Get Out of Your Head | David Marvin and Jennie Allen

[Music] [Music] well hey welcome friends in the room friends in fort worth fayetteville austin texas houston texas cedar rapids iowa el paso fort worth uh boise idaho and all the ports live locations everybody's tuning in online we are doing something special tonight and let me start us off by telling a story that happened this past week that will give us some direction for where we're going to go there there's something that has come on the scene i don't know if it's like the past two years five years or just i missed it for like a decade and it's been here for a while and it's called an escape room anyone familiar with an escape room like this is the thing if you're not familiar it's basically you pay somebody 200 to lock you in a closet and figure out how to get out of there and they're making a killing off of this thing and so i took my team it's like a team bonding experience so this past week we went to an escape room escapeology right in the heart of downtown dallas or uptown dallas went in there got given the instructions on our room and we go into this room and if you've never been in one you basically have to figure out how to break you got to figure out the uh the i don't know the the mystery uh i really should have thought this through i was i was going to explain it you have to think through how to get out you have to follow certain clues and kind of read and diagram in order to solve the mystery ours was a murder mystery and you got to solve who murdered the person in order to get the eventual code that allows you out of the room but there's all these different turns and and things that are involved in trying to figure out the story so it's you and five people you have one hour to make it happen and you're trying to get it done this was the most challenging escape room i've ever even heard of whoever came up with this thing intentionally made it to where it would be impossible to get out of there without asking for clues or asking for help in other words in the escape room you can go hit a button at any time and say hey we're stuck give us some way of getting out of here give us the next clue because we can't make the next thing and this one was so challenging like i was insulted by the clues that they would give her they're like you need to turn this thing around there's braille on the background you're going to want to figure out how to read hebrew and then walk through it and it's like and and you thought we were going to get here on our own by doing this i mean every single time it was designed to where without help from the outside you are not getting out what does that have to do with what we're talking about tonight we're in a season of life just in general as our country and really for the last number of months where a lot of us have felt like in life we are stuck we're covered in anxiety the rates of suicide i was reading it before and talking with a friend of one in four young adults in the last 90 days have contemplated suicide things have gotten so bad and they've got so overwhelmed so anxious they've thought about ending their life one in four think about that antidepressants are up 600 percent since coveted the number of young adults before covet who are experiencing anxiety was through the roof and now it has just exploded and all of us come into the room with different degrees to the level of which we're feeling anxious uncertain overwhelmed and we're stuck in our head and what i want to do for the next handful of minutes is talk through what it looks like to conquer some of that anxiety conquer those anxious and fearful thoughts conquer some of the toxic thinking because so often people will in attempting to help people get unstuck from just i'm overwhelmed and trapped in my head i'm really sad right now i'm battling depression people come along and they're well-meaning and they'll just give messages like you know what it's gonna be a great day good vibes only not today satan you got this you can take it and they'll give positive things sometimes even pastors who will go into a self-help mode that well it may feel good in the moment it doesn't really lead to transformation and no it makes me think oh man no weapon formed against me will stand i'm going to conquer this i'm going to get the job i'm not going to get sick everything's going to be perfect and then it doesn't happen and those truths were never helpful and they didn't help me get out of the room i'm still trapped inside the escape room i just have somebody tell me something positive but what if there was a way to get help from the outside and by that i don't mean a specific speaker myself or a friend i'm about to bring up i mean from god's word on the clues of how to conquer and work through and get out of some of the toxic anxious thinking and feelings that mark our lives the good news is the bible says that there is a way and it doesn't come from self-help or positive thinking it comes from the truth contained in god's word and so we're going to do for the next handful of minutes is walk through i think a really really crucial topic with a really gifted friend and minister who has devoted uh the last 18 months or a long amount of time studying what it looks like and how all the ways that our toxic thinking god's word really does give us the clues to help break out and experience freedom from some of the anxiety because my guess is if you came in the room and i said hey if you hit this button tonight you won't be anxious tomorrow most people would hit it and it may not be that simple but it is clear in god's word he gives us paths that we can choose to get on and choose to battle against anxious fearful thinking so i'm going to bring up a friend her name is jenny allen she wrote a book that is called get out of your head and jenny as she gets up here let me tell you a little bit about jenny if you're not familiar with jenny she leads an organization called if gathering and speaks to hundreds of thousands of women around the country