Story Matters Podcast
In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss the intersection between theology and psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their particular stories have shaped them.
Story Matters Podcast
43. I Believe, Help My Unbelief pt.3
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In this conversation, drawing from Mark 9, Romans 7, and Romans 12, we unpack ambivalence. Two opposing truths can freeze the body, fog the mind, and keep the heart guarded. Rather than calling one wrong and another right, we ask what each part is protecting, and we invite Jesus to carry the burden those defenses have held for years.
We explore why evil can look orderly and why legalism masquerades as maturity. When life’s pressure points hit—an aging parent, a marriage stalemate, a dwindling bank account—our self-reliance cracks, and poverty of spirit finally has a voice. James calls us to ask for wisdom with trust; we translate that into a practical rhythm: notice activation, admit helplessness, ask for help, act in a small faithful step. This is not self-help. It’s sanctification that happens in a body: offering ourselves as living sacrifices, letting old protections “die,” and experiencing the slow renewal of our minds and nervous systems.
Framing The Work Of Healing
SPEAKER_01So, what exactly do we do? Sometimes in counseling and therapy, there's a lot of language around doing work, but we want to be clear it's not through self-effort. In fact, quite frankly, almost everything we're doing in our practice and with this podcast is trying to help listeners, clients, help ourselves find the places where we need to cry out for help. Places where we need to believe the gospel. Welcome to the Story Matters Podcast. I'm Ryan Baker.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Emily Baker.
SPEAKER_01We believe people grow and heal through understanding how our stories are rooted in God's redemptive story.
SPEAKER_00We hope our conversations encourage you to engage your story and the world around you with a new lens.
SPEAKER_01We're glad you're here.
I Believe; Help My Unbelief
SPEAKER_00So if you've been following along with us, we are in episode three of our fourth season. We're doing a mini-series on one of our favorite verses, I believe help my unbelief. And we're talking through integrating our limbic system and our cognitive brain, the formation that comes from self-integration. And we've talked about how there is work to be done. You know, we don't live in a works righteousness mentality as Christ's followers. We are saved by grace, received by faith, but we know that there is work to do in our sanctification process. And so this integration comes from the effort in crying out, I believe, help my unbelief.
Ambivalence Named And Understood
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think we have a lot of confusion there because, you know, I've used the example of going to an all-you-can-eat buffet. It's free. You know, it's all you can eat. But you have to stand up and walk and grab a plate and look to see. And in the same way, we have to cry out to Jesus. We have to bring to him the places that are sick. And that's where he heals. But that, rather than being seemingly easy, can be the hardest thing to do. So in this story, which we're not going to spend a lot of time on, but what I remember first teaching through this years ago, you know, in sequence, it was actually for a Bible study. And you have the transfiguration in the chapter before. So here Jesus and Peter, James, and John have gone up to pray, and then he's transfigured. So much has changed. So they, you know, they see Elijah, Moses, and Jesus transfigured. And Peter thinks, This is it. Let's build tabernacles. Like we've come to the eschaton, so to speak. But of course, we know Jesus comes back to his earthly state and they head back down. They find the disciples having this problem where they cannot heal this man's son. And so they've returned, and it's a fluid story. They come in and there's this issue because these disciples are not able to do this particular healing. The story ends with Jesus telling them, and when they said, Why couldn't we do it? Jesus says that this kind can only be healed through prayer. What he's saying is, you can do nothing except through me. And the interesting thing is the only person who prayed, if you will, was the dad. When he says, I believe, he adds, you know, the word help, my unbelief. And we all know what the word help means. It's interesting that when you look at it, it's it's a cry. It's the actual verb form is a present active imperative in the original language. So it's this sense of like, keep coming, you know, come to my aid, rescue me. But the rescue isn't for my son. Jesus has asked the man, Do you believe? The rescue is I need more belief, or I need you to reach into the depths, the places where I don't, the places where I'm struggling, and I need you to help those. And what's fascinating is in one sense, did Jesus answer that? I mean, yes and no, right? He answers the larger prayer of healing the son, which therefore has effect because now this man has an experience of faith and belief. So it's being answered, but it's not like a once and for all answer, right? There's going to be other places. And so when we come up against ourselves where we struggle with our belief, this is where we get these words like ambivalence.
