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Hello, and welcome to restoring the soul, a podcast dedicated to helping you close the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience on your producer Brian Beatty. Thank you for listening. And I am joined by my good friend, your host, Michael JOHN CUSICK. Hello, Michael. Hello, good friend, Brian, it's good to be talking with you again, live finally. I know it's been a minute. And you're looking good. I feel good. It's been a busy spring, and then we're heading into the summer. So it's glad to get some content back on what we've been doing a lot of encore presentations of previous podcast. Yeah, and for me, you know, I always love to look back in the archives, you know, there are over 200 conversations and presentations that we have done over the years. And I find it really a difficult challenge to look at things that need to be replayed again, a because they all do and be I've got some of my personal favorites. In fact, I had a friend the other day that told me about how much the Tony Anderson podcast. He's talking about the heart of man, how much that really impacted them again, because they had a chance to listen to it really with with fresher ears, you know, because it had been a year or two since since we had first aired it. So I'm really just I'm grateful for the interviews that you've done and the podcasts we've had in the past and anybody listening today, if you're new to the podcast, don't hesitate to dig deep into our archives, because I'm sure you'll be able to find something that could meet your needs and be a blessing to you today. So we, Michael for the next three podcasts are going to be exploring the topic of disbelief. But the word disbelief is not spelled in the way that people would normally spell it. This has a y in the beginning dy s belief. So why why this this the spelling difference, Michael? What's it what is disbelief? I'm glad you asked that question. Yeah, cuz it can slip by disbelief of DISB el IEF is like I went to a Benny Hinn conference and the woman threw down her crutches and ran out of the arena after not walking for 30 years, or John chapter five, the man, the pool of Bethsaida, when Jesus says get up and walk and, you know, everybody was in disbelief. But this is dy s, as you pointed out, and we therapists have a love affair with that that prefix dis, like dysphoria is a mental health condition. It's the opposite of euphoria where euphoria is you're extremely happy and dysphoria is. It's not that you're very, very, very unhappy. It's that you never really feel good. I call dysphoria, the sense of emotional fingernails on the chalkboard. So that prefix dis is not or anti. And so disbelief, as we talked about it today is dy SBL, i e, f as in dysfunctional, believing this is not the same thing as unbelief. And let me say a word about that. Unbelief is something where we know in the gospels, that as the disciples are trying to cast out a demon, and Jesus talks to them about some only come out by prayer. And I, and I think it's Peter, who Jesus says to him, that psalm only come out by prayer, and the cry is Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. And somebody can email us to tell me the Scripture because I'm not going to turn to that right now. But just trust that we love Jesus and we take God's word seriously. Lord, I believe Help my unbelief. What is unbelief? Unbelief is not about the existence of God, whether God exists or not. I hear people all the time say, Oh, well, I believe in God. But the idea of atheism or theism or of not believing in a divine being a creator, a higher power. That's a very modern idea. And I've said this before on the podcast, although I've not unpacked it, but atheism is actually only a couple 100 centuries old, maybe going back to the enlightenment and late 1600s, so three to 400 years old. Prior to that, It would have been foolish to not believe in God. But as we began to develop the scientific method and empiricism, which nothing is true until it can be proven, empirically true and validated now the mental health field is all about empirically validated treatments. Unbelief came to be it came to be understood as I believe in God or I don't. But unbelief in the scriptures in the context of I believe, help my unbelief is more about not Does God exist, but what is God like? So believing the Gospel is yes, it's true. But believing in God is not Does he exist? But is he good? Or is he like Zeus? Is he look like Jesus, who hangs on a cross and chooses humiliation and suffering? Or is the God that exists a punitive god of vindictive God, a God who's angry at us, who we need to appease through burnt offerings, sacrifices, fragrances, living and following a certain pre scripted set of actions, whereby if we follow those into okay, then God's okay with us in then he opens up his blessings and gives them to us. No belief is actually about trusting that God is good. Disbelief. On the other hand, as I lay down that foundation, are really ways of believing that play out in patterns where we live our life, that are actually unhelpful, and they're dysfunctional. And these are given to us. So in one sense, we inherit these forms of disbelief, I was given them as a young boy in the Catholic church growing up, then I was