0:02

Good morning, my friend. Dr. Lee Warren here with you for some self-brain surgery.

0:05

Here on Theology Thursday. Hope you're having a great week. It's been a busy week. We've had a really bunch

0:12

of big, hard cases this week. My body is tired, but you know what? My mind is ready to go.

0:18

We've got some theology ideas for you today. This is the one day a week on the podcast where we go deeper on the spiritual side of things.

0:25

We're going to talk about how your brain and neuroscience and your faith and

0:28

all those things smash together other, to give you the power and the juice that

0:31

you need to change your mind and change your life.

0:33

Because that's where you can really become healthier and feel better and be happier.

0:37

You can find out about your purpose. You can figure out the reason you're here and what to do about it.

0:42

You can understand why you believe what you believe and what to do about it

0:45

and how to defend it to other people. And you can really find the footing and know that when life gets hard,

0:50

when you find the trauma and tragedy and the massive things that life brings

0:53

us, that you really can still have that abundance and that peace and hope that Jesus promised.

0:58

Remember, we have a quantum physics guide where two things are true at the same time.

1:02

And everything he does throughout nature, everything he does in creation is

1:07

consistent across all the other places.

1:10

So if he says in quantum physics, for example, that two things can be true at

1:13

the same time, that's also true in your life.

1:16

It can be true that in this world, you will have a hard time.

1:19

John 16, 33. And the back half of that verse is also true.

1:22

But I have come that you might overcome the world. It's true in John 10,

1:26

10, the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. But also the back half is true.

1:30

At the same time, I have come that you might have life abundantly.

1:35

Today, we're going to talk about monuments and footprints. We're going to talk

1:38

about whether you make it to a certain place and you give up and things end

1:43

for you and you put up a monument so other people can see where you wound up

1:47

or are you leaving a trail of footprints that other people can follow behind?

1:52

We had a conversation about this on the podcast a couple of years ago,

1:55

and I've been thinking about that conversation. I just want to deepen it and broaden it and have a little bit more in that same

2:01

ideology, that same thought process. But today we're going to go deeper.

2:06

We're going to have some scripture. We're going to have some music.

2:08

We're just going to have a little talk here on Theology Thursday because you

2:12

can't change your life until you change your mind. And before we do that.

2:16

One question for you. Hey, are you ready to change your life?

2:20

If the answer is yes, there's only one rule. You have to change your mind first.

2:25

And my friend, there's a place where the neuroscience of how your mind works

2:28

smashes together with faith and everything starts to make sense.

2:32

Are you ready to change your life? Well, this is the place, Self-Brain Surgery School.

2:37

I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and this is where we go deep into how we're wired,

2:40

take control of our thinking and find real hope.

2:43

This is where we learn to become healthier, feel better, and be happier.

2:47

This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.

2:51

This is where we start today. Are you ready?

2:54

This is your podcast. This is your place. This is your time,

2:58

my friend. Let's get after it. Music.

3:06

All right, here we go. Let's get after it. Listen, a couple of years ago,

3:10

I did an episode on the podcast that I called Monuments and Footprints.

3:15

And I was thinking about that because

3:17

we had a family member who was going through something really hard.

3:22

I mean, they were going through something devastating. It's just some trouble

3:25

in the marriage that we didn't know about.

3:28

And they were ashamed. They were feeling, you know, some shame and some self-doubt and some worry.

3:34

How would we respond and what would people think and all that kind of stuff.

3:38

So our family member that we love so dearly carried this burden alone for a

3:44

long time, over a year, before they talked to any of us about it.

3:48

And by the time we knew about it, it was way too late to do anything to help them.

3:53

This marriage came apart and this family's in jeopardy and we didn't know.

3:58

And so we couldn't help. And I just want to tell you that when you're struggling

4:03

with something hard, when you're dealing with something devastating,

4:06

the worst thing you can do is keep that in the dark.

4:09

It's the worst thing is to keep it secret because when you keep it secret,

4:13

it can blossom and grow and smolder and become this raging problem that nobody

4:18

else knows about and nobody can help you with.

