Relational Skills for Overcoming Sexual Addiction with Chris Coursey of Thrive Today

Addiction and unwanted sexual behaviors often feel like a mystery: “I don’t want this, but I keep doing it.” We sit down with Chris Coursey, co-founder and president of Thrive Today, to explore a different diagnosis for overcoming sexual addiction. Addiction, a maturity gap that forms when our brains never receive key relational skills. When these skills are missing, we don’t stop needing comfort, connection, or relief. We just reach for substitutes that work fast and fade faster.

We dig into the Life Model framework and the neuroscience of relational transformation, especially the difference between happiness and joy. Joy, as Chris and Dr. Jim Wilder define it, is “glad to be togetherness,” and it changes everything from fear-driven living to our ability to rest. We also discuss God’s "hessed", loyal love, and how recovery accelerates when we start to trust that God wills our good rather than demands performance.

From there, we get practical: emotional capacity, “enemy mode,” attachment pain, and how people can learn relational skills even as adults through practice and community. We connect these ideas to both sides of the healing journey, those fighting compulsive behaviors and those carrying betrayal trauma. If you want a Christian recovery conversation that blends spiritual formation, brain science, and real-world tools for change, this one will meet you where you are.

Subscribe for more, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review that tells us what topic you would like us to cover next.

Resources from this episode:

• Taking your relational temperature
• 19 relational skills
• https://thrivetoday.org/ 

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

Transcript

Addiction As A Maturity Gap

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Dr. Jim Wilder says that addiction is the catastrophic failure to attain maturity. Friends, I think I've mentioned this quote before on becoming whole, but we're going to explore these concepts at a really uh at a deeper, more specific level today to illuminate this reality of the importance of maturity and how we can actually begin to grow in that maturity spiritually, relationally, emotionally. So I'm James Craig, uh director of projects and spiritual coach here at Regen. I'm joined today by Chris Corsi, who is the co-founder and president of Thrive Today, a Christian ministry that seeks to spread hope that comes from relational transformation. Chris, I'm so grateful to have you on today.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Hey, thank you, James. It's good to be here with you.