SPEAKER_00I was just thinking that as you were talking about his cry, the terminology you used was a present active imperative, I think you said.
SPEAKER_01But it Yeah, and by the way, yeah, the imperative is like it's a command. I mean, he's commanding Jesus help. So it's an odd way to do it, right? Like I'm fully expecting you to do what I'm asking. I'm in that much need.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which is so in line with the call that Jesus gives us to ask anything in his name. Like there's nothing off limits. And so when you were saying that, I thought, man, ambivalence is such an interesting concept and word that a lot of us don't use in our daily vernacular. We really have been unpacking it this whole entire miniseries because his cry is ambivalence.
SPEAKER_01So sometimes colloquially, ambivalence is sort of like meh, you know, like I don't know, I kind of kinda want this, kind of what that. But I think when we look at it in the realm of trauma, it's I really think this and I really think that.
SPEAKER_00We're like two very conflicting feelings simultaneously.
SPEAKER_01So they're both conflicted, but they're both very strongly held.
SPEAKER_00Yes, to the point that it keeps people frozen. To be fair, if you really are having a strong sense of ambivalence, it can be overwhelming to the senses because you don't know which way to feel, and so it can create a shutdown, which I think would lead to I don't really know.
SPEAKER_01One of the reasons why ambivalence is so important is we don't often, if ever, realize it. Like we think we should be this way, and we're kind of ignoring that one. And so part of what we do in the work is we go, wait a minute, isn't it fair that you had two conflicting? And it's so all of a sudden we're naming sort of the hiding one. This man could have just said, I believe. And yet he is being totally honest. I also have this area of not believing you can do this at all. And I'm gonna really ask you right now, please help me there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's beautiful if you're wondering as you listen to us talk about it. Am I ambivalent? Do I have ambivalence? I think it shows up in indecisiveness. It can show up in feeling stuck, and it can show up in an overwhelm, which we're gonna come back to this over and over because this is what the mini-series is about, but that's your limbic system at war with your logical system. So you think one thing and you feel a different thing. Those are both very, very real. And so, how do we know what's the true self? What's the right thing to do?
SPEAKER_01And what's also fascinating about ambivalence is I think there's a reason why we don't name the one side. Like obviously, in this account, it's weird to say I don't have unbelief. A lot of the listeners would have been wide-eyed. He just told Jesus that he has unbelief, you know. You know, there's a part of me that really, really wants to go out to dinner with you, and there's a part of me that's kind of mad at you. We don't always name the part that feels unpopular. We don't name it because we don't want to look at it ourselves.
Living Under The Law’s Influence
SPEAKER_00But when we don't name it, we don't, in essence, cry out to the Lord with that ask. Yes. And I think we see with Peter later this overconfidence, like, oh, I'm I'm ready to go with you to the cross. I mean, I'll die for you. And Jesus is like, actually, you're gonna deny me three times before the rooster crows. Peter, he was so confident in himself, and I think that's why so many of us are drawn to this honest cry. And so where do we go from here? We've been talking about in the last two episodes this battle within our own minds. One time, Ryan, you said the comment, we live under the influence of the law. And I love that because of course we all know under the influence of alcohol, you know, so you're not sober-minded. So, Ryan, say more to that when you made that comment that we live under the influence of the law. In regards to what we're saying here, that we have a limbic system and we have a logical mind, we have belief and we have unbelief.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I want to be careful when we talk about the anatomy of the brain, because of course, neuroscience is always developing, and we're looking to find the overlap with scripture. So very often we speak of the law of Christ. This is exactly what Paul's doing in Romans 7. So I find that in my mind I follow the law of Christ, but in my body, the law of sin and death. Now, the thing is we believe the brain and the body are one. Paul's not speaking of the body physically speaking, but of his flesh. So in my flesh, I follow the law of sin and death. In other words, my body, mind, my true self can be swayed, right? And I think what's very important, and we've talked about this before, is to not think of ourselves as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but rather as parts. And again, a part of me feels this way and a part of me feels that way. For example, in this story, the part of the man that believed, we would say, well, that was the spirit side, that was the good side. But it's also fair to say there's a part that had unbelief for good reason. The scientific side, you know, the reasoning side. This doesn't make any sense to me, you know.