4:21

But when you bring it into the light, that community, remember that's the third

4:25

part of the treatment plan from Hope is the First Toast. You bring it into community

4:28

and you can find, number one, you'll find that you're not the only one that's ever gone through this.

4:33

Number two, you'll find that other people are not ashamed of you.

4:36

They're not afraid of you. They're not disappointed in you.

4:39

They're wanting to help you. They'll pray for you. They'll come alongside you.

4:43

If you've got people who don't do that, you need to get some different people.

4:47

It's one of the reasons the church is so powerful. It's full of people who have

4:50

also been through some hard stuff and are willing to help you when you're going

4:53

through some hard stuff to remind you that you're not the only one that's been

4:57

through this, to remind you that shame is not the appropriate response,

5:00

but but healing is the appropriate response.

5:03

So today I want to give you some concepts about monuments and footprints.

5:08

It was inspired by a poem by William Faulkner, and I first encountered that.

5:12

I've never read a lot of poetry. I love it. I've just been so busy with my training and all the years in the

5:18

hospital and learning, all that, that I never really got deeply into poetry.

5:22

But every time I discover some dramatic poetry from the past,

5:26

I'm amazed that I never read it so much because I love it so much.

5:30

But in Eugene Peterson's book, his really incredible book that we talked about

5:35

a while back, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, which you should read.

5:38

It's this idea of following through the Psalms of Ascent in the Old Testament

5:45

and Psalms and learning sort of what people did when they went on these journeys to find God,

5:52

the journey back to God.

5:54

And the Psalms of Ascent are this idea that you're going back to get closer

5:58

to God, to touch the knee on the ground of where God is.

6:01

And in Eugene Peterson's book, Along Obedience in the Same Direction,

6:04

he quoted William Faulkner, and that sort of led me to this idea of this episode.

6:10

And the last time we talked about this, I had less of a full picture than I do now.

6:16

That's one of the things I love about podcasting is that you go through your

6:18

life and you read and you study and you grow and you write books or you do whatever

6:23

it is that you do in your life. When you come back to an idea that you had a long time ago, you find yourself

6:30

more able to sort of process and handle that idea and maybe even bring it to a fuller explanation.

6:36

And that's kind of where we are here. So we get this idea from Faulkner that

6:39

came from, this idea from Eugene Peterson that came from Faulkner and his life

6:44

that came from Peterson and my life, and hopefully it'll help you.

6:46

And here's the quote. We're talking about these Psalms of Ascent.

6:50

The idea that Faulkner said is they're not monuments, but footprints.

6:56

As a monument says, at least I got this far. If you see a monument on the side

7:01

of the road, for example, you say, okay, well, that person made it to this point

7:05

and they documented their progress. The footprint said, this is where I was when I moved again.

7:12

A monument says, this is how far I got. At least I got this far.

7:16

A footprint says, this is where I was when I moved again.

7:18

And maybe that's a strange idea for you to think about. What's Dr.

7:22

Warren talking about today? What does this have to do with my life?

7:25

Well, it's relevant, okay? Trust me. I know you're going to trust me.

7:28

We're going to read Psalm 121 to begin.

7:31

Psalm 121 is the Psalm of Ascent that Eugene Peterson wrote this whole book

7:35

about, along obedience in the same direction.

7:37

Here's what it says. You've heard this verse before.

7:40

I lift up my eyes to the mountain. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

7:47

He will not let your foot slip. He who watches over you will not slumber.

7:52

Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

7:56

The Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

8:00

The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

8:03

The Lord will keep you free from all harm. He will watch over your life.

8:07

He will watch over you, coming and going, both now and forevermore. more.

8:10

Now today, friend, we're going to talk about monuments and footprints.

8:14

We're going to talk about living and sort of looking up to where our help comes from.

8:19

We're going to remind ourselves that today, what we don't need from God,

8:23

no matter how big or impossible or scary or shameful your situation feels,

8:27

what you don't need is for God to do a miracle.

