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4 CRITICAL QUESTIONS · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about it, getting it done.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Excited to be with you again this morning.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Want to talk to you about life at the crossroads, is I think the way I explained it or described it.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, you know, my bottom line desire, guys, is pretty simple.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to help you, nudge you, poke you, provoke you, encourage you, comfort you, walk beside you, whatever it takes, kick you in the butt, whatever it takes.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to help you squeeze out of life, the one, the only life you're ever going to get.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to help you squeeze out of it.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the closest to what you hoped it would be that you possibly can.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um, listen, guys, I know it's not easy or automatic.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know we don't start at the same place in the race.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know that some of what I say to some people is like, oh, I can do that.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: To other people, it seems like that is, you know, you know, carrying the earth on my shoulders or something, uh, in the sense of from where I've come and the experiences I've had, that's just a whole lot harder than you're making it sound.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want you to know, I re I get that, man.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But all I'm trying to say is this you gotta get up every day and just push a little more, just push a little more and go after life in the best way possible to uh to make it go where you want it to go.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to talk to you today about four questions.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember if I've ever mentioned these before.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing magical about them, but they're four questions that just help you kind of think a little bit in this whole area.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked about comfort is not your friend.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and what we mean by that is that basically, well, let me get into the questions and I'll say it there.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, four really important questions.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of uh think of it like a not like a midlife crisis, but just a uh uh an occasional, and I do mean that you should do this occasionally.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so here's four questions.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, where are you?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you right now?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean like I'm sitting in my office at Daniel Island in Charleston, South Carolina.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean that, but in the sense of where uh where I've come from, where I thought I'd be by now, uh how I thought my life would unfold, my my marriage, my professional life, my spiritual life, my health, my fitness, my finances, whatever, my relationships, my friendships.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you right now?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: How about your own emotional well-being, your your sense of uh um, you know, you know, we all had this sense of the potential that we have, the person that we could be, would what, would like to be.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So where are you in in the sense of that?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um where are you in relation to where you thought you'd be, wanted to be at this point in your life?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good question.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I would always encourage you to do any of these things with someone that loves you and will speak the truth to you.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal chances are, my experience would be this.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to be, we tend to be mean to ourselves.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we tend, excuse me, we tend to spin these things negatively.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So when you play with a question like that, make sure you got somebody that loves you and will speak the truth to you to help buffer that.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh the bottom line is you're where you are for reasons, and most of them were beyond your control.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the experiences that shape us into the person we are right this moment were not experiences that we chose.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: They were not a choice, but the experiences that are shaping you from here forward, many of them, probably most of them, can be chosen by you.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why it's important to think like that.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right, who are you?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, where are you?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, who are you?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an identity question.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's real interesting, you know, if you catch somebody off guard and you ask them, hey, tell me about yourself.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you, you know, you haven't, you know, nothing.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting to notice the words or labels they use and the order in which they say them.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, the context, where you are, who it is, might affect what you say, but um it's just important.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you describe yourself to yourself?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you, your identity?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um another area under this, who are you, I would call it self-awareness.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: How accurate a picture of yourself do you have?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: How um how much do you know about, you know, you know, I I manage my anger well, I I am a fairly joyful person, I'm critical, I'm judgmental, I'm kind, I'm patient.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, how accurate a picture of yourself do you have?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have other people kind of feeding into that, speaking into that, then I can pretty much promise you you don't have a very accurate self-awareness.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, question number one, we're talking about four questions.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you right now?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of a life assessment.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, who are you?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of an identity self-awareness question.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, what do you want, man?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you've listened to me very often, you know that's kind of a big question for me.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the old uh Snickers commercial, you're not yourself when you're hungry.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I believe what you want shapes the person you you are as you engage every day.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I believe what you want, identifying it, being mindful of it, being aware of it, focusing on it to some degree, and I don't mean in a creepy way, um, it it affects how you go into your day, how you attack your day, how you embrace the opportunities and obstacles of your day.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's important to think about that.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned over the years that in most adults' lives, their wanter is broken.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Most people, by the time they become adult, they don't they don't want deeply.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's painful.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's painful to say you want it and not get it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's painful to say you want it and not do the things you think you should do to get it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it just opens up all this stuff.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal, guys.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta want something, man.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we could chase so many rabbits there.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: They've done all kinds of studies about how we're different.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It affects the brain chemistry when you're you're literally carrying a desire with you through your day.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want, I want to read this book, I want to learn this subject, I want to develop this skill, I want to overcome this obstacle.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: When you have a want, it marshals and mobilizes and coordinates your resources.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And to be honest with you, you're a whole lot more interesting to be around when you want something.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you quit wanting things, when you quit believing there's more, you just get pretty boring.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and your your life trajectory, your energy, your it just kind of goes down.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, four questions.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you right now?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Identity question.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Three, what do you want?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then number four, what stands between you and what you want?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: What stands between you and what you want?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: In uh in fancy terms, what this is, is it's identifying what what we call your locus of control.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're identifying where do you believe the power resides between that determines whether I get what I want.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have what we would call an external locus of control, you believe that determining factors between you and getting what you want are outside of you.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: People, situations, circumstances, macro issues, micro issues.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: The bottom line is you you assign responsibility, authority, and power.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Key little thoughts there, responsibility, authority, and power.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: You assign that, give that, gift that to people and things outside of you.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what stands between you and what you want?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: An internal locus of control.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thinks like this.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I determine the outcome of my day.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, am I gonna run into different situations that I have no control over?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but I determine my response.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I determine how much your attitudes and your actions affect me.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: You don't determine how much your attitudes and actions affect me.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And now, I don't want to make that sound easy, but it is that clear.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, where are you right now?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you in your life scope?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have the courage?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And do you have a friend who will make sure you don't get into weird, negative, shame-drifting thoughts?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm such a loser.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I shoulda, coulda, woulda.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your identity, your self-awareness.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, what do you want?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta think about that, man.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And number four, what stands between you and what you want?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Remember John 1010, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Steal, kill, and destroy.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've said this to you before.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here's here's a big thing that I've come to believe.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: The greatest theft the enemy succeeds at is not taking from what you have.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's keeping you from getting what you were meant to have.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: All of us probably, I feel confident to say, all of us have this thing inside of us that whispers to us, yells to us sometimes.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: But this is this constant voice saying, Chipper, there's more.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's more, man.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal, guys.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta decide if you want to go after it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, last week's title is gonna be a perennial friend of yours, and that is this.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to go after the more, Jesus said in that same verse, I've come that you might have life in that life more abundantly.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you want more, then you're gonna have to make peace with being uncomfortable.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: What we're gonna talk about, I think, next week is the whole concept of a threshold, being at a threshold and what that is and what that feels like.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh love you guys, man.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I see your names as you're going up here.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't stop saying anything usually because it just distracts and gets me off track.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I really am honored that you you hang in there with me and uh share it with your friends if it's helping you.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh next week, I think we're gonna talk about threshold and how to push through them.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.