SPEAKER_00Or how about the long-term memory side? He has seen people die, he's watched other children get the same condition and die. So he has memory.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we have these parts, and the reason that's important is each part of us, that is, when we feel conflicted, when we have ambivalence, each is carrying a burden, trying to keep us safe, even the ones that can look destructive.
SPEAKER_00Wait, what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_01Well, the classic example are the two brothers from the prodigal. Like for years and years, it was like there's this one bad kid, you know, and then Henry Nowen and then later Keller and others opened our eyes to like, oh my goodness, it's really two equally sinful brothers. So often we think, like, oh, the part of me that wants to have self-discipline and being this and that, that's the good side. And it's like, not necessarily. There's a law there, an elder brother law of fitting in, being liked. The part of me that kind of wants to just relax and sit in my pajamas on the couch and eat a lot of pizza or whatever, it's tempting to say, oh, that's your sinful part. Well, there could be sin in that. But what if it's the part of you that knows your body needs to slow down?
SPEAKER_00What if that's your Sabbath day?
SPEAKER_01What if it's your rest? And so again, we're not saying, hey, there's no righteousness, there's no goodness, but we are saying that every part of us, even if the core burden can be sinful, has something that's trying to do to save us. And so we're trying to understand what's driving this in order to bring the gospel to it. No different than evangelism. I mean, if you do evangelism correctly, you try to understand them. You try to get into their mind, you try to understand their worldview, their history, depending on how long you have with them. You try to have empathy, right? And you affirm what you can affirm, right? Before you then share the gospel. And in the same way, when we are doing this work, these places of unbelief, they're not just purely evil. And so when we find a part or a place in us that seems to be destructive, our challenge is to figure out what's your burden, you know, what what's the law you're trying to live under? And then we're trying to to rescue that part.
SPEAKER_00So when I asked you, unpack what does it mean to live under the influence of the law, I hear you saying that it would be at first blush easy to think that there's the law of my logical mind that's always good, and there's the law of my limbic system that's always bad. And yet the older brother in your example is showing us that sometimes the law that's over our logical goal setting and outward appearance can actually be very self-righteous and legalistic.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, I mean, when you look at the New Testament and you ask who are the sinners, most people would say, like the tax collectors, the prostitutes, but Jesus is really after the Pharisees. And in Sermon on the Mount, he's like, unless your righteousness exceeds theirs, you know, because they're not. Evil can look very orderly.
SPEAKER_00They're not the type that are crying out for help. I think that's what we're getting at is it's not about trying to find the right law that you're under. Like, is my limbic system right, or is my logical mind right? I think the thing that we love about this cry is I need help.
SPEAKER_01So, oh, contraire, more frère.
SPEAKER_00What?
SPEAKER_01Wasn't it the Pharisee whose child finally becomes ill that yeah, his daughter? Yeah. Doesn't that cause him to cry for help? Like, in other words, when we come to the real point of pain, finally feel a need, finally see whatever, then in those moments we break through all the false laws.
SPEAKER_00Oh, so it's under our trials from James 1, yeah, that we actually get to a breaking point.
Trials Expose False Reliance
SPEAKER_01I mean, that's the hope. When I feel pain, when there's a problem, when things aren't going well.
SPEAKER_00When our plans don't work for us, which that reminds me, when we were talking about New Year's resolutions a few months ago, when it was actually around the new year, I made this statement that there's kind of these three words that come up for me that if we don't address our relationship to them, then any of our goals are gonna be worthless. And so those three things I was thinking of are the uncertainties or just our relationship to uncertainty, powerlessness, and ambivalence. And so I think what you just said about oh, contraire, mon frère, there's a Pharisee that actually did cry out because he was up against a powerlessness of a daughter that was sick or the uncertainties of life that it's like, what do I do?
