Latest / Coffee and Bible Time Podcast / Sacred Sexuality: Finding Wholeness in Surrender | Dr. Juli Slattery

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Sacred Sexuality: Finding Wholeness in Surrender | Dr. Juli Slattery · Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

• 1:01
  Ellen Krause: At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:03
  Ellen Krause: Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living.
• 1:07
  Ellen Krause: Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk.
• 1:18
  Ellen Krause: We are so glad you have joined us.
• 1:21
  Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:28
  Ellen Krause: I'm Ellen, your host.
• 1:30
  Ellen Krause: Sexuality is a topic that's rarely mentioned in most churches and yet it often sits at the heart of our deepest struggles doubt, shame, loneliness and even anger toward God.
• 1:43
  Ellen Krause: Our guest today, dr Julie Slattery, puts it plainly when she says when you look around, it can seem as if everyone else has their lives together.
• 1:54
  Ellen Krause: Could anyone else be suffering or enslaved as you are?
• 1:58
  Ellen Krause: Where are the spaces to talk about your sexual desires, your sexless marriage or your porn addiction?
• 2:05
  Ellen Krause: Who is safe enough to hold your questions, your anger and your trauma?
• 2:10
  Ellen Krause: These are the kinds of honest, courageous questions that we're going to be diving in today.
• 2:15
  Ellen Krause: And to ignore your sexual wounds, to step over your sexual pain or dismiss your sexual questions, as Julie so beautifully says in her book, we'll eventually tear away your love and commitment to the Lord, jesus Christ, and we don't want that to happen for any of us.
• 2:35
  Ellen Krause: Well, I am so excited to welcome Dr Julie Slattery back to the podcast.
• 2:40
  Ellen Krause: Julie is the president and co-founder of Authentic Intimacy, a ministry helping people make sense of God and sexuality.
• 2:48
  Ellen Krause: She is the host of the weekly podcast Java with Julie, and she has authored or co-authored 14 different books.
• 2:56
  Ellen Krause: Today, she will guide us through what it means to surrender our sexuality to God and experience real healing and wholeness.
• 3:05
  Ellen Krause: Dr Julie, welcome back to Coffee and Bible Time.
• 3:10
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Thank you for having me back.
• 3:12
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I look forward to our conversation.
• 3:14
  Ellen Krause: Yes, thank you so much for being here again.
• 3:17
  Ellen Krause: You've been working full-time in the space of Christian sexuality for over 13 years now and over that time can you share with us how you've seen the church struggle to effectively speak to these real personal issues that people are facing around sexuality?
• 3:39
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Sure, yeah, when I go back to when I first started the ministry Authentic Intimacy it was honestly difficult to get any church to even talk about the topic, so it was just sort of taboo, like we don't talk about those issues in church.
• 3:55
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And every now and then I still will hear somebody say that like it's just not appropriate to talk about these issues in church.
• 4:03
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But honestly, I think we've hit a place in our culture that's impacted the church so much that even maybe the most conservative or elderly spaces around the church are like, yeah, this is a problem.
• 4:20
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Maybe they don't see it as a problem in their generation, but you can't be around people 35 and younger without recognizing the levels of pornography use and the confusion around gender and sexual identity.
• 4:35
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You see the statistics on sexual abuse and sexual violence.
• 4:40
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It's just everywhere.
• 4:42
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So I think we have, over the last 13 years, made progress in at least being willing to address these issues, but I still think we need help.
• 4:53
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You know if you've inherited generations of silence around the topic.
• 4:59
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It's a very complicated topic, it's pain-filled, and so a lot of pastors and Christian leaders have a heart to speak into it, but they don't know where to start, so sometimes the conversations can be confusing or we just go to the rules of what God says what not to do without really giving people the hope and a pathway of what it looks like to sort of reconcile their sexual questions and brokenness with the goodness of God.
