are you gonna get a behavioral therapist? Are you gonna get an existential therapist?
Speaker 1:Are you gonna get a Freudian therapist? Are you gonna get an Adlerian therapist? You don't know. You just say, I just want a counselor that's gonna help me.
Speaker 2:Somebody help me.
Speaker 1:And ultimately, so you, now I've got to tell you, when we first started dating, I think I remember for you, you came at this crossroads.
Speaker 2:Oh,
Speaker 1:yes. I remember it because you were interning, and you had a mentor at the time that was in the counseling world, know, a little more secularly influenced, I remember.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I don't remember her at all, but I remember it was a woman who was somebody who was shepherding you.
Speaker 2:Actually a man.
Speaker 1:Was it? Well, okay. Then I remember you getting in with some guys that introduced you to biblical.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And it was like a woah, and it resonated with the Holy Spirit inside you.
Speaker 2:Well, the timing was so specific. If you remember, this may jog your memory. I began counseling, and I became so frustrated because of my training that I was like, I'm out. I can't do this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I I don't think counseling's
Speaker 1:We were dating.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't think counseling's for me, and that's when I was introduced to biblical training
Speaker 1:Way back
Speaker 2:in changed the everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely changed.
Speaker 1:Just a group of young people, you know, learning about the bible is a diagnostic tool.
Speaker 2:Right. Right. Because here's the reality, just to sum up everything, you know, I just said about these founding fathers of psychology. Freud says, help your children figure out their unconsciousness. Adler says they need healthy socialization.
Speaker 2:People need healthy socialization to get better. Carl Rogers says, just give them a safe environment and a lot of empathy, and they'll figure it out themselves. You've got sinners saying, Skinner.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Freudian.
Speaker 2:That would be a Freudian slip for those who not a Freud. His spinner says, change your behavior, that we just need to figure out how to change your behavior. And then Aaron Beck just says, change their thoughts and all will be well. And all of these people, what does God say? This is the part that gets me.
Speaker 2:Matthew 15, listen to this. Chapter 15 verse 12. Then the disciples came to him, Jesus, and asked, do you realize you offended the pharisees by what you just said? So in this context, the pharisees were the most knowledgeable religious wise of the of their day. And Jesus had said something that could be very offensive to them.
Speaker 2:And this is what Jesus replied to his disciples. Every plant not planted by my heavenly father will be uprooted, verse 14. Ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind. And if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.
Speaker 2:And the bottom line is people cannot fix people's problems. We are blind guides, and we're gonna lead you right to a ditch. If it's just based on us and our inner being alone, we're destined to fall in a ditch.
Speaker 1:We've had moments where people wanted us to to give, you know, be a part of, Hey, come and help these marriages, or Come and help these kids, or Come and help, and I want you to speak to them. Our whole deal is, if we're going to help, it's gotta be Jesus. Yeah. It's gotta be Jesus. It's gotta be word of God.
Speaker 1:We don't know how to help if we can't bring you the word of God. We don't know how to help you. And yes, God's truth is so powerful that if you just start practicing it, there will be some benefit to it, but it will not have the heart change, it will not have the power, and it will be, will not be complete, and it will not be continual to the point. So, if a couple that doesn't love Jesus, doesn't believe in God, and you start practicing what the Bible says to do, Will it help? Yeah, God's truth is that powerful,
Speaker 2:but
Speaker 1:your kids are gonna be as lost or more lost than you were because you had no relationship with God, and you yourself have a massive lid on your growth, your power, and the true change that's necessary.
Speaker 2:Well, I would go so far to say in that example of people who, you know, do not really believe God nor seek him relationally speaking, but they start to follow the morality of the bible.
Speaker 1:The wisdom of the bible.
Speaker 2:The wisdom of the bible, the morality of the bible, all of it. It's another form of behavioral therapy. I'm just gonna try to change my behavior. And if you can imagine different oh, I just have a picture in my mind of, like, the the ground and different layers of the ground. That's very shallow.
Speaker 2:You have no roots. You aren't you're not down deep. You're not anchored to something that lasts. And and at the first drought, you're gonna wither and fail because you've got to be rooted in the ultimate seed, which is salvation in Jesus Christ. And I think about I've I've maybe shared this before, and I probably will again.
Speaker 2:It's just one of those there's certain markers in your life you remember. But I remember a tragic moment when a grandmother actually came to me, and she was keeping her grandchild. The the daughter was, you know, unable to parent and no longer in the picture. And her granddaughter was understandably greatly struggling, and she was a young teenager. And this person called me asking for help, and I knew some of their situation.
Speaker 2:And I began to share about the layers of of support, and I said, she needs to be in a bible loving church. She needs to be she does need biblical counseling, but she also needs that support. She needs community of a of a student ministry that loves the lord and can and people who can invest in her. And she said to me she said to me, I need real help. I need I need a professional.
Speaker 2:And I just I just internally shook my head so grieved that this is part of the why.
Speaker 1:This is part of the problem. That we're in this position. That God has the answer.
Speaker 2:Yes. And so I think let's take a minute and and start there because, you know, our whole idol of therapy is is lifting up people to have the solution to our problems and to and to give definition to what's wrong with us. But god has something to say. God explains. God explains what's wrong with us.