Chris Corsi’s Turning Point Story

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Well, Chris, we often speak here at Regen about what we call unwanted sexual behaviors. So the things that we feel, the tension between I want and I don't want, but I go to them and I don't want to be going to them, right? I I bet most of us could say that even outside of the realm of sexuality, we deal with unwanted behaviors. Uh what Paul, you might say in Romans 7 says, doing the things that we hate, right? So um I wanted to start by asking you, Chris, if you're willing to share, have you dealt with unwanted behaviors, whether sexual or otherwise? And if so, how have growth in the relational skills helped in these areas?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, that's such a good question, James. And I have, especially in my uh grade school, high school, and and part of my college experience, uh, lots of cravings, lots of sexual promiscuity, and you know, just very wild and uh yeah, very reckless, self-destructive was kind of the theme. And, you know, I what I was looking for something to fill a void in my life. And uh I it all came crashing down in college when I ended up with two DUIs within a year, and that got my attention. I feel I figured I better uh reevaluate my life, and I had a chance to do an internship with a ministry uh that just changed my life. That's where I really, you know, just watched God work and transform people's lives. And as I was, you know, observing these ministry sessions where people were getting prayed for and they were encountering Jesus, I said, I want this, you know, I want this my life. Um, and that's uh just shortly thereafter I had a chance to meet Dr. Jim Wilder, and uh we we were started work on how to create practices so that we could learn relational skills. And I gotta say, you know, as we were creating these resources, I was practicing every bit I could practice to learn how to build some joy, to learn how to quiet and rest, which I didn't do a very good job of, and and how to live with that awareness of God's closeness in my life. Like these were skills that were largely missing, which is why I was just kind of hell-bent on you know, living according to my cravings and doing what was right in my own eyes, which we know is never a good plan. Um, and so God changed my life. He really got a hold of me, and relational skills started to help me to find, you know, started to fill the gaps that were missing, you know, like some of the gaps in my maturity, as you were mentioning. Uh, I started to change, you know, change the way that I I thought, it changed the way that I felt as I was building some relational skills into my character. Boy, I felt like I was like, I could see for the first time, I could hear for the first time as I started to build some joy, uh, and discovered that my brain was running on the fuel of fear. And so if you're not growing glad to be together, joy in your life, your brain's default is fear. So I was living uh out of fear, you know, fear of feeling unsafe. I wanted to feel safe and uh fear of failure, fear of messing up. I mean, just so many fears drove my life. Um, it caused me to really perform and it caused me to just, yeah, seek relief uh through those cravings. And it profoundly changed my life to the point that when I uh went back to my uh high school reunion several years later, no one believed I that I was a pastor. Nobody believed that I was uh a Christ follower. You know, I had to pull out my ordination card to prove to all my friends this I've changed. This is how God has changed my life. And uh nobody believed it. They just they couldn't believe it. And I considered that a great compliment that all my high school friends were like, who is this guy? He he looks the same, but he's so different. And the difference was I found peace, I had joy, like I genuinely uh was glad to be with people, and I didn't have those fears running the show, I didn't have this pain driving me to disconnect. It it was it was pretty uh big transformation in my life, James. And uh I tell you what, I I living the way that I live today, I never even knew this was possible. Just when you when you find what you're missing and God just does this good deep work in your heart and your mind, you just everything changes. And I'm yeah, little did I know like what was possible. So it's a it's a message that I'm very passionate about because of my own growth and my own transformation, my own healing. I want everybody to to experience uh relational skills and to grow in maturity and to become the best version of themselves this side of heaven. Like that's really I want everybody to to find this and to have access to this.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Well, first, Chris, I just got to say I just love how soothing your voice is, even when you're talking about 2D UIs. Uh listeners, if if you get the chance, Chris has a great podcast. Um, Chris, remind me the name of it.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, uh Relational Skills in Real Life.

Joy Versus Cravings And Fear

SPEAKER_01 6:31

In real life. Okay. So even if you go on Spotify or Apple, you look up Thrive today, you'll find it. But you'll get more of this. Uh, this very calming presence. Um Chris, I also got to pull out though that you're mentioning this tension between, or really this dichotomy between cravings and joy. And and I love how you already threw in the fact that when you're defining joy, it's a little bit different than how many people commonly think of it. Not yeah, not diametrically opposed by any means, but when you and Jim Wilder and and Marcus Warner and others are talking about joy, you're specifically talking about this glad to be together, this sense of being glad to be together. So I just kind of wanted to highlight that that yeah you're beginning to draw a distinction between something about relational joy, being glad to be with God and others, meets us in our cravings. It it transforms our cravings.

God’s Loyal Love And Safety

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yes, it does something there. It's such a profound reality, James. You know, um, I didn't have a lot of joy. Now I look like if you would have met me in those years, uh, you would have thought this guy has a lot of joy. Um, because I was faking it. You know, I was just like felt like I had to try to be happy and try to like white knuckle it. Uh and then yeah, realizing joy, you know, happiness is circumstantial. I'm happy when the new movie comes out, I'm happy when I get a new phone. Joy is relational, this glad to be togetherness, where people are just genuinely glad to be together. And and you know what? When I discovered that God was actually glad to be with me, because I thought I was convinced he was angry, I was convinced he was disappointed. When I started to really experience the joy of the Lord, I thought, wow, this is amazing. And I started to build relationships where people were glad to be with me genuinely for who I was and not for what I do and didn't have to perform. So much security and stability comes into our lives and in our nervous system because we're made for this glad to be together joy and it leads to rest. So, like as you grow more joy, you also get better at resting and quieting and calming. And so there's a lot more peace in in our lives, and and I don't have to find pseudo-joy, which is like you know, this artificial joy that came through the alcohol and through the the sex and the behavior. Like I was seeking what I really wanted was genuine joy, but I was looking in all the wrong places for it, and it wasn't wasn't helping my life at all.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