• 5:26
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So yeah, so it's definitely a learning journey, I think, for the church as a whole, and I'm thankful that I feel like God kind of gave me a running head start for the sake of the church, to equip people on how to have these conversations in a way that's really gospel-centered.
• 5:46
  Ellen Krause: Yes, and I really applaud you for sticking with it for all this time and pushing the charge forward.
• 5:53
  Ellen Krause: Let's talk about why you think the average Christian has difficulty surrendering their sexuality to God.
• 6:05
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Well, I think the average Christian really wonders whether God really cares about this part of their life.
• 6:10
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So maybe they're convinced God cares about the rules and he's upset if I'm breaking the rules.
• 6:18
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But I don't know if the average Christian thinks about it beyond that.
• 6:22
  Dr. Juli Slattery: God really cares about my brokenness If you're married.
• 6:27
  Dr. Juli Slattery: God really cares about my sexual intimacy in marriage.
• 6:30
  Dr. Juli Slattery: We just don't think about it like that, partly because there's been such a pattern of silence and of squeamishness.
• 6:39
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But then I think there's a real barrier too, where the average Christian is dealing with hard questions that they don't feel like have been adequately answered, like how could a loving God have allowed the trauma experience to happen?
• 6:55
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Why didn't he rescue me from that?
• 6:57
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Or how could a loving, good God tell me that I can't act out what I feel is life-giving to me in terms of a sexual relationship?
• 7:07
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Or you know, like Christians seem very angry and judgmental.
• 7:11
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Is God like that too?
• 7:12
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So I think there are barriers for the average Christian to bring their sexuality to God, their shame of.
• 7:20
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I just can't stop sinning.
• 7:23
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I can't stop looking at pornography.
• 7:25
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I just feel like God's always disappointed in me.
• 7:27
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So this is the last conversation you want to have if you're in that situation and God just doesn't seem approachable in this area of our lives.
• 7:38
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So I think we'd rather not surrender it to him.
• 7:40
  Dr. Juli Slattery: We don't trust him enough to surrender something so personal.
• 7:46
  Ellen Krause: Yes, and you know, that's one of the things that I pulled out was something that you said.
• 7:51
  Ellen Krause: You said in the book you won't surrender to someone you don't trust and you can't trust someone you don't know.
• 8:00
  Ellen Krause: And most of us just don't know Jesus well enough to surrender an aspect of our life that is personal, vulnerable and painful.
• 8:08
  Ellen Krause: That's why it is knowing Jesus that changes everything, and I thought that was so beautiful.
• 8:16
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, yeah, I think that's really true, and I think you can grow up in the church and even know the Bible without knowing Jesus in such a personal way that you're willing to trust him with such an important part of your life was something that I kind of just wanted to touch on as well.
• 8:45
  Ellen Krause: I do think a lot of people struggle with loving God with their heart.
• 8:47
  Ellen Krause: They have a lot of head knowledge and I thought you were quite vulnerable with sharing that about yourself and how things change, and can you maybe just encourage someone today who is feeling that way too?
• 9:05
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, I just want you to know that God knows us and he wants an intimate relationship with us.
• 9:16
  Dr. Juli Slattery: He doesn't just want obedience and compliance Otherwise he could have created us without a free will but he wants our whole life to be surrendered to knowing him, and that does include not just our head knowledge, but our affection, just what gives us joy.
• 9:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And, as I shared in the book that you mentioned, like I was probably my late thirties, early forties before I really started to realize that I was really busy serving God and learning about his word, but didn't know what it was to have that intimate relationship with him where what he said really went to my heart and not just to my head.
• 10:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So if that's you, I would just say, like, don't settle for just head knowledge of God, because you're going to hit a wall where it's not enough just to know what the Bible says.
• 10:10
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You have to know that God sees you, that he cares about you, that he loves you, that he speaks life into you, and so you know that really for me did change everything, and I've seen that happen with others as well.
• 10:23
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 10:25
  Ellen Krause: Well, identity is kind of the starting point.