8:30

What you need is for him to show up and be who he already is,

8:34

because you have a God who makes a way where there is no way.

8:38

That's That's Isaiah 43. We'll talk about that in a minute. You have a God who's in the business of making

8:43

a way where there's no way of parting the waters, of creating an opportunity

8:47

for you, for bringing water into the dry place.

8:49

You have a God who routinely does impossible things because they're not impossible for Him.

8:55

So you don't need to pray for a miracle. You just need to ask God to be who He already is.

9:00

It's His nature. We're going to finish this episode with a Kerry Job song that's

9:04

called It's Your Nature. And it's really long.

9:06

I apologize in advance. It's one of those 11-minute worship songs that goes

9:10

on forever, but it's for a purpose.

9:12

I want you to spend some time, get into that abide frame of mind and worship

9:16

and talk to God and say, hey, it's your nature to come alongside when people are struggling.

9:20

It's your nature to come alongside when relationships are in trouble. It's your nature.

9:25

So show up and just do what you do and be who you are. Remember the book of Job, friend.

9:29

Job didn't get to the end of his life and get all the answers about why he had all these troubles.

9:34

He asked God for 40 chapters. He says, God, why?

9:37

What are you doing? What are you up to? Why did this happen to me?

9:39

And God never gives him why.

9:43

If you read the last part of Job, when God finally does answer Job, he tells him who.

9:49

He tells them who He is, and it's enough.

9:52

The implication is knowing who God is is enough to satisfy us when we go through

9:57

hard things, because what we don't need is answers.

9:59

We need help. We need God.

10:02

And so today we're going to remind ourselves that when it feels impossible, we don't need a miracle.

10:06

We just need God to show up. We have this God who does the impossible thing

10:11

routinely because nothing is impossible for Him.

10:15

So we're going to learn a little bit today about Psalm 121 and what it means

10:19

and what monuments and footprints have to do with this God who makes a way where there is no way.

10:24

We're going to talk about how to get your brain back on track and shift and

10:27

change trains from one thought process to another.

10:30

You have this incredible frontal lobe that God gave you. The only creation in

10:34

all of the things that he made, you're the only one that has this gift of selective

10:38

attention where you can turn your brain from one thought process to another. another.

10:43

That's what my whole new book's about. Self-brain surgery that I'm writing now

10:46

is this idea to use the things that God gave you in the way that he intended for them to be used.

10:52

And that's how your life will be as good as it can be, have the most impact

10:56

that it can to build the life that leaves footprints behind so other people

11:00

can follow. That's really good news, friend.

11:03

It's really good news. We're going to talk about how to get your brain back

11:06

on track so you can make progress again when everything seems so hard.

11:12

So here's the deal. We're going to put ourselves now in this situation of the

11:18

person that we're dealing with who's struggling.

11:21

Our friend, the person I told you about, our family member who's struggling,

11:24

who kept it in the dark, who kept the secret, didn't tell anybody the problem

11:28

and just kept it to themselves. And they felt abandoned.

11:32

They felt crushed. They felt ashamed. They felt like they couldn't even talk about what was hurting them because other

11:37

people would be judgmental instead of helpful.

11:39

And if that's you, if you're feeling abandoned, crushed in spirit,

11:43

broken, betrayed, lost, afraid, grieved, hurting so much, you never thought

11:48

this could happen to you. You tried so hard and you did all the right things.

11:50

You tried to be a good person, but the bias you came back bad or he cheated

11:54

or she left or it's just not working or you're out of money.

11:57

How did you get to this place? you might be asking yourself.

12:00

And what happens now? What will happen to my family? What will happen to my

12:04

child, my future? Will there be enough money? Will I survive?

12:06

What will become of me? What will my legacy be? What if the tumor comes back?

12:11

What if we can't fix this relationship? Will I always be alone? What if?

12:15

What's going to happen? Why me? Listen, that's a bad place to be.

12:18

All those questions swirling around. But the reality is that all of us have been there.