So part of what you and and Dr. Wilder and others are saying is that we're actually hardwired by God to thrive when we are connected relationally. And one of the things I'm just coming to mind for me, Chris, uh I think I'm actually thinking back to uh we were talking earlier about Renovated, one of Jim Wilder's books, where he actually he took some of Dallas Willard's last final talks because Jim was actually mentored by Dallas and Jane, Dallas' wife. Um we we reference Dallas Willard a lot, so or at least I do. So I might be familiar to some listeners, but but he references those talks, but then he actually says to sharpen some of what Willard's saying, one of the key words for love in the Hebrew Bible is Hesed. Yeah. And he just describes Hesed, and Chris, you can you can uh correct me or or help help me think this through a little bit. He describes Hesed as like this covenantal, faithful, sticky, attachment type of love. And so one of the things coming to mind as you speak about God being angry and things like that. Um I think a lot of our listeners on a gut level, myself included, still to this day at times, have this gut sense. God, God, God's an angry God, and he's so mad that I'm in sin. But actually, most fundamentally, God is a loyal love, Hesed God. That's God is love, as John says in the New Testament. And anger exists because he's mad about the things that destroy us, but not because he's mad about us. I don't know. Help help me think that say that a little better.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah, yeah. You're you're saying it well. You know, this this sticky love, this loving kindness, this deep, profound love that that is so safe because we can be ourselves. And when I started to experience interesting God's love and God's joy, I was absolutely shocked because I thought he was all about performance, and I knew I wasn't living in a way uh that was pleasing. And you know, now that I've become a father, you know, I really start to understand more of God's the father who just wants his children to be free from all the shackles and the things that keep them stuck and love our kids, and we want what's best for them. And you know, that was what was missing in my life is I didn't realize God wanted what was best for me. And I just thought that he was getting stuck on all my bad behaviors, and little did I realize like he loves me and he wants to draw me closer to him. And of course, as we grow in that love and that joy, we changes our character and our behavior so we don't do all the the stuff that that is not you know life-giving. It like it actually changes who we are um when it's anchored in love rather than you know trying to do it in our own strength, and it just changes everything, James, in in such a profound way, and we grow in security. We can we can rest in the Father's love and become the people that he's created us to be.

Capacity Growth And Enemy Mode

SPEAKER_01 12:04

There's these two there's the two pages in Renovation of the Heart, Chris, uh by Willard, where he talks about love and he says, God is benevolent, and that's a little bit of a funny word. It sounds like uh what are you saying? But bene means good, and you know, the Latin root volent, volent, volens or whatever uh means to will. God wills our good, and that's actually part of what I hear you saying is that you begin to believe on a gut level, like on a nervous system, brain, spirit, body, all you were level, yeah, that God actually wills you're good. And so I want to now shift a little bit to we talk a lot about seeing wounds healed, and and a lot of people who enter recovery quickly realize I have wounds, they need to be healed so that I can no longer take the pain of my wounds to uh unwanted sexual behavior, sexual sin, or brokenness. Chris, I think I learned this from Thrive, but one of the things you guys talk about is that to have wounds healed. So I mean, I I actually remember when I was in recovery being on a prayer day in the woods, crying out, God, I know that I've experienced certain wounds and I cannot remember them. I know they happen, can't quite remember them. Just let me remember. I can handle it, I can handle it. But what I've learned from you guys is you actually have, by God's design, you have to grow in emotional capacity to then be able to remember and handle wounds. And that's a good thing. Can you just explain that a tiny bit?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, that's such an important connection, you know, that growing capacity, which means capacity means I can how much weight I can carry. Or as as Dallas Willard would say, capacity is our ability to hold on to what we've received. And so capacity really sets the limits on what I can handle and what I can't handle. And so as long as I can carry the weight that I have the capacity to carry, I can stay in my relational self where I'm flexible, I'm kind, I'm compassionate, uh, I'm a nice guy, right? When I have the capacity to manage what I'm carrying. When I run out of capacity because something's too big, too loud, too scary, too heavy, I feel too alone in it. But what happens is I go into what Dr. Wilder would call enemy mode, where the people I normally enjoy feel like enemies.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yes. And it's because I'm enemy modes.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