• 10:29
  Ellen Krause: When you start describing the process of surrendering your sexuality, you begin with identity.
• 10:36
  Ellen Krause: Tell us why it's so important to start there.
• 10:39
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Tell us why it's so important to start there.
• 10:41
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, so the way I really tried to structure this book was to walk people through like what are the various aspects of what it looks like to surrender my sexuality to God?
• 10:51
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And I think most of us think right away oh God wants me to get rid of sin, like he wants me to stop doing the thing that I'm doing, whatever it might be.
• 11:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But actually when we read the scripture, god's first work in us is not that we get rid of sin.
• 11:08
  Dr. Juli Slattery: His first work in us is that through the death of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we actually become new creatures, become new creations.
• 11:19
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It says that in 2 Corinthians 5.17.
• 11:23
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And most of us who have come to Christ have been baptized.
• 11:26
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And that's symbolic of I am dead to my old life and I'm raised in the life and resurrection of Christ and newness of life.
• 11:35
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So I am a new person and that means that through the Holy Spirit, god begins to renew my mind, he begins to change my passions, what I love and what I don't love.
• 11:47
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It means I belong in the body of Christ.
• 11:49
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It means I'm a son or daughter of the King, and it actually is when those truths take root in our life that we can start to see change in behavior.
• 12:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And I think for a lot of Christians they try to do it the other way around, like if I can get my behavior under control, if I can follow all the rules that God has for me, then I will feel like I'm a new creation and God's just waiting for me to clean up my act.
• 12:14
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But what we see in the New Testament over and over again is is it's that the work is already finished and that we literally are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, that he doesn't see us based on our sin or our struggles, and so we have to learn not to see ourselves based on our sin or our struggles or anything else that the world uses to define us.
• 12:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So I really do believe that most of our sexual questions and struggles are actually rooted in an identity rather than our behavior, and when we can really root out our identity and know what it is to start walking and who God says that we are.
• 12:53
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Then we start to have the power and the perspective to address the behavior patterns that just seem to not want to change.
• 13:00
  Ellen Krause: Right, and you had said as well that every other identity pales in comparison to the most important thing about me I belong to the Lord and I am his.
• 13:15
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yes, amen.
• 13:16
  Ellen Krause: Yeah, you need to be grounded in that, like you said before, we can begin to tackle these other things.
• 13:21
  Ellen Krause: You said there's four identity traps that can impact how our identity is affected.
• 13:31
  Ellen Krause: Walk us through those and how they show up in our lives.
• 13:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, boy, there are so many different identity traps, but I tried to narrow it down to four that particularly can play out in this conversation of our sexuality.
• 13:46
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So the first one is what I call the self-discovery identity trap, and that is very common for today's generation, like particularly the younger generations have been raised to believe that what is most true about me is what I feel, what I experience, what I discover about myself, and young men who believe if I really want to be whole and authentic, I need to look inward, I need to decide who am I attracted to, what is most true about me in terms of my desires, my experiences, which is why we see so many different identities related to sexuality LGBTQ plus, even those who are just attracted heterosexually we have a label for that.
• 14:40
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Or if you just are comfortable in your body, you're cisgender we have a label for that.
• 14:45
  Dr. Juli Slattery: These labels are all very, very new.
• 14:53
  Dr. Juli Slattery: All the things I just mentioned have only been labels created within the last 150 years or shorter.
• 14:57
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So people never throughout history thought of themselves in terms of who am I sexually and what do I feel and who do I desire.
• 15:05
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But we see in today's generation there was a I think it was a Pew or a Gallup research poll that found that almost 30% of Gen Z identifies as somewhere in the LGBTQ spectrum.
• 15:18
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So we're talking about over one in four.
• 15:21
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so this has really taken a hold of particularly the younger generations.
• 15:26
  Dr. Juli Slattery: To say if I want to know who I am, I have to know who I'm attracted to, what I desire.