12:23

And many of us listening to this podcast right now, many of us are in that place

12:27

right now where the whole thing feels impossible.

12:30

It feels desperate. It feels like we can't possibly go on from here.

12:34

We need to hide in the bunker and wait for the war to pass.

12:37

I've been in that situation where the bombs are falling. You just hide and hide,

12:40

waiting for things to blow up. And you're wondering if one of those shells is going to land on you.

12:44

Maybe you should just give up and let the bombs blow you up and take you out.

12:48

But just for a minute, I want you to engage your frontal lobe.

12:52

I want you to engage the incredible gift of selective attention that you have,

12:56

and I want you to change trains. I had the great honor of being asked to do a bunch of little spots for MyBridge

13:02

Radio, which is this 155,000 listener central Nebraska radio network that goes all across the Midwest.

13:10

And they gave me this opportunity before Hope is the First Dose came out to

13:13

do a bunch of radio spots for them. And I've heard from so many listeners over the years that they found me and

13:18

my work and my books and my podcast because of MyBridge.

13:20

We're really grateful for that. I'm going to do some more for them this year,

13:23

actually, coming up soon. But my first one was called Changing Trains. And here's the idea.

13:31

I wrote this. I said, imagine riding a subway in a big city.

13:35

At every stop, you have a choice. You can keep riding and go on wherever the

13:39

train will end up, or you can change trains to go where you want to go.

13:43

And guess what? You can do the same thing with your thought life.

13:46

Thanks to our perfectly designed brain, we have the ability to stop thinking

13:51

about one thing and direct our attention to something else.

13:55

Philippians 4 gives us several things to think about to reduce anxiety and change our own minds.

14:00

Fix your thoughts on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.

14:04

Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. And that,

14:08

my friend, is self-brain surgery. You can do it whenever and wherever you are. It's how we change trains from

14:14

automatic or reactive thinking to more positive, helpful thoughts that get us where we need to go.

14:20

We have a choice between letting our circumstances or other people determine

14:25

our mood, our train of thought, and our actions.

14:28

We're letting God teach us self-brain surgery to change our minds,

14:31

change trains, and get to where we need to go.

14:33

Self-brain surgery to think about your thinking is a superpower for your life, my friend.

14:39

It helps you take charge of your thoughts, change trains, and wind up in the right place every time.

14:43

So that's the idea. You can't change your life until you change your mind,

14:47

but you have the gift of selective attention and you can do it.

14:49

So the first move, if we're going to change trains, the first move,

14:53

if we want to get this brain fog storm, this why me, what's happening, what are the answers?

14:58

If you want to get that thing under control, you're in the middle of this brain

15:03

fog and all you can think about is what's happening to you and all you can see

15:06

is the bad and and the impossible, and the negative, and the hurtful, and the pain, if you want to get that under

15:11

control, friend, right here on this Thursday, here's what you got to do.

15:16

I want you to think about the fact that you're at a crossroads right now.

15:20

You're at a crossroads, okay? At the crossroads that you're at when you're facing this situation is in this

15:26

moment, this moment I am that I'm in right now, I'm at a crossroads. I'm at a decision point.

15:33

And is this going to be a monument, monument, a tombstone, a roadside marker

15:37

that this place is where it needed for me.

15:41

This is where it ended for me. This place, this time, this situation,

15:46

this tombstone, this marker, this roadside sign marks the end of my progress.

15:52

Is this going to be all I end up with at the monument?

15:57

I think about monuments for a minute. Monuments say that when we come upon something,

16:01

we're walking through life, we see a sign, we see a statue, we see a cross on

16:04

the roadside, and a monument says, she made it this far, and then she gave up.

16:09

He tried really hard, but this is where he quit. This is where he turned around and went back. The battle was mighty.

16:14

It happened right here on this ground, but there was no more progress.

16:18

This is where it stopped. The crash happened here. The end

16:21

of their journey was right here on this ground. On this day, Lee gave up.

16:26

On this day, Brian made it as far as he could. On this day, Sally retreated.

