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Brain vs Mind! · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, how you doing this morning?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can tell, but I'm in quite a different place than normal.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a green screen backdrop.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the real deal.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at a retreat with a bunch of young leaders, and uh I mean just great guys wanting to stay healthy and grow healthy and and just be strong in the ministry.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So looking forward to hanging with you for just a minute here.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Been talking about the brain lately, and um it kind of creeps some people out, honestly, because it feels and sounds not very spiritual.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just take a minute to to kind of play with that a little bit.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I believe we're spirit, soul, and body.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 5.23 would confirm that in some Genesis 2.7 and some other places.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is all of that's involved in our working well, our our being healthy, vibrant, alive.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um what I like to call grabbing life by the throat and giving it all that that God meant for us to have.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, you know, one of my one of my favorite prayers, you might say, it's really a thought, but it makes a pretty good prayer, is this.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I dare you to pray this daily for a while.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh God, I don't want anything you don't want me to have.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I do want everything you want me to have.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's this kind of spiritual posture you're taking where anything God doesn't want me to have, I'm not gonna go after.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you could also say it this way: anything in my life God doesn't want me to have, I want to push out.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and that kind of plays into this health stuff that we talk about a lot.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then that second part, but I do want everything you want me to have.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: The bottom line is I believe this, guys.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, oh, a thief comes into the house and takes what we have, and I agree, that's a thief's behavior.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe, I've come to believe, that the greatest act of theft that's gonna happen in our lifetime is not the devil or the enemy taking from us what we have.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be keeping us from getting what God meant for us to have.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say that again.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: The greatest theft is not gonna be taking from what you have, but it's keeping you from getting what God meant for you to have.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: What's it got what's that got to do with the brain and everything else?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal, guys.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to learn anything, anything, anything that will help us, that'll help me and help you to do what we just said, to get rid of what God wants out of my life and get into my life what God wants into it.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so in my search and my pursuit, in my my uh just poking, prodding, experimenting, learning, reading, praying, and working with people for almost 40 years now, I've learned lots of things that are profoundly spiritual and biblical and all that.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually, my studies, and I believe God, led me to think about, talk about, study the brain.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not a doctor or anything, but but the brain is the part of you that does your thinking, feeling, choosing, deciding, uh pursuing, postponing your your your ability to uh you know make decisions and plans, and I'm gonna do this, I'm not gonna do this.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's you can't do that without your brain, man.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um one thing that I found helps sometimes is making helping you see the distinction between your brain and your mind.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain and your mind.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, just a little sidebar there.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: All the all the people that research this stuff, even from a non-believing perspective, nobody understands how your brain creates your mind.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, no one can no one's even close to understanding.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I asked you to picture a hamburger, you can somehow conjure up, imagine a picture of a hamburger.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like you have a screen in your mind, your brain, and you can project a picture of a hamburger on it.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: No one has a clue how we do that.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: No one understands the capacities that your brain has.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those capacities is creating what we call your mind.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I'm making that distinction is this the Bible says a lot about your mind.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Ephesians 2, be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots and lots.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Bible doesn't say a lot about your brain.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But let's be honest, it says a lot about your heart, but we all know that's not necessarily your physical organ called a heart.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: It it uh it doesn't say much about your stomach and arteries, and in other words, it doesn't talk much about it doesn't, I don't know that it says anything about the brain.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a friend of mine said this recently, and uh, it's a great analogy metaphor.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um hey, let's train for a marathon.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's, you know, let's start working months ahead and let's get ready to run a marathon, which I have no interest in doing, by the way.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um but imagine, you know, I'm I'm standing there like I'm I got a friend sitting over here, Josh Roberry.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine I go to Josh and I say, hey Josh, let's let's get let's let's get ready to run a marathon.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Josh is over here with a broken leg.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he's looking at me like, dude, are you out of your mind?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't preparing for a marathon would mean working out, exercising, running, and he's got a broken leg.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's say he's six weeks away from the cast coming off and whatever.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm just making this up.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say two months from now, we could talk about, hey, let's get ready to run a marathon.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because his leg's healed and working properly.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a key thought now.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's healed and working properly.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with your brain, man.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we'll go to a person and say, Oh, you feel a little depressed.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not feeling a little depressed.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've dealt with it most of my life.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe you maybe you don't even know to ask, but they tell you, yeah, you know, my dad's dealt with it.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the deal.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh, well, you just give me your cute little, I call it bumper sticker Christianity.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you just need to pray more.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You need to, whatever.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what, dude?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's like telling Josh with a broken leg, you know, get off your butt and let's go prepare for this marathon.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I got a broken leg.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, come on.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just pray harder.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain is the physical organ that houses, creates, manifests, whatever word you want to use, your mind.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing, man.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your mind can be working great, and your brain be broken.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the problem with that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your mind might be working great, but if your brain's not, you're not gonna be able to process life and all of its challenges well.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why does that matter?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why, dude, you're a pastor and a counselor, and why are we talking about this?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: We inadvertently, and I choose to believe unintentionally, hurt people by making the path between their pain and their deliverance look easy, quick, you know, and it here's the deal: if you misdiagnose the problem, you're gonna mistreat the patient.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important that we back up and understand that there's times, it isn't all the time.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if I come across like it's all about the brain, no, it isn't.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody doesn't have a broken brain.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: But some of us do, and even those of us who don't have a broken brain go through things that break it at just like a broken leg, temporarily inhibiting our ability to flow.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: I went through a stretch where basically I, by my choices, broke my brain.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I went too hard too fast for too long, and basically had an adrenaline burnout type situation.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: My brain lost its capacity to manage fear and anxiety, and I had anxiety issues.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it wasn't a mind issue.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to do the mind stuff, but my brain couldn't couldn't do it.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I went on medication temporarily.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I went on medication for a while, a good while.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I say temporarily, a good while.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um it helped my brain function better while I worked on some of the issues in my life that created the problem in the first place.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, gotta wind up, but all I'm trying to say to you guys is this open open the filter.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like it's almost like a a wide lens camera.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Open the lens a little bit wider, take in some more information, and um I promise you guys, I I I'm the same guy I've always been.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I I just love to read and think, and I want to grab a hold of anything that can help me and help you uh live closer to the life God has planned for us.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Bless you guys.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm honored that you hang out with me, and uh have a good day.