You know, enemy mode's uh it's not a fun place to visit. We don't want to be there very long, uh, but it's where we lose ourselves. And this brain state means that I don't have the capacity right now to carry what I'm trying to carry. And so I started out in ministry working with uh survivors of severe trauma. So the capacity was really at the center of their healing process that when I don't have capacity, my brain has a whole lot of different mechanisms to deal with pain and trauma. And it kind of sets it aside so that I can function in everyday life. And as people started to grow capacity, what happened is they started to be able to heal from some of these deep wounds that they just didn't know how to heal from. And so there would be sessions where people, you know, very similar to what you were saying, like, God, just give me all the let me get through all the rocks out of my shoe. Just show me, you know, what I need so I can I can be free here. And as they actually started to grow capacity, God would start showing them some of the rocks in their shoe. Um, but if they tried to force it, it would be too much too fast too soon. They would lose it and they'd get stuck in enemy mode. So capacity is our relational life preserver, it helps us be able to better handle what we're dealing with so that we can stay our relational, flexible selves. And the default run out of capacity is enemy mode. So enemy mode is there for a good reason because I'm like, whoa, I don't have the bandwidth to carry what I'm dealing with here. And so when we build joy in our, in our, you know, in our communities, when we rest, when we remember joy, what we like to call the skill of appreciation. Um when we start doing the things that charge our relational batteries, that actually grows our capacity. And that's what we like to call the relational skills. This is where we're practicing these relational skills that grows our capacity. And that's gonna be a game changer because now I've got the ability to start healing some of those wounds that are just really deep that I didn't have the capacity for. And I start to learn how to suffer well by staying my relational self, even while I start processing some hard stuff. So capacity is really, it's one of those, it's one of those topics, it's at the core of our healing and recovery process. But you don't hear a lot about capacity because people just didn't talk about it or recognize its role. But now, as we look at how God designed the brain, we're like, oh wow, capacity is core here. It's foundational to our healing process. So just as I'm working on, you know, recovering and processing my pain, I also have to be doing the things that will charge my battery and grow my capacity so that I can better handle what's going on.

The 19 Relational Skills Explained

SPEAKER_01 17:50

I bet everyone can relate to that term enemy mode where you just feel so shut down and then the people you know love you. Uh most of the time, you know, they love you. They they want to be with you, they they're for you. God is for you, He loves you, wants to be with you. When we're in that enemy mode, it is so hard to see that. Well, Chris, this is the heart of your ministry. This is what you guys do. You train in the 19 relational skills, I believe, originally identified by Alan Shore, yeah, um, and a couple other neuroscientists 20, 25 years ago out of UCLA. Jim Wilder really picked this up, and you guys began to really train on these. And so I'm not asking for a I'm not gonna ask for a list out all 19, but what are the relational skills and why are they so important in this growth and capacity?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, so that's a great question. You know, relational skills are these reflex relational reflexes, these habits, these abilities that I receive from my family and my community who has these skills. So, for example, if mom knows how to rest and to quiet anytime she needs a breather, she knows how to calm herself, she's gonna download that to me, right? She doesn't download that to the child who's also gonna learn how to quiet. Or if you have grandma who's a really high joy person, loves to delight in her grandchildren, the grandkids. And so whenever she sees the grandkids, she lights up with joy. Grandma's actually downloading some joy into the the baby's brains. And so the relational skills are these abilities we learn from other people who have these skills that really make help us make our relationships work, and it helps us to become the people that God created us to be that we can relationally express in our families and our communities. And so, yeah, a lot of these skills came out of, you know, a lot of brain science research and then Jim Wilder um and the life model kind of added some of the spiritual elements as well, some of those skills. So we came up with 19 skills, and then we we started to find ways to help people learn those skills. That was our big question when we started this. Is the brain science said the first three years of life, infants will, you know, receive these skills, they'll be downloaded if the family and the community has the skills. Well, we wanted to know look, a lot of us didn't get these skills, so can we learn these skills later in life? And they're transmitted face to face, you know, relationally with other with you know, other people, interacting with other people. And that's you know, we've discovered that yes, praise God, you know, God's a God of resurrection. Uh, even though we might have missed the ideal windows that the brain learns these skills, we can learn them later in life. And it just, you know, we just need some of the the right ingredients to help us learn and strengthen these skills.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Well, and this is before, or this is right when I, if I'm imagining the timeline correct, we're realizing the brain is neuroplastic. We take this for granted probably 25, 30 years later, but yeah, we didn't actually know, right? When you guys started that, could could is there hope for adults that are struggling?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