16:30

That's what monuments are. They're a marker of something that happened in that spot.

16:35

They're markers of the place where something ended or something reached its

16:39

apex or something occurred. And then no more. I'm not saying monuments are bad.

16:43

I'm just saying monuments tell a story of how something ended or how something occurred.

16:49

But I want to tell you a different story. I wrote about this in my book, Hope is the First Dose.

16:53

Back in 2020, Christmas time, we went to Keough Island in South Carolina.

16:58

That's our favorite vacation spot. And it's our favorite vacation spot because we rented a house there one time

17:03

when the kids were all growing up. And we stayed there and we had this incredible incredible visit.

17:08

So we found that house again in December of 2020.

17:12

Lisa was able to rent the same house and Kimber and her little boy Jace were

17:17

able to come and Kaylin and her fiance Noah came and everybody else was busy.

17:22

But we got there for Christmas and we decided we were going to spend a few days on the beach there.

17:26

The reason it was so special is that a few years before, we had a family vacation

17:30

in Kiowa and that house, Lisa's mom, nanny was there back in 2010.

17:37

Or 11, I think it was. And then we lost Patty, of course, in 2018.

17:41

But when she was still healthy and Mitch was there before everything happened

17:44

in 2013, all the kids were there except Katie. She couldn't come. She had to work.

17:49

But everybody else was there. We had our family unit together there on the beach.

17:53

And Nanny and Tata were there. And we had all this fun.

17:55

And Mitch and me, Josh ran and played in the ocean.

17:58

All this great time. So then in 2020, we decided we were going to go back.

18:03

And somehow that same house was available and we rented it.

18:07

And I had somehow built it up in my mind that I was going to be able to go back

18:10

to that beach and make some kind of peace with the place that I had spent time with Mitch there.

18:16

That maybe I could find him again somehow on that beach. And my father-in-law, Tata, didn't go.

18:22

He came to this conclusion that he couldn't bring himself to go there because

18:26

that was really the last place where we had a family vacation.

18:28

And he had all these good memories of Patty and Mitch playing together and all

18:32

these good, healthy, happy memories. And he thought, you know,

18:35

I want to leave those memories intact. I don't want to go back there.

18:38

And so for him in his mind, it was insurmountable. The pain and the memory and

18:43

the grief was going to be there on that beach. And it was going to be too big. He couldn't make himself go.

18:48

So he didn't go because he wanted to avoid feeling something that he had felt in that place.

18:53

And I went there thinking I could find something that I left in that place.

18:57

And what we figured out was that as I walked that beach, is that the tide comes twice a day.

19:04

The tide comes and washes up over that beach. And so because of that,

19:08

there are no old beaches. This is a monumental discovery in my life, friend.

19:13

There's no old beaches. You're walking to a place and a piece of ground,

19:18

and you think you're going to find something that you left there before.

19:21

Or you think you're going to avoid going there to protect something that you

19:25

left there that you want to stay intact. But the fact is, every day that tide comes in twice and washes away that beach. There's no old beach.

19:33

And when I got to Kiowa in December of 2020, I thought I was going there to

19:37

find something with Mitch and his footprints weren't there anymore.

19:42

Those memories are just memories, and they're with me wherever I am.

19:46

I don't have to go to Kiowa Island in South Carolina to find Mitch's memory.

19:51

But something remarkable happened while we were there. Little Jace had never seen the ocean before.

19:57

He was two years old at the time, almost two, and he had never seen the ocean.

20:00

And he played on the beach, and we held hands and walked in the surf and built

20:03

sandcastles and splashed and laughed and had the best time.

20:06

And then one day, Lisa and I were walking towards the end of the day.

20:10

We were heading up to the boardwalk to go back to the house.

20:13

Everybody was waiting. They were going to play board games and goof around.

20:15

We were just going to have a good time on Christmas Eve.

20:18

And we saw little Jace's footprints leading up to the boardwalk.

20:23

Lisa pointed them out. Look, there's little Jace's footprints.