given them in a Quaker church, where I had had a conversion when I was 16 years old. And there was a certain sense of this is how you do faith. This is how you do life. This is what it means to be a Christian. As I lived and became successful as a Christian, quote, unquote, in the evangelical world for years after that, until I was no longer successful in the evangelical world. I was given these beliefs as well. But I also think that each of these are written into the fabric of our being because you know, the nature of our fallenness. And the nature of our sin is that we turn away from the God who invites us to trust Him who has perfect love. And we turn to something of our own making Romans one talks about how we fashion gods and we create images. So we fashion with our hands, and we create images that we can give our heart and our mind to, and this is a very subtle way of doing that. So disbelief, I will talk about in a minute as number one type of disbelief is moralism. Number two is emotionalism. Number three is rationalism. Number four is belief ism. And number five is activism. And I like to say that each of these five types, Brian, are there dysfunctional ways of closing the gap that you spoke about? At the top of the podcast? Yeah, that's something that hopefully, isn't something that, you know, I as a producer, and for those that that listen, even though it's being said, and being heard every week, that it just becomes something that flies over our head. So I think it's important, Michael, that you are, you know, over the next couple episodes going to be addressing that gap. And I'll say it again, the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience. So I'm looking forward to these next three episodes where you'll look to close that gap for us, Michael, or at least give us some categories for how we attempt to close that gap in ways that are unhealthy and counterproductive. Yes, yes, indeed. So let me let me back up to that. And you said, as you say, at the beginning of every podcast, that this podcast exists to help people close the gap between what they believe and what they experience. And the first thing I would do is whether people are on their treadmill, or laying in bed listening to this podcast, or if they're driving in their car. Are you aware of the gap in your life? I'm not just talking about more thirst for God or hunger for God or to know him more deeply that's included in this But my story was such where I had this dramatic conversion at age 16. I was given the promises that Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father. But through me. I had this dramatic experience of encountering God's love for the first time the Father loves me, Jesus died for me, the Holy Spirit is in me and with me. And yet, I was secretly addicted, I was bound up in all kinds of sexual shame. I had no idea who I was, I grown up in an alcoholic family, I had a decade and a half at that point of sexual abuse in my life. And when I became a Christian, I at 16, I was still being sexually abused in a context where I've talked about in other podcasts. And so I applied myself with all that I believed, I applied myself by doing Bible studies on Saturday morning, by being discipled by some really good men that taught me the Bible. I memorize scripture, I attempted to have a prayer life. And on a clipboard, I had a list of all the things that were my Christian disciplines. And at one point, there were 12, different things that on a daily and weekly basis, I said, if I do these, than I'm a good Christian. And if I do these things, then God will be pleased with me. And if you had asked me, Does doing these things make you a good Christian? I would say, Well, you know, I know I'm saved by grace, and not by works. But these are the things that are helping me grow. Secretly, internally, I was praying and desperate that if I did these things enough, like prayer, scripture, memorization, Bible study, evangelism, fasting, the whole list, that if I did those enough, then somehow my shame would leave me, I would feel this blessing from God, I would feel this embrace from him. And all of the brokenness that I felt on the side of just believing, but not experiencing God's love in the gospel, that that would all come together. Thus, belief and experience would come together. And as I've been a therapist now, for close to 30 years, I'm getting up there, not just in my years, but the amount of time I've been doing this. I'm hearing more. And more and more people cry out in all kinds of ways that the faith that I was given, and the promises for what the Christian life would be like, I was sold a bill of goods. And so people are literally in my counseling office saying, If I walk away from my faith, I'll lose my job. If I walk away from my faith, my spouse will leave me. If I walk away from my faith, my parents won't pay for my college education. If I walk away from my faith, I'll go to hell. And so there's great pain. There's fear, there's spiritual abuse. And the real honor of my life and our ministry is to be able to deeply listen, to be able to deeply engage, to not have to convince myself or anyone else, if any particular doctrine denominational Lee speaking, but to be able to just hear people and to say, what if your struggle to experience God was