SPEAKER_01A greater love, right? So the love of whatever a Pharisee's love, it would be categorized as respect, honor, whatever tradition. But then he loves his daughter, thankfully.
SPEAKER_00So it's actually, I guess this could be an encouragement to any of us that feel as though we live lives with a lot of ambivalence or a lot of uncertainty if that can translate into the cry to Jesus. And by the way, when you're in the face of powerlessness, a disease, an unexpected event, like we can make New Year's resolutions and we can do all those kinds of things, and then we hit the reality of our powerlessness.
SPEAKER_01Well, and how many clients, consults, friends, you know, people we talk to, there's quite a few who would say, Oh, I started listening to the podcast, or I started looking into the Allender podcast or Adam Young or reading this or that, or the reason I'm here to visit and have a consult or whatever is something that was working stopped working, or something that should be controllable, like my child or my marriage, something that should be certain, like happiness, etc. It's not working. Yeah. And in a way, the crying out for help begins with looking for someone who can help guide a fresh set of eyes on the situation, on the story to help them understand where they are trying to solve their own problems and where the work is and learn particular places where we can cry help to Jesus. Help, Holy Spirit, help me here. This is the place where I normally bring the weapons. After James talks about the trial and staying steadfast, he then mentions praying for wisdom. And then he says, But when you do pray for wisdom, like have faith, he means trust the answer, like believe it to be true. But if you don't, and you just sort of pray that prayer kind of haphazardly, that's like a wave tossed around. Then he says, Let the lowly be exalted, let the wealthy be brought low. And he's not necessarily talking about money, he's talking about any time we rely on an external for our well-being, especially in the places where only Jesus can help. We're like the wealthy, hence the Sermon on the Mount, right?
SPEAKER_00Poor in spirit. It's the wealthy in spirit. I don't need, I got this figured out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've got this figured out. I've got a discipline I can plug in, a thing I can do, I've got something in my back pocket kind of thing.
Prayer, Wisdom, And Poverty Of Spirit
SPEAKER_00And so when those fail us and we actually are at the end of our ability to figure things out, then here we are at a place that we're crying out in an ever-present way. Jesus, help, help my unbelief, help these parts of me that are not in sync with my belief system. And I will say this cry for help is something for a recovering veracy, which I would know something about that, is very, very difficult. And it can feel like death, honestly. In a moment that I don't want to apologize or admit, or I don't want to treat someone with kindness or whatever, the humility to cry out for the Lord, it can feel like death. And so, what does that even mean? The dying part of this.
Living Sacrifice And Felt “Death”
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so the crying out to the Lord, what we want to bring us back to is there's the prayer in that, there's the Lord help, but there's also the fact that the man is admitting resistance. There are times when what we believe would be the right action in a situation is not at all what we feel like. And in some sense, you can compare it to like phobic, like I will not. That can be something as simple as an apology after a fight with a spouse. There's any number of scenarios of this, right? And so we're moving into this category of Romans 12, 1 and 2, where Paul says, offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. And you know, let me just read it. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Now, I want to say a lot of listeners, a lot of us have come to this place, maybe whether it's been through some spiritual harm or abuse, and maybe words like that have been twisted. But the truth of what Paul is saying is so profound, and it's building on what he's been doing all through Romans. You know, here's the gospel, you are fully loved. He's talking to Christians, you are and dwelt by the Spirit, there is no condemnation. You're gonna find that Romans 7, that you have this law of God that you're after, but you also in your flesh have another law. So you have all sorts of ambivalence and conflict going on. And in Romans 12, he's teaching that here's kind of the goal. Please do this, you know, step into places that feel like you're gonna die. Not literal death, you know, but we use that phrase a lot. We've