20:26

And I realized that, yeah, there's no old beaches.

20:28

And the tide turns over twice a day. And Nanny wasn't there.

20:31

And Mitch wasn't there. So the things that Dennis was trying to avoid weren't there either.

20:36

And since Mitch wasn't there, the things I thought I was trying to reconnect

20:39

with with also weren't there because they're everywhere.

20:43

But what was there was Jace's footprint saying, hey, I'm walking forward up

20:48

to the house and I may have lost my son, friend, and we may have lost nanny,

20:53

but we still have this beautiful family that was waiting up in that house for us.

20:56

And all we had to do was follow Jace's footprints to get there.

21:00

But before I could do that, I had to change my train of thought.

21:04

I had to switch my brain from the loss and the pain and whatever it was I was

21:08

trying to connect with and find again. And I had to follow Jace's footprints into the future and the reality that we

21:15

actually had this incredible, beautiful family now.

21:18

So the thing is, I sort of made a monument in my mind to the last time I felt

21:24

happy and that I had my son alive.

21:27

That's why I went there. I was going to go put my knee on the hallowed ground

21:31

of where that monument was. But what I found out was that Jace's footprints leading up to the house where

21:37

we still had this growing, lovely family, there wasn't a monument to the end of our family.

21:42

It was footprints to follow saying, hey, I decided to move again.

21:47

So when you find footprints, it's telling you a story of somebody else that

21:51

didn't stop walking when things got hard.

21:54

It's somebody that decided I'm gonna take another step.

21:56

I'm gonna take another step forward. And so footprints tell a story of forward progress.

22:02

Monuments tell a story of where it ended, where it stopped, where it finished.

22:06

And so I want you to change trains, friend. That's what I want you to know about Psalm 121. In those days,

22:12

it was common for people to build temples to their idols, their false gods,

22:16

up on the mountaintops in the high places. So people would look up to the hills

22:20

and they would think that's where my God is up there on that hill.

22:24

But the Bible says this over and over. We read in the Old Testament about these

22:28

people who would succumb to this seduction of the high places,

22:31

the temples where they would try to do things to connect with their false gods.

22:35

And what the psalmist says in 121 is, I lift up my eyes to the hills,

22:39

but I know where my help comes from.

22:42

It doesn't come from the hill. It doesn't come from the idol.

22:45

It doesn't come to the monument that I built up there of my false god.

22:49

I'm looking past that false thing. I'm lifting my eyes up to the hills.

22:53

Hills, I'm lifting it past the bottle that I thought I need,

22:56

the habit that I thought was going to help me get over this,

22:58

the relationship with that person that I thought I needed to make my life work,

23:02

and that financial situation that I thought, that extra money that I thought I had to have.

23:06

But God says, look past all that stuff and look to me, and I'll show you where your help comes from.

23:13

Psalm 121 is just a little bit of self-brain surgery. And what he does is he

23:16

lifts up his eyes to the help of the hills and past that because because he

23:20

knows where his real help comes from.

23:23

My help comes from the Lord.

23:26

He won't let my foot slip. He watches over me. He won't let me,

23:30

he won't sleep. He watches over me.

23:32

He's at my side. He's at my shade when my sun is hot. He keeps me from harm.

23:38

He watches over my life. He watches over my coming and my going both now and forevermore.

23:45

You see what David's doing here? He's reminding himself. He's doing prehab.

23:49

He's using memory and movement to find hope again to flex the muscles of hope

23:53

and he's saying I'm not going to let this spot be where they put up a monument

23:56

and say this is where it all ended for me,

23:59

I'm not going to let there be a monument that said, this is as far as Lee got.

24:03

And then he gave up. It got too hard and he went back or he gave up.

24:06

I'm going to leave a trail of footprints behind to say, my God is with me.

24:11

I'm going to keep moving. See, the thing about God is, friend, is he commonly is up to things that feel

24:18

and seem impossible to us. I did an episode about that.

24:21

Impossible, possible things. I played it not long ago.