That's that's exactly right. And I mean, and and it just takes those right conditions. Like if you're learning joy, you interact with other people and build some joy, or if you have a hard time resting and quieting, you practice with other people. And and the key is just a little bit of practice goes a long way. I'd liken it to if I wanted to learn to play the guitar, you know, I can read about it, which is good, but I actually have to pick up the guitar, and somebody who knows how to play can help me learn how do you hold the guitar and play the chords and how do you play, you know, what do you do? Like, I just need that kind of practice. It's you know, with other people, and we grow, we grow these skills with a little bit of practice.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Well, if 19 sounds overwhelming, by the way, there's also skills zero, so you might even say there's 20, which is 20 yeah relational circuits. That's uh uh if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see a book behind Chris called The Joy Switch where he gets into that more. But I just want to share that. Um, first of all, if you uh but there will be a link in the show notes to the 19 skills page. If you're like me, I find this so fascinating. I could just sit there looking at these boxes and trying to understand. And there's links under each to understand more of the skill.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

That's right.

Returning To Joy In Daily Life

Substitute Skills And Attachment Pain

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Chris, one of the ones I got to engage in, as I was sharing earlier with you, is this uh a habit builder group that you guys ran this past fall on returning to joy. And what's so interesting about this skill to me is it's not one of the foundational five. Thankfully, you've you've acknowledged 19 or 20 is a lot. Yeah. Let's start you with these five. But it's it's a pretty fundamental skill in that we when we leave our window of tolerance, when we leave our capacity, when our brain is shut down, when we're in enemy mode, we also actually need skills. We we're not going to be perfectly there forever. So when we leave that place, we have to have skills to get back there. And I found it so encouraging. I I was telling Chris earlier, uh, listeners, that I'd I'd go to this hour. Hour 15 long class every uh Wednesday, and I'd leave just full of joy. I could feel my relational circuits were back on. I was ready to love my wife better when she got home, ready for whatever came up because I was actually back in that place of connectedness. So, Chris, I just want to um share that fundamentally speaking, we actually believe that the essence of sexuality in the broadest sense is creation and connection. So we're talking a lot here specifically about connection. Real quick, just on creation, um we're made in the image of a creative God, so we're called to co-create with him. This is what's often called the cultural mandate in Genesis, right? Right after, right? Before and after Genesis 127, which is the we're made in God's image verse, there's this cultural mandate. We're actually meant to impact the world and co-create with God. But what we're honing in on today, Chris, is we're also made in the image of a relational God, right? We need relationships. And we we come so often to this idea that Adam was walking in the garden with God. And so often we say God is enough. And in a sense, yes, he is. Everything that is good comes from God. I mean, he's the source. Yeah, so in that sense, he is enough, but he's actually made us with need, he's made us to need oxygen and water and food. And Adam walking in the garden, God said it's not good for man to be alone. Now, obviously, part of that is he wanted to create this reproductive process, he wanted to create marriage really between Adam and Eve. But but it's just interesting to recognize there was like it wasn't good that Adam was alone, even though he was with God. So, Chris, how does growth in relational skills uh beyond again uh Jesus helping us heal wounds, which we might not have been able to deal with? We just spoke about that. How does growing in relational skills equip us to overcome addictive behaviors? And even uh we don't just speak to those struggling with sexual brokenness in their own life. We're we're speaking as well to those impacted by what's called betrayal trauma of I just found out my spouse has been hiding this for years or whatever. So, how does growth and relational skills help with these two types of situations?