we've kind of joked, you know, I feel like I'm dying. Just the idea is to step into sometimes the thing that we believe is good or true. Our whole being maybe saying run because of harm, because of trauma, because of our past experiences. And the challenge is in trusting in the Lord in those moments and stepping into that new space, forming the new pattern is transformation, you know, more photos or whatever the Greek is there, is the metamorphosis, so transformation, like the butterfly and the caterpillar. And yet, this is the work. It's stepping into that place where it's like the trust fall into Jesus' arms. Like, I don't, and that's what we're talking about at Lent. That's why Jesus goes into the desert for 40 days, whether you practice it with particular fasting of any kind or just understanding the concept, it's saying, Jesus, you're my only hope. And what we're doing so often in looking at our story and looking at these places is trying to find where are the places I'm not trusting him and yet pretending to, where my strategies are helping me, where I am double-minded. And by uncovering those with care, with graciousness, you know, without shame, we can find the places that we've been relying on where we can just lay our weapons down and say, Lord, I believe, but help, help me. I need help, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00So I want to give a little background story to this particular part of our episode because I had a moment that I felt like that man saying, I believe, help my unbelief. And it actually happened this morning. Our routine when we record these episodes is on Fridays. I go do my morning workout. Ryan finishes up some of our thoughts that we've been talking about all week, writes out a couple of things, and then I come home and we plug in the microphones, and here we are. Well, I I called him on the way home from my workout and we're talking through a couple little details as I say, Do you want a cup of coffee from Aspen? And he says, Well, I think we need to talk through Romans 12, 1 and 2, because we did mention it in our last two episodes. And I said, Yeah, but if I'm honest, I have no idea what that means. I've memorized that scripture and known it most of my life, and I don't even know what it means, and I don't know how it pertains to what we're talking about. And within a two-minute little answer, I'm pulling into the parking lot of aspen coffee, and he says, Well, it's when you find that space of your limbic system that doesn't believe the help my unbelief part. It can feel like death when you say that because you're actually being super vulnerable to God to say, I'm not gonna follow a very grooved pattern of old behavior. I see it, I'm naming it, I'm gonna turn to Jesus, and it will feel like death. And the light bulb went on, but I was like, oh, sacrifice, death, oh, living sacrifice. Like I'm living and breathing, bringing a part to God saying, This is a part of me that does not believe you, and it's ugly. It's not just a passive, I don't believe. It's gonna bring up all kinds of defense mechanisms. I'm going to avoid something or soothe my anxiousness somehow. I'm gonna perform or try to just escape. I'm gonna do anything except say, Lord Jesus, help me. And so I think it's just important for you guys to know as we talk through these episodes, they're just as much for us. We really did begin this whole idea of doing a podcast to record our conversations, and they still are that. We still chew on these really hard concepts so that both of us can understand them more deeply. And that happened for me today.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_00And I think we've talked often about how you and I have different stories, obviously. And, you know, whether it's younger brother, older brother, or others' contempt, self-contempt. But I I have called myself a recovering Pharisee for most of my adult life. And so I actually have much more of a resistance, you know, Ryan. I think your story, you have different triggers and different mechanisms of of protection, we all do, but I I have a real limbic reaction of danger to any kind of humility. Now, I I say that I've grown, but that's the essence of being a recovering Pharisee is that we don't want to cry out. We don't want to admit our ways aren't working. We actually pride ourselves in I got this figured out. So I I think I really relate with the the feeling of dying when you come to these places.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I want to just bring up our story again from Mark 9. I'm gonna read into it a little. So this is a potential interpretive grid.
SPEAKER_00But should I do an interpretive dance while you do your interpretive grid?