not about not having faith? What if it was actually a kind of growth spurt? What if it was a transition were like a child going from being a toddler to a preschooler, they learn to communicate in a new way they need to they learn to do all kinds of things in a new way. What if it was about a transition between two developmental points of going from being a preteen child to an awkward, gangly adolescent, who, you know, their arms are disproportionate until they're fully grown? What if that's what was happening? Instead of going from the all or nothing to I'm trying to be a good Christian, and that doesn't work soon, and I'm not a Christian. or Now I'm, quote, labeling myself as deconstructing. So in some ways, Brian, and I'll pause in a minute to let you check in this conversation about disbelief is really a conversation about deconstruction. And everywhere I go, as I said, I'm talking to people because people often don't go to counseling because things are going well. I'm talking to people whose spiritual lives are hurting. And my hypothesis is that their spiritual life is hurting because their emotional, relational, and psychological world is hurting. And at the end of the day, spirituality is not about what we believe in It's about how connected we are, how attached we are. And therefore, it's about how much we experience what we believe. Michael, you used the term the phrase, deconstruction, deconstruction ism. And I've been hearing and reading about that a lot. Lately, it could be that COVID exposed a lot of things that people were wrestling with, and now they could finally put a term to it. And I think it would even be a good topic for another podcast in its entirety to talk about what people are going through in a deconstructionist way. But a question that came to mind for me is you talked about the growth spurt or the growth process. And with where you are in your life, I asked you to be a little more vulnerable here. Where are you at with your journey? Have you gone through a, a growth spurt recently? You know, I think that even if like we go through a growth spurt, a teenage or teenage years, there still is opportunities for us to grow deeper in our heart and in our mind, the later that we are in life. So where are you at on that spectrum of growth? Are you in a in a fertile growth season right now? How are things going for you? That's a great question. And part of me wants to make a joke and say No way. I'm not going to be vulnerable. I'm not. But of course, that's that's kind of who I am. So I'm happy to and why don't we just take the rest of this episode? And do this kind of asking the question, to set up the conversation around disbelief. How's your faith, right? years ago, my friend Bruce was in the crab allander counseling program at Colorado Christian University. We were having breakfast one morning, and he told me the story in it so resonated with me. We had been in the counseling program for a semester. And anybody who listens to this podcast and it was familiar with Dan elder or the work of Larry Crabb, you know, the way that they trained counselors is they plow up your heart. And you dive headlong into your story. And you look at your, your, your, your broken ways of relating, and you're, the Enneagram would talk about, like your passions, your self protection, all that, but ways that we use that we've responded to the wounds of our story in ways that are really unhelpful, and, and sinful, in one sense, because it's not about trusting God and trusting love has us. So I'm having breakfast with Bruce. And he said, he went home at Thanksgiving. And his college spiritual mentor, who at the time would have been like, six, seven years prior to this conversation. The guy says to him, so how's your faith? And in the old days, Bruce would have reported, well, I'm reading my Bible every day, but I missed a day this week, I evangelize and shared Christ with a couple people, and memorize some verses. That's the old days. But when the man says, How's your faith, Bruce said, I really feel loved. And the guy said, Well, that's great, but how's your faith going? And he said, I really feel loved. And it led to this very short conversation, like before they changed the subject and talked about football. Where this man who is a spiritual mentor, didn't understand what he was talking about, and what was happening for him and was what was happening for me at that very same time, though, we did not have the word deconstruction at the time. And by the way, that's not a modern word that's actually a pre modern word. And that's a process in the Bible, of letting go of certain things, so that you can deepen your relationship with God to deepen and take on other things that are experience on top of belief. But what the process was, was, he had been freed up and I had been freed up in such a way by daring to let God love me in some really hard, broken places, and for me some sinful places that I learned not to perform. And this is not something that I'm necessarily really prescribing across the board. But I remember having a conversation with a counselor at that time, and telling them how I felt like I was letting God down because I hadn't been very faithful at reading my Bible, because I was in this Christian biblical, pastoral counseling program. And