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Transcript

It's Not Them! · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, it is 2021, and um I just wanted to say hello to you.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna call this season three, episode one, and uh I just want to talk a little bit in a sense, indirectly, about uh why we do this.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um the write-up I put to describe it was it's not them.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um basically, why do we give away our peace and joy and inner strength so cheaply to people and circumstances?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: As a man or woman thinks, Proverbs 23, 7, as a man or woman thinks in your heart, so is he or she.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: As you think, so you are, as you think, so you are.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, there's lots of other scriptures I can use, but let's just use that to play with this thought.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The way you think, the way you think determines the way you are.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: The the state of your thinking, the tone of your thinking, the uh the direction of your thinking determines the tone of your life, your emotions, your decisions, your reactions, the direction of your thinking determines the direction of your life.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Are you driven by fear?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're more concerned with moving away from things or toward things.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So as a man or a woman thinks, so is he or she.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um interestingly, I don't think I've ever done it before, and I'm a big guy about words.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love studying words, but I looked up that word think in my uh Strong's Concordance, not a Greek or Hebrew scholar, but I can read.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh interestingly, it's it's derived from the concept of a gatekeeper.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what it's saying is this as a man or woman thinks, the way or while a man or woman's thinking, that's determining who you are, what you are, what you feel, how you react, how you're how you're engaging and experiencing life.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do I believe that, you know, like uh what was it, the book, The Secret, that you can think reality into existence?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I do believe your thinking determines how you experience reality, and because your thinking affects the way you feel, it affects the way you act.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you've heard me talk about BTFA.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: What you believe drives what you think, what you think drives how you feel, how you feel drives how you act, and collectively that determines the results in life that you get within reason.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's some things we can't control, but to be honest with you, for most of us, it's it's a very small part of our life.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm really trying to say is this let's figure out the part we can do something about.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So as a man or woman thinks in his or her heart, so is he or she.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that word thinks has the flavor of a gatekeeper.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a gatekeeper.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: A gatekeeper decides what comes in and what gets goes out, what comes in and what goes out.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: A gatekeeper decides in the context of this scripture, as a man thinks, as the gatekeeper does its job, it determines how I think, feel, and act.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: As the gatekeeper filters what I'm saying to myself, how I'm thinking as I go through my day.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to connect that to another verse in Proverbs 4.23 that says, Guard your heart, guard your heart, guard your heart, for from it flow the issues of life.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Guard your heart.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of a it's kind of an interesting word.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it puts responsibility on us.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, kind of like the gatekeeper, as a man or woman thinks, I'm pretty sure I control my thinking for the most part.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure you do, even though you may not feel like you do.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of why I'm telling you this.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: You really do have more managerial authority and power over your thinking than you think you do.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so this says, guard your heart, for from it flow Proverbs 4, 23.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The other one was Proverbs 23, 7, in case I didn't say.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: But guard your heart for from it flow the issues of life.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Guard your heart.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's got that flavor of a gatekeeper.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Guard what's going on inside of you.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oversee it, um, examine it, question it, um, poke it and prod it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I saying all this?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal, guys.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let me just share this with you.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago, I read a book called uh Authentic Happiness, I think was the name of the book.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh by a guy named Martin Seligman, who's uh considered to be the father of what you call positive psychology.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't I don't know his spiritual story.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: The book would not be a Christian book per se, in the sense of referring to scripture and that sort of thing.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it had some really solid stuff in it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that had in it was a study they'd done, and they'd studied authentic happiness.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: But an important word, they studied enduring authentic happiness.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, what they studied was when you have spikes of joy or a level of joy, peace, engagement with life that you would call positive, enduring authentic happiness.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, a person who's able to kind of stay there, now that doesn't mean life's not going to hit you and you're gonna have downward spikes, but here's the point: enduring authentic happiness is about not the spikes of joy or sadness, but the trajectory, the flow, the general level that you live at.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So they did a study, and they here's what they're trying to figure out.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: What are the factors that affect yours and my enduring authentic happiness?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And by authentic happiness, I think they were trying to avoid the word joy, and they would they meant it the same way we would say that happiness is external, joy is internal.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they kind of meant it that way.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Authentic happiness is from the inside out.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what they came up with: three things, and this is really, really important, guys.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as you think, so you are.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Guard your heart.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to these three factors determining, affecting authentic, enduring authentic happiness.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Number one was what they call your happiness thermostat.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know what a thermostat is, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's on the wall, you set it to a temperature, and then it either, when the temperature shifts, it moves the temperature back to what you set it at.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in the summer, I think we set our our cool at 76.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I think so.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh if it gets to 78 or 9, guess what?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Air conditioner comes out, pulls it down.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: In the winter, we set our heat at 68, I think.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: If it goes below that, the heater comes on.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what does that mean?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: It it doesn't just monitor the temperature, it regulates it.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: It brings you back to that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, what they found is that you inherit from your family a thermostat setting.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: A thermostat setting for joy, peace, happiness, intimacy.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what you do is you unconsciously you work to maintain that level.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're different for different people.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, guess how much percentage they attributed to your thermostat?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: 50%.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Life circumstances they attributed guess what?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Life circumstances ten percent.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: 50% your inherited thermostat, 10% your life circumstances, third factor, factors under your control that you can change.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what's the number one factor?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: How you think, how you think.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what what just happened?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thermostat setting, 50%.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't get to choose it, but you can maximize it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can live in the higher range of whatever range you got.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, life circumstances can't control them.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, according to their research, that's only 10% of what affects your enduring authentic happiness.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: The third thing is factors that you can control, manage, and affect 40% of how you feel on any given day.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: How you think is how you are.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this podcast is all about.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: We want to help you from a mixture of solid biblical, spirit-led living and what I call sanctified psychology, meaning taking the principles I've learned from all that I've read and studied of psychology that has its issues.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I get it, man.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's got its issues, and we could talk about that sometime.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: But bring the two together, and that's what we're here to talk about.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: How can you use that 40%?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure it's not even higher than that at times.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I could explain a little bit why.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what we're going to be dealing with.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're going to be looking at.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're going to be working on.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And man, I uh I just want to help.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to help.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh bless you guys.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hang in there with me and uh pray for me.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, let's make this a great year.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.