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Yeah, that's such a good question here and an important question. So, relational skills do a couple things. One is they fill gaps. And so where my brain is vulnerable is where these skills are missing. And so, if I don't learn relational skills from my family growing up, so I didn't quiet when I needed to quiet and get calm and comfort, didn't get a lot of joy, then my brain learned substitute skills, and substitute skills are the artificial ways of just coping with life without these skills being present.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

So interesting.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Without, you know, so instead of an inverse.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Um I'm now picturing like, is there like a dark version or something of like there is, that's right. The 19 relational skills that you do. That's very true.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

And there are like there are these substitute skills that are really counterfeit skills, but I didn't have my family, just didn't have these skills. So instead of resting, quieting, and calming when I get upset, uh, I turn to sugar, I turn to addictive, you know, responses because I don't have what they needed. And the same is with joy, and as you mentioned, returning to joy as well. If I don't have the skills that I've learned, substitute skills to counterfeit for what I really need to help me better manage what I feel, because relational skills create pathways in your brain so that when you're sad, you know how to get back to joy and peace. When you feel hopeless, you have a pathway back to joy and peace, or when you're angry. And so when I don't have those skills in place, then my brain is like, hey, I don't like how I feel because I'm really upset, I'm hurting. I need something to make me feel better. And that's where we discover sex contemporarily alleviate some of the attachment pain that we feel, which is the pain of loss or feeling alone. Um, so we learn these patterns and these actions that again, they are survival responses because I don't have the skills that I needed. So part of learning relational skills is not only practicing to learn the real thing, but it's also unlearning the things that I've bonded to to, you know, to just survive and to cope with without the real thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

And so that takes a little bit of time because we bond with things we weren't supposed to bond with. And our brain says, Oh, this is personal. So when I feel this loneliness or sadness, I need to go be sexual. I need to go out, you know, act out in these ways, or I need to do this, and I need to do that. And with betrayal trauma as well, as you mentioned, that's attachment pain as well, because the person that I love has betrayed me and I feel alone in that, that creates attachment pain. And so, you know, it's this is where we quickly discover the need for relational skills and capacity to fill in those gaps so that we can change the unhelpful patterns that we've learned on whatever side of the equation that we find ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Yeah, you used the word attachment pain a couple of times there. And I think I learned from you or Marcus Horner or someone in the life model world that actually the most painful thing for our brains is the loss of an attachment, whether through death, which most of us could easily see, but even through betrayal, even through uh perhaps neglect, like uh key emotional needs that weren't met, zero to three. We've been talking a lot about that, right? They these skills are actually meant for ends to be taught to us. And most of us, myself included, weren't taught most of the relational skills, right? So we end up with these places of attachment pain. We take that to pseudo-attachment, pornography, or other sexual behaviors, or in the context of betrayal, we're just feeling that in some ways it validates, it validates the emotional landscape of both parties because we're recognizing this is more painful than maybe you've ever given it credit for. Yes, on a brain level.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