Laying Down Weapons Through Story
SPEAKER_01Yes. You know, the the setup is the the people were going, you know, to the disciples. Jesus wasn't even there. And then Jesus and the other disciples walk up and join the crowd, and he inquires, like, what's going on? When someone runs up to him and is like, Teacher, you know, which is always like that sign of like maybe they don't really know who he is. And that's important. Important because it's the very previous moment on the mountain where we got to see, as the reader, who he is, and we now know who he is. And when Jesus asks him, you know, about his belief, it's like honestly, it might be the greatest faith to say, I do believe. But when he says, Help my unbelief, I just want to reiterate the miracle is not the child's being delivered. It's the man's heart being freed from that unbelief in that moment. And of course, leading unto the deliverance of his child. So the point is what we're doing in sanctification is we're honestly coming up to these places that we still hold unbelief. You know, I've used the illustration before on of the Japanese soldier. If you've been following this podcast for any length of time, one of my favorite illustrations, and I won't really go into at length, but you know, after World War II, the Japanese soldiers in the Pacific Islands, there were just these outposts that continued to think they were in war. And the last one happened in 1974, but when he came out, they didn't shoot him, they didn't put to death there for this soldier, you know, put to death there for the deed. Like they explained, they told him what was true. He re-enters the society. And so, in a way, what we're trying to say is when we lay down our weapons, when we cry help to Jesus with a very specific area. You know, I don't like when my bank account gets this low, or I don't like telling my partner my actual needs. I want to make sure the nuances there. We're not trying to overlook the obvious cataclysmic times of life, but so much of what happens in Christianity is we ignore these things in these very minute areas. We think they're beneath it.
SPEAKER_00Beneath what?
SPEAKER_01Beneath this powerful teaching. You know, this isn't really a trial. My son just called me an idiot, thinking only certain things can be called trials. You know what I mean? Like, just because my spouse and I haven't had sex in months, there's a lot of vulnerable places. And listen, this is why story work is so profound. It may be really hard right now at your present life to deal with the current situation fully and see it clearly. But when you do tell a story, and that's what I do over and over. I'll be talking to a client about something current, we'll find a story, just a snippet, just an event, a bare memory, and how often it is that that client says that memory, and we're at the front row of the very thing they're struggling with right now. And and we've shared examples of those in the episodes before, but that's our crying for help. That's the man being vulnerable to letting Jesus walk up to him or him walk up to Jesus. That's us engaging our whole world and saying, I'm opening it up. Show me the places I don't believe. I need your help. And that's what we're called to. And I think what we see in Romans 12, 1 and 2, Paul's saying the way we're gonna grow in our understanding God's ways, the way of this universe that he's designed, is by paying attention to, naming, and even bringing out the false ways, the ways of unbelief, and laying them at his feet. But that's not something we do with our left brain. We don't just go, well, okay, if we're gonna do that, here's four, you know, like the movies like give me your gun. And then the guy pulls out the one from the bootstrap and the one from the waist, and the one you know, we don't know where they are. In fact, we're we would argue right now that those aren't even guns. We're these are our important things. This is how we make it through the day. I have to have that thing, that drink, that conversation, that social media, that thought process, that fantasy. Like, how many things are we carrying, even good things, because we're terrified of what life might look like without those things? And we can't just name them. We need to come to them often through story.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's so good. Okay, but can you like give it a quick summary?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think what I'm saying is in this passage, Jesus was at least as interested in healing the man, if not more so than the child. So, listener, when you scan the horizon of your present life, the places that are causing you pain, as Emily, you said powerlessness, where you feel ambivalence, where you feel uncertain, these places you do know, we can write those down. All of us could take a moment, pull over, grab a pen, and write down one, three, five, ten things of varying intensity. That's noticing activation, right? You're noticing the place. And have you admitted helplessness here? Have you ever said, Yeah, you know, my aging parent is beyond being able to care for themselves and I'm overwhelmed. And have you said, I need help, Jesus, because my internal engine is trying to figure this out on my own or whatever. Just naming the thing, admitting your helplessness, crying out help, and then taking the smallest step in that direction.