Speaker 2:God in the bible is very clear, and the bible is no theory. The bible is the truth. It is the foundation of all of human existence and beyond. And so as we look at this, maybe talk to us for a moment about Genesis one through three just in a quick summary, because that's the beginnings of what is wrong with us.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Briefly, what we teach all the time, and we keep coming back to it, because people wanna know. There's big worldview questions. Why am I here? What went wrong?
Speaker 1:Because something's wrong. Why is this wrong? And where am I going? And there's some big foundational worldviews that all cultures seek to answer. All world religions seek to answer.
Speaker 1:And one of them is, what is wrong? And what the Bible teaches and what Christ followers believe is that in Genesis one and two, we see a beautiful existence where God made all things good. And we didn't have the need for counseling and therapy because we were in perfect relationship with God, and we were in perfect relationship with one another. Then God had one thou shalt not, and it was do not eat of the fruit of this tree. Don't put your hands on this tree, and I tend to believe that that was as much a statement about authority as it was about God's design, but also it was very practical.
Speaker 1:If they eat of this tree, they die. And you don't wanna die, so eat of the fruit of all the rest of the planet Earth.
Speaker 2:And I believe he didn't want robots. He gave us the he, in his sovereignty as God, gave his created people freedom to choose.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right. So it just accomplished so much. And yet, the first family, they went, they took a bite, both first Eve, then Adam. They took a bite of the forbidden fruit and sent sent a shockwave of brokenness, the cosmic creation. It all fell apart, and only God could put it back together.
Speaker 1:And he miraculously did, and ultimately, with the plan to make it ultimately all well, of ditching, as you said a moment ago, instead of ditching humanity, he had a plan to redeem humanity. In order to do that, every person who ever the Bible says he knew us before the foundations of even the earth. So every person he'd ever intended or designed or desired to live would come forth. When that time came, and the fullness of that time, he would, through the crucified and risen Christ, the sweet and perfect life that we could not live, and the death that Jesus died, that we were destined to die, he did it in our place, because of that, Jesus will come and make all things new. We'll be restored physically, spiritually, and the whole of creation will be back to the way it was supposed to be.
Speaker 2:Right. And that, in a nutshell, is is what happened to us. What is wrong with us, and how do we get better? Yeah. And that is the beginning.
Speaker 2:And the rest of the bible, a big portion of it, I mean, it's it's God revealing himself to mankind. And yet in his kindness, being Jehovah Rapha, god the healer, he also is revealing our path to wholeness and healing. But it starts any good healer starts with identifying what's wrong. And that's what God does. He identifies and gives us a diagnosis that this is what is wrong with you.
Speaker 2:Romans three twenty three, God's very clear. And he says, everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious standard. That's everyone. That's definitive.
Speaker 2:There's no person outside of that diagnosis. And, you know, if you go to the doctor, I mean, we've been in so many situations, both ourselves, but particularly with kids. Right? Moments with kids when they were younger, when it was like, something's physically wrong with my child. What is wrong?
Speaker 2:And there's been some situations where the the answer was hard to come by. We had to get to the right doctor. Think about Georgia when she was two years old, and she was diagnosed with serum sickness like reaction. Yeah. Remember that?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was a reaction to a a antibiotic, and it was like a delayed reaction, but it was on the top five scariest things as a parent for
Speaker 1:me. Yep.
Speaker 2:And it was the fourth doctor we sat in front of before we got the right diagnosis. Yeah. Were we offended when they gave us the correct diagnosis?
Speaker 1:No. We were relieved. It was helpful. The knowledge was helpful.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It was like the first ray of of hope for her physical, you know, getting on that healing path. Well, it's absolutely true of our soul. We're not offended when god tells us clearly what's wrong with us. All of us have sinned.
Speaker 2:We've all fallen short. Psalm 51, I'd love for you to just it's such a powerful picture of God pointing to the diagnosis of our life.
Speaker 1:Have mercy on me, oh God, because of your unfailing love, because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin for I recognize my rebellion. It haunts me day and night. Against you and you only have I sinned.
Speaker 1:I've done what is evil in your sight. You'll be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just, for I was born a sinner. Yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
Speaker 2:I mean, let those words sink in. Yeah. There's so much there. A, life begins at that conception moment. The moment my mother conceived me, I was already dealing with the diagnosis of sin.
Speaker 2:That that changes your parenting. That changes your understanding of who's in front of you. When you really choose to believe God, take him at his word and believe the bible, it points to the only solution for our soul that starts with a relationship with Jesus Christ. And then the working out of that salvation is till heaven and home. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it it's our hope. And, honestly, one of the first things I think of, and I have another thought, but whoever's listening right now, we can't just assume everybody knows Jesus.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We can't just assume that every person listening knows Jesus as their lord and savior. And I believe right now is an opportunity for somebody to accept Christ as your lord and savior, to put your faith in that when Jesus came to Earth, perfect God and perfect man, and died on the cross pouring out his blood on the cross to pay for our sin, that remember that all have sinned and fallen short of glad god's glorious standard? Jesus paid for that, paid the debt we owed for it. That when we believe that and that he did not stay dead, he is alive again. He's alive right now.