24:23

Just to remind us that God is not limited to what we think is possible.

24:27

He's not. He's over and over throughout history doing things to rescue people,

24:32

help those in need, save those who are lost, raise those who are dead.

24:36

Here's a few of the things that I mentioned in that episode that Scripture says

24:39

God can do that seem impossible to us. He whistles and bees come in Zechariah.

24:45

There's actually four places, three places, Zechariah 10.8, Isaiah 5.26, Isaiah 7.18.

24:51

God whistles and creation responds.

24:54

Flies come when he calls. Bees come. People come. God whistles and calls for

24:58

a bird of prey and it comes at his command. These are impossible to us. The eagles do not come whenever I go out in the

25:03

backyard and whistle for them. They just don't. They come and go where they please. God calls and they come.

25:09

It's not impossible for him. He roars like a lion, Hosea 11.10.

25:13

He gets up out of his chair when you need help, Isaiah 30.18.

25:17

He roams the earth looking for those who need his assistance, 2 Chronicles 16.9.

25:21

He sees the end from the beginning so he's never surprised at what you're going

25:25

through isaiah 48 10 i'm sorry 46 10 he finishes what he starts and he ends

25:31

things like he says they will end he knows before he takes the shot what's going to happen isaiah 46 11.

25:38

He can make an axe head float when the servant dropped the axe that he needed

25:42

to make his livelihood god made it float second king six one through seven he

25:46

sends bears to do his justice second kings 22 32 through 35.

25:52

It's a story about how God sent a bear to help a prophet when he was in trouble.

25:56

He parts waters. He makes waves in the desert. He does all these things,

26:00

and there's tons more in the Bible. Tons of things where Isaiah or the Bible shows that God does impossible things.

26:08

In Isaiah 43, it's kind of our theme verse for New Thing November every year.

26:13

He says some really big things here that seem impossible. Isaiah 43,

26:17

too. When you go through deep waters, I'll be with you. you.

26:20

When you go through rivers of difficulty, you won't drown. When you walk through

26:24

the fire of oppression, you won't be burned up. The flames will not consume you.

26:27

And listen to this one. Those of you who go to the prayer wall and talk about

26:30

how your kids have cut you off or you have a strained relationship with your

26:33

child or you aren't allowed to see your grandchildren, there's a lot of heartbreaking

26:37

prayers about strained relationships with kids right now. Listen to Isaiah 43, 5 and 6.

26:42

Don't be afraid for I'm with you. I will gather you and your children from east east and west.

26:47

I will say to the north and south, bring my sons and daughters back to Israel

26:51

from the distant corners of the earth.

26:53

God wants to restore your family. It's not impossible for him.

26:58

Isaiah 43, 16, I am the Lord who opened a way through the waters and make a

27:02

dry path through the sea. Verse 18, but forget all that. It's nothing compared to what I'm going to do.

27:09

I'm about to do something new. It's already begun. Do you not see it?

27:13

I will make a path through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

27:19

Listen, friend, God is up to impossible things because they're not impossible for him.

27:25

They're possible for him. And he's in the business of doing those things.

27:30

He makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters. Listen,

27:33

God will make a way when your eyes tell you that there is no way.

27:37

When your brain says there's no way for this to happen, it's time to change trains.

27:41

The diagnosis that this is a hard situation that's produced pain.

27:44

Our brains are not our friends normally because we get in this train of thought

27:48

where everything is a disaster. We want to know why.

27:51

We don't understand it. Your brain's wired to cause your out-of-control thoughts

27:55

to trigger fear, limbic responses, emotional, deep survival things in your brain

27:59

that trigger the fight-or-flight response, that trigger the hide and wait it

28:03

out and avoid the pain response. And we start reacting to these chemical signals that our brain is triggering us.

28:09

And we believe they're true, but we forget get the self-brain surgery 10 commandments

28:14

that feelings aren't facts. They're just chemical events in our brain.

28:17

We want to run, hide, fight, curl up in a ball, give up and die,

28:21

put up a monument and call it a day.