• 15:33
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And boy, the scripture tells us something completely different.
• 15:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It tells us that, you know, we are going to have thoughts and desires that are from our flesh.
• 15:41
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Even if we have God-given desires that draws towards human beings and God created sex, it's all twisted by our flesh and the enemy and the sinful world that we live in.
• 15:52
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so the scripture tells us to look at our desires actually very skeptically, as that's the old me.
• 16:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: How do I crucify that and live according to Christ's design for me?
• 16:05
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So that's the first one.
• 16:08
  Dr. Juli Slattery: The second two are kind of related.
• 16:10
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They're the shame and performance trap and they're kind of the two sides of the same coin, which is I define myself by how well I live up to some moral standard.
• 16:20
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And again, there are people who would say well, I'm a virgin, I never stepped outside of my marriage Like I'm doing this right.
• 16:29
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Therefore I'm better than other people, like I've earned God's favor because I've kept the rules.
• 16:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And then there are other people on the other side who are like I haven't kept the rules and I'm still not keeping them, and I feel forever shameful and condemned.
• 16:46
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I feel like you know, god, that God doesn't love me as much as he must love other Christians.
• 16:52
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And really we really see this play out in the Gospels and the story that Jesus told of the prodigal son and the brother who stayed at home.
• 17:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And we see that both of these two guys had a barrier in really understanding the love of the Father.
• 17:07
  Dr. Juli Slattery: The father I'm going to go find life outside and then had to overcome shame of I'm unworthy to be here.
• 17:21
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I'll just be your servant, just accept me.
• 17:22
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And the father throws a lavish party.
• 17:24
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And then the brother who is stuck in the performance trap, like he can't get over the fact that this brother, who squandered everything like has the favor of the father, like he's really stuck in legalism and I see that so often related to sexuality that we just measure ourselves by some moral standard and by rules instead of knowing who we are in the blood of Christ.
• 17:52
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And Paul said you know to he lists a bunch of sins and he goes that's what some of you were, but that's not who you are anymore.
• 17:59
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You know, you are now washed and justified and sanctified by the Lord Jesus Christ and you're filled with the Holy Spirit, and so both brothers get level set by that.
• 18:10
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And then, finally, there's a relationship trap, which I think is also really common.
• 18:15
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You know, we live in a couple's world and so a lot of people define their value and worth based on does somebody want to be with me?
• 18:25
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Am I attractive?
• 18:26
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Why am I single?
• 18:28
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Why?
• 18:29
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Why did my husband betray me?
• 18:31
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Like they measure their value and worth based on what's happening relationally to them.
• 18:40
  Ellen Krause: So those are the four most common that I see people falling into and I'm sure if you're listening to this you can relate to one of those.
• 18:48
  Ellen Krause: I know I certainly can.
• 18:49
  Ellen Krause: When I think back on my own, just even balancing more than one of those right, even balancing more than one of those right, I mean I see shame and performance both in my background and kind of balancing both of those.
• 19:06
  Ellen Krause: So I love that you sort of bring this to light in a way that we can wrap our minds around and say, no, we don't need to be identified as those things, and that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can take that next step towards recognizing what God has in store for us.
• 19:29
  Ellen Krause: Well, let's talk a little bit about rethinking sexuality.
• 19:33
  Ellen Krause: A big part of your message is helping us think differently about the purpose of sexuality.
• 19:39
  Ellen Krause: Why is that so important?
• 19:43
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It's really been neglected in our conversations about biblical sexuality.
• 19:48
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so what happens is we talk about the rules, okay.
• 19:53
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So we talk about.
• 19:54
  Dr. Juli Slattery: God designed sex for a man and a woman within the covenant of marriage, and most Christians again, particularly younger generations, but older as well believe that the purpose of sexuality is for me to express who I love and to express the fullness of who I am.
• 20:15
  Dr. Juli Slattery: That it's based on sexual chemistry.