You you said it well, and and it's it also helps to understand a little bit about God also saying it's not good that man's alone. Think about that from an attachment perspective. It is not good for us to be alone when we want connection that creates attachment pain where I feel alone, I feel some loss, and that is the worst pain for the brain, and I'm highly motivated to avoid that pain. And there's certain things that temporarily turn off that pain, which would be you know, acting out sexually is going to temporarily turn off the pain. Sugar, uh, tobacco molecules temporarily turn off the so there's so many spending money, there's so many things that we can become hooked to that really temporarily turn off the pain. But guess what? It doesn't last, and the pain comes right back, and then I feel driven to act out again because the pain is back and it's louder than ever.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Chris, I I taught on this a little bit at our awakening retreat, pulling a lot again from Thrive, where I made this upside-down triangle um where the top left point was growth and capacity. We were talking about that earlier. Yes, you need to grow in capacity. That'll actually raise the water level for all of this. You you won't just have less craving for sexual sin, you'll actually have less craving for sugar and all this other stuff. Yes, that's right. Growth and capacity, the other the top point of that triangle, again, upside down triangle here, was returning to joy. So whenever we leave the capacity, being able to go back. Yeah, and then the bottom was that idea of healing. And so I was basically just trying to visually represent in an imperfect metaphor this idea that all these pieces really build on each other. And so instead of playing what I've kind of jokingly called sin whack-a-mole, right? Where it's like I meet my needs through porn. Well, I'm gonna stop that now. I meet my needs through gambling or any other, you know, kind of behavior. We're actually learning what does it mean to have our needs met in God and what we often call healthy holy ways, right? Yeah, that's right. That's so good.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yeah, and it's helpful to have that lens, like, okay, wow, this this explains what hasn't worked in the past, but it also explains what I do need going forward. And so that's a very hopeful message when we discover wow, well, this is this is part of what I need in this season to help me, you know, get rid of those substitute skills and grow in the relational skills that I'm meant for.

Relational Skills And Intimacy With Jesus

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Chris, I'm picturing like a resource. Maybe you already have it where it's like the the pseudo skills that then correspond to if I'm if I'm stuck in the pseudo skill, maybe I need the real skill one or I need the real skill 11 or whatever. Yes. Um, anyway, just food for thought. But um, Chris, we gotta we gotta land the plane here. But you know, what I love about the life model is that in some ways it's just recognizing the relational nature of growth that we already see have seen in scripture for thousands of years. Don't always we don't always acknowledge it, but it's actually showing how neuroscience now sees the same stuff and it kind of gives us a sharper lens. Let me look for attachment to God in scripture, let me look for that's right, imitate me as I imitate Christ from Paul is him saying, learn these maturity, learn spiritual maturity from me, right? So, Chris, I wonder if it might even be similar for Thrive, but at regen, we care about one thing even more than leaving sexual brokenness behind. We care about intimacy with Jesus. It's our way of saying being connected to the vine, or what you guys might call the Emmanuel lifestyle, right? So I'm just curious for you, even personally, and you can even also think of people you've walked with, maybe even those trauma uh survivors from earlier, but what are some of the most significant ways these relational skills have impacted yours and maybe others' relationship with Jesus?

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Oh boy, that's an excellent question, James. And you know, there's so much. There's so much, so many wonderful ways that relational skills have really profoundly changed my relationship with God. Um, for one, I'm better able to live with an awareness of his closeness in my life, not only in the hard places of my past, but in the day-to-day places where, you know what? I I I'm struggling with, you know, maybe I'm I'm fretting over a um a big assignment that I need to turn in. And I can just take a few minutes, I can go read the word, I can spend some time with the Lord, and I can then find his peace. It's available, he's the Prince of Peace, and I always tell people peace is his signature. So when I'm losing my peace and probably slipping into enemy mode because fear is starting to get louder, then I can pause and and click the refresh button and have a sense of Jesus being with me. And it also has helped me to be able to better express who he's made me to be. You know, I was desperately striving growing up, trying to just function and survive in the day-to-day. And now I feel like I can actually reflect who he's made me to be in in my life, in my relationships. I can better express Christ's character, uh, which is what I always longed for, to not only find my purpose in this world, but to love God and to be who he's created me to be, and to find that purpose. And I feel his love and his the warmth of his closeness and his delight. You know, I want the world to experience God's delight. It is just such a game changer, and I've discovered he's a relational God, and you know, that's not just meant to be in theory, he's actually a very relational God, and the the sheep know the shepherd's voice, and we can learn to recognize his closeness in our lives. And I gotta say, that is good news. We have a God who wants nothing to separate us from his presence. So that's changed who I am, James.