28:23

And if you don't get that thought process under control, friend,

28:26

if you don't engage that prefrontal cortex to allow you to engage selective

28:31

attention and executive leadership to the situation,

28:34

then that storm of neurotransmitter-fueled terror will cause your brain to crash.

28:39

So it's time to change trains.

28:43

Listen, remember you're at a crossroads now. This difficult situation that you're

28:48

in is producing a crossroads, and you have a choice on this beautiful day.

28:52

You have a choice, my friend. Is it going to be a moment where it all ended, where you gave up,

28:58

where they put up a sign on the roadside that said, this is the day she quit

29:01

trying, she stopped fighting. It's the day he gave up, and we put up a sign to say, this is as far as he came.

29:09

Or is it going to be a trail of footprints that somebody else can follow or

29:12

to see how your story kept going from today.

29:16

Listen, this is critically important. You might be in a place where you need

29:22

God to do something that you feel like is an impossible miracle,

29:25

but you need to remember that He doesn't need to do a miracle.

29:29

He just needs to be who He is, and you need to rely on Him because it's in His

29:34

nature to help you when you're hurting.

29:36

That's what the changing trains of thoughts will do for you.

29:41

And that's what i want you to do today it feels

29:43

impossible but it's not to god it feels

29:46

unsurvivable but it's not because he's with you you feel abandoned you feel

29:51

hurt you feel left or deserted you don't know what's going to happen but here's

29:55

the thing god does he knows the end from the beginning this is one of those

29:59

abide prayers you can pray pray truth scripture and and connect with God's promises.

30:04

Eugene Peterson said, hope commits us to actions that connect us to God's promises.

30:12

Hope commits us to actions that connect us to God's promises. Isn't that powerful?

30:20

So when you feel like it's impossible, you feel like it's not,

30:23

that there's no way forward for you, just remember who God is,

30:27

that he's already promised you, that you can change trains, You can decide to

30:31

connect to his promises and commit to actions that will lead you forward,

30:35

to leave a trail of footprints behind instead of a bunch of monuments.

30:40

God has a plan for you. Pray that out. Jeremiah 29, 11, God,

30:45

you said you got a plan for me to prosper me and not to harm me,

30:48

to give me hope and a future. That's how you change trains, friend. That's how you do it.

30:53

That's how I do it. There are no old beaches. There can either be a monument

30:57

on the beach with a cross where you quit, or you can find the little trail of

31:01

footprints that leads back to the life that you can have and still do have.

31:06

And people love you, and God is with you, and it's not impossible. It's His nature.

31:11

We're going to play this Kerry Job song in a minute. It's your nature.

31:14

It's really long, but it's a good time for you to spend thinking about God's

31:17

promises, thinking about the things that seem impossible, and asking Him to

31:20

come into this moment, to to this time, you've got a hammer in your hand and

31:25

you were getting ready to put up a monument. And he says, put that stuff down and keep walking cause somebody needs to follow your footprints.

31:32

And right here on Theology Thursday, you're gonna leave a trail of footprints

31:35

and you're gonna find the path that God has for you when he decides that he's

31:40

already made a way when it seems like there's no way to you.

31:43

And all you have to do is remember that it's his nature.

31:46

And the good news is my friend, you can start today.

31:50

Music.

43:18

Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is brought to you by my

43:22

brand new book, Hope is the First Dose. It's a treatment plan for recovering

43:26

from trauma, tragedy, and other massive things.

43:29

It's available everywhere books are sold, and I narrated the audiobooks.

43:33

Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up by my friend Tommy Walker,

43:37

available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

43:40

They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship

43:46

the Most High God. And if you're interested in learning more,

43:49

check out TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

43:51

If you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer,

43:55

WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer.

43:58

And go to my website and sign up for the newsletter, Self-Brain Surgery,

44:03

every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states and 60-plus countries

44:09

around the world. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon. Remember, friend, you can't change your

44:13

life until you change your mind. And the good news is you can start today.