• 20:18
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You can't really live a fulfilled life if you're not expressing sexually those feelings.
• 20:25
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So that framework of our purpose for sexuality works for the guy or the girl who, at 22, meets somebody they're really, really in love with, who happens to be the opposite gender.
• 20:40
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So you've got a man and a woman who fall for each other and then they have a pretty good marriage.
• 20:47
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They don't have a lot of trials, they don't have a lot of problems with loving each other.
• 20:54
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Well, that works.
• 20:55
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Okay, we can check all the boxes.
• 20:57
  Dr. Juli Slattery: God gave me desire.
• 20:59
  Dr. Juli Slattery: He met my desire through this person.
• 21:02
  Dr. Juli Slattery: We have great sex all the time, in good times and bad times.
• 21:06
  Dr. Juli Slattery: We're always in love.
• 21:07
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But let me just say that's probably about 5% of the population, because the reality of it is that even if you fall head over heels for somebody.
• 21:19
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They might be married to somebody else or they might not be interested in you.
• 21:24
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Or maybe you get married and then five years later you're not attracted to each other anymore.
• 21:29
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You have outside temptations and there are other people who are attracted to the same sex.
• 21:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so my quote-unquote soulmate, the person I have chemistry with God, says I can't be married to or it might be again a hard marriage, like why would God want me to stay in a marriage and a sex life?
• 21:48
  Dr. Juli Slattery: That feels very unfulfilling.
• 21:50
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so we have to say, okay, did God really say that's a purpose for sex?
• 21:55
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And actually, when we look at scripture, that's not the purpose for sex.
• 21:59
  Dr. Juli Slattery: God did not create sex to be an expression of romantic desire or sexual chemistry.
• 22:07
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And people are like, wait what you know?
• 22:09
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Like God actually created sex to be a seal and a symbol of covenant love, of the choice of a man and a woman partnering their lives together and saying we will be faithful to one another and we will work on sexual love and we will work on friendship, we will work on being connected and attached.
• 22:34
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so we really have to change our paradigm.
• 22:37
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And why would God create it?
• 22:39
  Dr. Juli Slattery: To be a symbol of covenant love, because the whole idea of marriage and one flesh, the scripture tells us, is a living metaphor of the covenant relationship God has with his people, and so we're a living metaphor in marriage, and sex is meant to be a part of that living metaphor.
• 23:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So when we take it outside of marriage and say, oh, this is just an expression of what's inside of me, we not only mess up relationships, we also are messing up the metaphor that is meant to tell us about God's faithful love to us.
• 23:17
  Ellen Krause: That is so fascinating and so helpful, then what specifically needs to shift in our thinking, then?
• 23:26
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, it's a lot, honestly, because, even as people are hearing me say that they're like, I don't quite understand that.
• 23:35
  Dr. Juli Slattery: We have been so indoctrinated into thinking that sex is about expressing what's inside of me, and part of what's happened, even in the Christian church, is we've just taken the world's message and try to Christianize it, like you can have what you want, but it has to be in these rules, these rules.
• 23:58
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so we have a lot of work to do to go back to the scripture and to show and disciple people, including ourselves, in the thinking that God's primary purpose is not for us to reveal what's in us, but for us to know what he's revealing about himself.
• 24:09
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Um, and so I wrote a book several years ago called Rethinking Sexuality.
• 24:14
  Dr. Juli Slattery: That unpacks some of this.
• 24:16
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I wrote about this in Surrender Sexuality Like we have to change our backdrop of what we think the purpose of marriage and sex is and not just try to have a negotiation with the culture's view.
• 24:29
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And that does take work, it takes discipleship.
• 24:32
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But until we do that, christians are going to feel like, okay, god might have said this, but I don't think he's good because he's keeping me from something good.
• 24:41
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But when we can change our thinking we actually see a richer goodness in God's design and his plan.
• 24:49
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely, you know.