SPEAKER_00Right. Because earlier you said there's no trial beyond this. It's not like just because my son called me an idiot was one of your examples. What you're really coming back to is something we've said before, and the enlightenment caused a lot of damage around this, but really believing that there's nothing in our physical lives that's outside the realm of needing a cry for help. And it's in the moments of trials that even Pharisees would soften their heart and turn to Jesus and have that cry. So what I hear you saying in your summary is it's a beautiful thing to come up against even the smallest trial or feeling of discomfort because that is the area that we can cry out to Jesus help. And the best part of this story is that he was honest and he brought it to Jesus for an ever-present help, like help my continual unbelief. And that's an intimacy with Jesus that we are always aiming for. And so we're actually saying Christian therapy, this therapeutic practice that we're doing, which that just simply means giving care to is actually pushing us towards a reliance on the Father that's much deeper and integrated, and it's not double-minded. Contrary to what some Christians may say, that therapy is self-help, we're actually saying this is an admittance that we cannot fix ourselves. We cannot help ourselves. My willpower is now insufficient. I've come to the end of my ability to do whatever it is I need to do, or or I'm just hurting and I don't have an answer, or I have something that I'm powerless over, like you mentioned, like an aging parent, a sick child, whatever it may be, we're coming to our end when we cry out, help my unbelief. So we actually think that the people that do reach out for a consult and sign up to do some work to say, Hey, I need fresh eyes on this situation, whether it's 12 weeks of work or it's going on three years of work. I think that's an actual strength that is the essence of being poor in spirit.
Desire, Decision, And Dying To Self
SPEAKER_01You know, my my longtime friend and therapist has said, you know, what is the third way? I don't know that she invented that, but that's who I learned it from. So that's why I credit it to. You come up against a problem, we kind of listed it out, you notice your situation. And you kind of have two things you could do, right? That's where we move toward ambivalence. I could take, for example, with an aging parent, I could completely become absorbed in the help. Or I have all these strict boundaries, I'm not going to do anything. The third way is I think something like where is my limbic system? Where are my natural processes protecting me? Where is my body, in a sense, harming me? You know, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn are great when there's actually a physical or present danger. Where we don't need them is in a situation where we need to be in our full mind, our regulated state, aware of the situation, sober-minded, anything you want to say there. And the third way is oh, here's a scenario I'm facing where that feels impossible. Help. Jesus, I come to you. Not to just heal my child, though that would be amazing, but I'm actually wanting healing for myself. And that's really what we're trying to say is what we're learning in these places of activation is oh, these are the places I'm sick, so to speak, because Jesus is the great physician. These are the places I need transformation. So when we come up to these things, we consider it all joy, not because they're fun, but because we're about to come face to face in a more real way with our Savior. The more we bring to him, the more beautiful he becomes, the larger he looms in our life.
SPEAKER_00When you described ambivalence, you actually talked about a decision, like I'm either going to go all in or I'm going to set boundaries. But I think we want to make sure we cover the part of ambivalence that is about desire. I do want and I don't want. And so I'm going to go back briefly to you barely mentioned sex within marriage, but I want to invite listeners to consider their ambivalence around their desires. I do want and I don't want. And to not shame yourself because that won't get you anywhere, but to do this very cry to the Lord of I believe, help my unbelief. Lord, I do want and I don't want.
SPEAKER_01And what we've talked about before, the root of decision is sidae, Latin, the same word you find in homicide, and it means death. And so the reason ambivalence is so hard is because not only do we come to a decision, which most of us think, oh, I'm choosing for something, but we're actually choosing against. And a part of us feels like it's being put to death, which is exactly what Romans 12.1 is saying.
Union With Christ And Ongoing Help
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and if that is something new for you listeners, just think of the word decide, homicide, suicide. It is killing off something. And so you may have a part that has developed to self-protect in the realm of sexuality. And to kill off that in order to have desire for your spouse is going to feel really scary, and you're not meant to do it alone. We're not meant to live apart from the vine. He is the vine, we are the branch. And so we are always going to encourage listeners to consider your union with Christ as an invitation that you're not alone in the midst of finding out your ambivalence and seeing the war within and naming these parts that are in contrast to each other. That's our invitation to you is to simply make the cry and don't worry about what the answer is, but that the savior will show up. Thanks again for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you have any questions or thoughts about the topics today, we'd love to hear from you. We can be reached through our website, emails, and social media. Just go to Story Matters Initiative. If you're interested in doing individual or group work, we'd love to discuss that with you as well.