Assessments Hope And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Beautiful, man. I mean, just to say it kind of theologically, like we we we so easily forget that Jesus actually dealt with all sin, all the things that separate us from God, from one another, and even from ourselves on the on the cross. And it doesn't mean we don't need to live that out and kind of perceive the grace and appropriate it in our lives, but you're actually saying that God cared so much about relationship with us, he wanted to have this loving, delight relationship. Yes, that he dealt with he dealt with it. He dealt with sin, he dealt with our brokenness fundamentally. Jeez. So yeah. Well, Chris, I'm gonna give you the last word in just a moment and ask you to pray. But I just wanted to highlight, friends, that um Chris, uh, Chris on their website, this will be in the show notes. They have a great resource called Taking Your Relational Temperature. Chris, is this uh is this a little quiz? I think I remember taking in this myself.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Yeah, it's a little assessment and there's a little exercise as well just to help people kind of gauge, you know, what's my relational temperature? How well am I able to be someone that stays relational in life?

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah, I find these types of things so helpful. I've come across probably a few of them. There's a few kind of assessments on on Thrive Today's website. So check that out because it's it's um, I know that assessments sometimes can bring up the idea of shame, like, man, look how much I'm falling short. But again, just want to invite that posture of like, man, we cannot have what we have not received. And if we didn't receive things age zero to three, we by the way had zero control over receiving stuff zero to three, truly, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

So this is actually an invitation for God's grace to say, okay, where have I not developed some of these skills? And might this actually be a missing ingredient in my recovery from sexual sin? Might this be a missing ingredient in overcoming the betrayal trauma that I've been through uh for no fault of my own? Because again, ultimately the the betrayal is not your fault, even if there's two sinners that are married to each other, the betrayal itself was not your fault at all. So um, or and a third category we speak to, Chris, is parents. I mean, how appropriate is it for parents to recognize it's not too late. Okay, maybe my child children are over age three. Yep. Um, that's right. It is not too late to begin developing these skills in my child. So check out that assessment, check your relational temperature, and that'll be in the the show notes. Um, but yeah, Chris, anything you want to say is kind of a last word and then pray for us.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Yeah, I'd say just I love what you said that you know, and as parents, when we learn where we we didn't do something well, we didn't do it the way as good as we could have, we tend to feel shame or we beat ourselves up. You know what? The good news is no matter where you are, no matter how old your children are, no matter how old you are, God is a God of of resurrection and redemption. And you know what? He's in the business of helping us grow in new ways and helping our children, their grandchildren grow in new ways. So that's the good news, right? It's never too late, it's never too late. My grandmother lived to be 102, and up to the up till her death, she was still building joy and practicing relational skills. That's so amazing. So it's never too late, you know. And I hope people hear that from our from our talk today. And yeah, and I'd be happy to pray for for everybody here.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Thanks, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Yeah, all right. Well, Lord God, I do thank you that you are a God of resurrection. I thank you that you're also a God who's relational. You see us, you hear us, and you understand us. And Lord, would you help all of us to be the people that you've created us to be? No matter where we are on our journey, I just ask, Lord, that you'd help to bring together the ingredients that can help grow our capacity. Continue to help us get the rocks out of our shoes that cause us to limp and to stumble. And just give us what we need, Lord. Be the wind in our sails here as your spirit would lead us and guide us. And Lord, I thank you that no matter where we are, you know exactly where we are and what we need. And so, Lord, we just look to you today to be our joy and our encouragement. And thank you for James. Thank you for this wonderful ministry that he and the team are doing. I just pray your blessing and favor over this good work. And uh, we thank you, Jesus, for being faithful and true. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Amen.