• 24:50
  Ellen Krause: Something that comes to my mind is that I think it's so important for Christians to have that biblical foundation, because I think about even just the word covenant that you said is not a common word in the new generation to even know what that means, how important it was to God why he made covenants and all those things are.
• 25:18
  Ellen Krause: It's just so helpful to have that background and I love that you help explain that for people who might not know.
• 25:30
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, it's a learning curve.
• 25:32
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Honestly, it took me a lot of years to really get my mind around that, so it takes some repetition.
• 25:39
  Ellen Krause: Let's talk a little bit about practicality and with people who are listening that might be struggling.
• 25:46
  Ellen Krause: Why is it often ineffective to just simply try to stop a sexual sin pattern, and what should people do instead?
• 25:57
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah.
• 25:57
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So sexual sin patterns are so complex, they involve our biology, our neurology.
• 26:05
  Dr. Juli Slattery: We know more that we can study the brain, that because sex kind of brings forth a lot of neurochemicals that are very powerful, it creates neural pathways in our brain.
• 26:19
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So when you have a sexual experience, your brain can be experiencing dopamine, which is the pleasure hormone, something called PEA, which is like a novelty kind of opiate, natural opiate kind of thing.
• 26:34
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Endorphins, which calm you down.
• 26:37
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Adrenaline, when something's new and exciting and exciting.
• 26:46
  Dr. Juli Slattery: If it's a sexual trauma you've experienced, it's cortisol and stress, and your body and brain are processing those memories as a trauma.
• 26:51
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so all these things impact the brain because sex is powerful.
• 26:56
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so what ends up happening is we have these neural pathways that are formed sometimes at very young ages.
• 27:03
  Dr. Juli Slattery: People are exposed to pornography, for example, around the ages of 10, 11, 12.
• 27:08
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so their brain experiences something powerful and new.
• 27:12
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And then you learn to go back to that experience because it was comforting, it was pleasurable, it felt good, and so kids and teenagers will go back to pornography.
• 27:26
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They go back to hookups or masturbating or whatever it might be to say that's how I find comfort, that's how I find excitement when I'm bored, that's how I fall asleep, because it brings relaxation, and every time you do that it reinforces that neural pathway.
• 27:42
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So let's say, on average you've got a young man, young woman who's been doing this for 12, 15 years and they feel a lot of shame and guilt about it.
• 27:52
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They go to church and they hear God doesn't want you behaving in those behaviors and they say, okay, I don't want to do this anymore.
• 28:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: God, I promise I'm not going to do this anymore.
• 28:02
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But they've trained their brain to go to those places when they're stressed, when they're lonely, when they're feeling discomfort.
• 28:11
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They've built identity around it.
• 28:13
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Where, let's say, there's somebody who dates a lot and hooks up a lot, or sex a lot, people are now expecting that from them.
• 28:22
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They have a sense of self that this is what I do.
• 28:25
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So they don't know how to change all that.
• 28:28
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so then they start to feel even more shame.
• 28:31
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Everybody else seems like they're not sinning like I am.
• 28:35
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Why can't I stop?
• 28:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And the enemy begins to speak lies.
• 28:38
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so this becomes a vicious pattern.
• 28:41
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And let me just say it in the ministry that I run, this becomes a vicious pattern.
• 28:43
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Let me just say it in the ministry that I run, we will see people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s who have never addressed these patterns.
• 28:50
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They just have decades of experience and shame and almost like giving up.
• 28:59
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I don't even know what else to try.
• 29:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Then they feel like the power of God isn't enough because they're Christians.
• 29:04
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But they can't stop, and so what this book that I wrote is really doing is helping them address the layers and get help for the layers that have reinforced this view of who they are, reinforce the neurobiology, reinforce their relationships and actually invite God into all those layers, instead of just trying to fix your behavior.
• 29:28
  Ellen Krause: And that really addresses more of the sexual brokenness.
• 29:32
  Ellen Krause: Would you say that people have reasons why they're doing what they're doing?