that person said, well, in that case, I don't think you should read your Bible the rest of the year. And I was like, Oh, gee, I guess you're right, because I am taking theology Bible courses. And so I'm studying the Bible there. And I guess what you're saying is that that kind of counts? And they said, No, that's not what I mean at all, you really believe that God is okay with you kind of gives you the thumbs up, and the pat on the back when you're reading your Bible, and you really believe that you're letting him down. And that's just not the case. God has not disappointed in you. And so this idea of how's your faith? I could say then, and I can say today, and let me bring it to the present moment. I really feel loved. And this may make some listeners insecure. Maybe it'll gain us listeners from certain crowds. But if you asked me on any given day, how's my faith? I think, really, the only answer is I'll say, love has me, God, who is love embodied in Jesus, he's got me. And whether I've read my Bible, or thought about him much at all, when I think about the fact that he has his arms wrapped around me, the fact that if you think of the image of a person who parachutes out of a plane for the first time, and they have a parachute instructor that's kind of strapped to their back. That's how God is. He's like, the strongest Velcro. And so when I think about my faith, I just take a breath, and I smile. And the only thing that I have to fall back on is this knowledge of the presence of a perfectly loving God, Psalm 139, verse seven, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? So I would say, to get there, Brian, I had to do about 20 years of therapy, and spend a lot of money and have a lot of hard conversations with spiritual directors, friends, my wife, I had to fail a lot. And I'm not just talking about my sexual addiction and breaking up my marriage, before it was healed, but lots of other failure of coming to places of great spiritual vulnerability. But I can say assuredly, now, and this is a pretty strong, rooted place inside of me, that's not about believing, but knowing that God is fond of me, God likes me. God has joy when he sees me. God has anticipation and expectancy for me as he thinks about me. And this is not just a Michael reality, this is a human reality. And of course, what keeps us oftentimes from experiencing these things, when we actually believe them in our head is our wounds, our brokenness. And then, as Kurt Thompson has talked about the left and the right brain not being connected, sometimes the left brain being what we believe, and the right brain being more about what we experience. That's oftentimes a physiological part. And so I've had to deal with and intentionally pursue healing from trauma to be able to get to this place of restfulness. And I'm nowhere near perfect. But though I wrestle with any of these forms of disbelief and smaller measures, that there is a sixth ism. I talked about moralism, emotionalism, rationalism, belief, ism, and activism. And there's a sixth ism that I'll talk about, which I believe is what beckons me and what I in my work of teaching speaking, podcasting and counseling. It's what I really draw people to the image of Christ and His invitation. Well, that Thank you, Michael, that I was in the same way, just going to make a joke like that right? There was worth the price of admission. About 20 years ago, I was a good friend of mine, he used to ask me, not, you know, similar to you know, how's your faith? He wouldn't say hey, man, like how's it going? He's, he'd say, Hey, man, how's your heart? Love it and you can't lie in your answer. And so I always love to ask people that very question because it cuts it cuts me to the quick every time and so I pause and folks would say hey, man, are you okay? Is like no, I'm actually thinking about it because I want to out of respect and love and care for you. I want to respond in a way that that really is The honest. And I think the other thing that comes to mind too, is the difference between how we are in our posture before the Lord, how we're how we're doing, you know, are we reading scripture? Are we memorizing? are we sharing our faith? Is everybody on our block? You know, a follower of Christ? Because we've gone to their house and given them the the spiritual laws, or are we are we being the difference between doing and being? And I really longed to be that human being before before the Lord. So it's beautiful. Yeah. And, you know, it really comes back to being able to ask the question, how is my heart because until you and I pay attention to our heart, and learn to be tender with our heart, and to care for our heart. We will default to beings. So we'll wrap up this podcast episode, which is a great start. But as we come back to these five forms of disbelief, they're all ways of choosing doing instead of being and there's another ism, of of trusting, which is really the antidote to disbelief, it's trust. So we've wrapped up another episode of restoring the soul. We want you to know that restoring the soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in our intensive counseling programs in Colorado, allow you to experience deep change and half day blocks over two weeks. To learn more visit restoring the soul.com That's restoring the soul.com