Speaker 2:He is he is God. And that I receive that gift of of Jesus through faith, that if I put my faith in him, he covers me. I am his, and I am on the path to whole. And in him, I am being made new every single day. That somebody, I listening needs to make that decision.
Speaker 1:So the Bible says, in Romans chapter 10, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And so if you say, man, okay, I don't know why, but my heart is saying yes, that's because God is wooing you, God is calling you in a way that you could never turn yourself on. God has turned your spiritual light bulb on. We call that saving faith. Today, what I'd invite you to do right here, right now, is in a honest, we said confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.
Speaker 1:Just call out to God. Have an honest, first relationship defining conversation with God right where you are, where you would say, God, I'm in. I'm all in. Jesus is who the Bible says he is. He did what the Bible says he did.
Speaker 1:I'm in. And maybe it'd be powerful for you to say something like, Adopt me as your child. God, would you save me from my sin?
Speaker 2:That's beautiful.
Speaker 1:God, would you adopt me as your child? And there's nothing magical in those words, but if your heart is talking to God and calling out for the first time, say, I'm in. Jesus is who the Bible says he is. He did what the Bible says he did, and I'm in. And I wanna follow you.
Speaker 1:Adopt me as your child. Make me new today. Save me. Then the Bible says you will be saved. And you've just decided to begin a relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1:You're responding to his pull. And I'd encourage you to find a church. I'd encourage you to reach out. You could reach out to us, just whatever it takes, just find a way for you to start following Jesus in the context of a church. Come to Keystone if you're local.
Speaker 1:Start dialing in, but find a local church. And I believe there's power in that.
Speaker 2:Such power. And we celebrate that decision for the person who made it, and we just say, get in a local church. Like you said, be baptized. Tell somebody. But for those of you who may I believe even just us talking about this, there may need to be a course correction in your heart that you've been looking for help in maybe some of the wrong places.
Speaker 2:And to not forget, Galatians five says, it's for freedom that Christ has set us free. So the freedom you're looking for, the healing you're looking for is found in Christ and in his design for life, which is found in the bible. And so I guess we could wrap up by bringing it all to a head that when I understand correctly what's wrong with us, what's wrong with us, how do we get better, it changes how I view my kids. No longer am I actually asking that question because I actually know. I know what's wrong.
Speaker 2:I know that you as my husband, if I see you in a hard place and maybe or you with your spouse, you're like, what's wrong with you? Why are you doing this? The first answer is this person struggles with sin just like me. Or if I find myself or my emotions are wild, there's times when my emotions in my life, they will just come on like a tidal wave. And that's not everybody's experience, but sometimes it's mine.
Speaker 2:So strong that without context, I can almost be swept away by this strange anger or this strange, discontent or this just strange emotion. Some negative emotion. It can be so strong, a pull of, the ocean. But with the anchor of God and the framework of, I know what this is. Now I may not know every answer to what I need to face, but I know what's wrong with me at the at the base.
Speaker 2:I battle sin, and I know who holds the answer to my freedom, my healing, and my hope. His name is Jesus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my wrap up would be, don't let counseling become a crutch. We even had a moment recently where we were hitting a wall on something, and I remember you said, Man, do we need counseling for this? And by the way, I mean, we're totally, I mean, we think everybody should be open and available to that.
Speaker 2:Oh, counseling's fantastic if it's biblical and if it's in its right place.
Speaker 1:Right. So, I just felt the Lord telling me, you know, we haven't really given this our best shot yet.
Speaker 2:Well, okay. So back up. I was having one of those those moments. I was feeling some things, and it was strong emotion. And just, I think marriage needs tending.
Speaker 2:I don't care who you are, where you are, how long you are, how great you think you are. Marriage needs tending. And I don't even write this second, remember what she But I remember the strong feelings I had, and I remember looking at you and being like, I think we just need to go to counseling. Yeah. You said
Speaker 1:And I said, you know what? Maybe we do. But first, let's let's talk. Let's communicate better. Let's work on this.
Speaker 1:Let's let's invite the holy spirit. We read scripture. We prayed. And in that situation, God did it, you know, without a coach, without a counselor. So don't use counseling as a, Oh, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1:Well, no, you may need to work on your communication and apply some of the things you learned the last time you were at the counselor. With that said, we do believe, hey, there's a place for the right counselor, in its right place, the right type of counselor. We're not saying there's never a need for medical intervention, there's never a need for institutional intervention. We're not saying any of that, but what we are saying is caution and slow down. Not quick trigger, but slow down and put it in its right place.
Speaker 2:And remember that counseling, that therapy, biblical counseling is the bare minimum, but biblical counseling is a tool. It's not the end game. It is a tool in the hands of an amazing, all powerful savior who can do a mighty work and great healing and bring freedom in our lives.
Speaker 1:Alright. So there's some hot takes on counseling and therapy. Do not idolize therapy. Do not idolize your counselor. Get it in its right place, let Jesus give you the freedom, and we'll see you next time on The Overflow.