• 29:37
  Ellen Krause: In addition to that, brain neurology?
• 29:41
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You know it's so many layers.
• 29:43
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I mean we can see it in the brain, but you know you take, for example, a married couple and let's say one of them came in with a pattern of using pornography and is trying not to but doesn't know how to enjoy.
• 29:56
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Let's say it's the guy who's using pornography.
• 29:59
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It's not always that way.
• 30:00
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But let's say now he can't enjoy his wife, like he can't even become aroused because his brain is tricked on pornography, and so he starts saying I can't love my wife.
• 30:12
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Well, so I'm just going to fall back to pornography.
• 30:16
  Dr. Juli Slattery: She doesn't know why he's not engaging sexually.
• 30:18
  Dr. Juli Slattery: She starts feeling rejected.
• 30:20
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Five years later she discovers a pornography and she's devastated.
• 30:25
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so now she has all these the shame, body image issues.
• 30:29
  Dr. Juli Slattery: They have relational problem, and so these issues become very complex because of the choices we make on the road, because of the things we're not talking about, and so it's no longer just a neurological problem, it's a spiritual problem and a relational problem and an identity problem of what's wrong with me.
• 30:51
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And that's why when you hear a 30-minute sermon on God's design for sex, people might agree theologically, but they can't get there experientially.
• 31:01
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But Jesus wants to enter into all those layers he wants to enter into the relational brokenness and the shame and the trauma and rewiring and retraining our brain, all of it.
• 31:16
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so I couldn't have written this book 13 years ago because I didn't know all of this.
• 31:21
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But having observed and walked with thousands of people, I see what happens when we invite Jesus not into just changing our behavior but remaking us as new creations, and I've seen people find freedom and I've seen couples work through the worst of betrayals.
• 31:44
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But it can't just be behavior focused.
• 31:47
  Ellen Krause: Yeah, oh, my goodness Would you say if someone's listening to this and saying I'm exactly in that spot going to your ministry or getting a Christian marriage counselor or something, what would you suggest for them?
• 32:03
  Dr. Juli Slattery: counselor or something.
• 32:04
  Dr. Juli Slattery: What would you suggest for them?
• 32:06
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, all of the above.
• 32:12
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I would suggest you just start with even between you and the Lord and just saying God, I feel like I'm a mess and I don't know what to do.
• 32:16
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Would you help?
• 32:19
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I've kept this from you, but I want to bring it to you.
• 32:23
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And boy, jesus loves it when we bring our messes.
• 32:26
  Dr. Juli Slattery: He doesn't say clean yourself up first and then come.
• 32:30
  Dr. Juli Slattery: He says nope, you know all you who are weary and heavy laden, you know, come to me and find rest.
• 32:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You know Romans, chapter 12, verse 1, paul just says in light of God's mercy, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, because God sees that as holy and acceptable as a form of worship.
• 32:48
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And so that's the first step.
• 32:50
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Is just, you know, like acknowledging our need for God.
• 32:53
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And then next steps are there, like at our ministry, we have online book studies that are going through, books like Surrender, sexuality and other books.
• 33:03
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So groups for men, groups for women and groups for married couples, where you can just meet with some other people and start processing this stuff that feels like it's been stuck for so long.
• 33:15
  Dr. Juli Slattery: And then sometimes we do need to reach out to that Christian counselor that can help with trauma, that can help with communication in marriage, can help with just emotional healing.
• 33:25
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So I think it's not just one step, it's several that we pursue in concert.
• 33:35
  Ellen Krause: And just you saying that I think that's kind of the ending message that needs to be attached to that sermon, Because if you just take a one-stab approach at it, I imagine that that's going to be extremely difficult when a person tries to change their behavior without addressing their sexual brokenness.
• 33:55
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It is.
• 33:55
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It is and you might have some success with willpower and putting on filters on your devices.
• 34:02
  Dr. Juli Slattery: That's all good stuff, but we change when God transforms our hearts.
• 34:07
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You know like we change when we come to him and we just are like I got nothing, Like my tricks are broken.
• 34:14
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Whatever it takes, I need you to remake me.
• 34:18
  Dr. Juli Slattery: That's when we see the most dramatic transformation, Absolutely.
• 34:24
  Ellen Krause: Well, where can our listeners go specifically to learn more about your work and your new book Surrendered Sexuality?
• 34:34
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, you can learn about what I do at AuthenticAnimacycom that's the name of our ministry and then we have a podcast called Java with Julie.
• 34:45
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You can find Surrender to Sexuality, christianbookcom, amazon wherever you might buy books.
• 34:50
  Dr. Juli Slattery: It should be available, but thanks for letting me share about it.
• 34:54
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely, and we will make sure we include links to those in our show notes.
• 34:58
  Ellen Krause: Well before I let you go, I just want to ask you our favorite questions here what Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?
• 35:09
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, I have a big study Bible that when I'm home I like to study from.
• 35:13
  Dr. Juli Slattery: But I also travel a lot, so I've learned to be flexible and use all kinds of different Bibles but I think my go-to translation I usually start with the ESV.
• 35:24
  Dr. Juli Slattery: That's my favorite translation to study, but then I also especially if I'm studying a passage closely I like to pull up other translations and see the nuances of them.
• 35:38
  Ellen Krause: Yes, for sure, absolutely.
• 35:41
  Ellen Krause: Do you have any favorite Bible journaling supplies that you use?
• 35:47
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I do.
• 35:47
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I have a friend, her name is Carmen Beasley, and she created, she creates these books called Simply Bible and they like, take you, like they just have the passage and then they have all these blocks that you fill out, like what do you observe, interpret, what are keywords, what are some cross references from this passage?
• 36:08
  Dr. Juli Slattery: You know, like, what are the main points?
• 36:10
  Dr. Juli Slattery: How do you apply it?
• 36:11
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Write a prayer.
• 36:12
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So I use that a lot just because I love the way it's laid out and it makes me slow down and really pay attention to the scripture in general about what I'm learning.
• 36:23
  Dr. Juli Slattery: So that's probably my favorite journal tool.
• 36:25
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Okay, wonderful.
• 36:29
  Ellen Krause: Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
• 36:35
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Logos.
• 36:36
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Yeah, I used to use Blue Letter Bible and I still like that, but lately I've gotten into Logos.
• 36:42
  Dr. Juli Slattery: I don't know how people say it, but that's my favorite.
• 36:46
  Ellen Krause: Yes, oh, it's absolutely incredible, and we will include links to all of Julie's favorites in our show notes as well.
• 36:56
  Ellen Krause: Well, dr Julie, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 37:00
  Ellen Krause: I'm just so grateful for your wisdom, your compassion on this topic of sexuality.
• 37:06
  Ellen Krause: Your work is such a needed gift for the church today.
• 37:10
  Dr. Juli Slattery: Well, thank you so much for letting me share.
• 37:12
  Ellen Krause: This has been a real joy To those of you who are listening, I hope you've been reminded that our sexuality isn't something we have to hide from God.
• 37:22
  Ellen Krause: It's something we're invited to surrender to him, just like every other part of our lives.
• 37:28
  Ellen Krause: And for those of you who are wrestling with questions, shame or brokenness in this area, know that Jesus sees you and he is not afraid of your story.
• 37:39
  Ellen Krause: In fact, he wants to meet you right in the middle of it and lead you toward healing and wholeness.
• 37:45
  Ellen Krause: And you can start with Dr Julie's book called Surrendered Sexuality.
• 37:51
  Ellen Krause: I highly recommend it.
• 37:53
  Ellen Krause: So thank you for joining us in the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 37:57
  Ellen Krause: We will talk to you again soon.
• 37:59
  Ellen Krause: You.