she's a new york times bestselling author she's a mom of four she's a tremendously gifted uh just minister and a gift to her body she's a member of watermark and there are a few people you know in life there's every now and then you run into people you're like man it's just something like the spirit of god is at work through them and jenny is someone that every time i'm around her i just sense that and i see that i'm constantly encouraged she wrote a book called get out of your head and was gracious enough as i just asked her hey we're all stuck in our head will you help us just talk through because you put into word form practically how god's word helps us and why it's so important that we get out of our heads so you guys welcome to the stage jenny allen thank you david come on great to be here guys how you doing yeah so uh jenny you wrote a book man i left it down there called get out of your head fact no it's me jj um that james wrote written a number of books and uh and has been a part of watermark and and i mean everything that i just said there jenny you're such a gift to the church and our generation if you don't know about it gathering and you're a girl because it's for girls uh you need to know about if gathering so check that out i think it's coming up in march or at some point but i just wanted to talk through a lot of stuff i read i've read through this two different times and i've been so encouraged by it so i just wanted to talk because this generation in particular everybody right now is stuck in our head we're feeling anxious there's uncertainty and though i don't think uncertainty's increased because we all live in a hundred percent uncertainty every single day like everything is uncertain uh whether you know we realized it or not covet has made things feel and just the climate has made it feel uncertain so just wanted to launch in to this conversation and even talk up hey what made you decide to write this book and open into the conversation of anxiety and why is in the book you call it the battle the most important battle of this generation is taking place in the mind most people don't realize it but it is shaping your future it's shaping your life it's shaping who you're going to marry who you're becoming it's shaping all of your life right now so just why is that so important why would you say that and what made you even passionate about so there's a lot of questions in that yeah well it you know this is the thing i i this is so random i'm gonna start with a really interesting funny story so one of my friends sent me an article in cosmo where they talked about my book which is really interesting because it is very jesus in fact i even have a whole portion about it not being self-help so it was very interesting that cosmo shared my book and what they said is it's like jenny allen knew that you know what was gonna hit the fan so this christian book is in cosmo with a cuss word about it and i think the funny thing is is i didn't but god did like god knew that this book would come out two months before covet hit and and i can't explain that there's no way i could ever you know make this happen in life you just know that there is a god that cares about people because this topic it wasn't even the book i was supposed to write i shifted gears two years before and went to work and put my head down on this book and put another book i was almost done with to the side and so god knew this the timing was going to matter and i start with that story because the timing matters and what he just said is exactly right what happened is the lake drained and we all saw what was at the bottom of our lakes and what was at the bottom of our lakes was a lot of mess and and so i think it's not new stuff i think it was already there but i do think that what we found was wow i've been anxious probably for a long time it may have i may have been busy enough that i didn't notice or i've been depressed for a long time and we're starting to even consider like maybe i need to get some help so i think that's what's powerful about covet i don't think what you said was so right david i don't think we found ourselves in a unique moment that has produced a lot of anxiety i think we found ourselves in a moment that revealed the anxiety we already felt yeah so why why did you write it because even before i know god had that in mind but what shifted or yeah led you to do that journey i know you talk about doubt and that wrestle yeah and i think that's part of reason but yeah how would you say well two things so one my daughter kate is 18 years old she's a freshman at a m and for five years yeah for five years i'm a razorback let's just throw that in there i'm a razorback it's hard y'all i mean my all my kids are wearing i've got two aggies i'm like what did i do what did i do anyway yeah so anyway so my daughter is in seventh grade and she gets this passion and heart for for neuroscience and she starts reading and and watching ted talks on it and so i start doing this with her and it's so interesting because when i started doing the science work on this book i thought it was going to be in opposition to the bible but it actually completely revealed what the bible says is true that our brains can change that our brains physically are are changing based on what we think about so so our chemistry our body is very connected to the brain that god built that's not surprising to christians right christians know that that god built all of this to work together and for his good and for our for others good and for his glory and so when something is broken in our mind it begins to affect every part of us and i think that's where i started to get so passionate was i minister to women and i talk about emotions my first bible study was stuck which walks through a lot of the different emotions we all face but i didn't see our side of the church really talking about the mind and about how we could shift it and yet everything i was reading in science and in psychiatry and all these things were absolutely echoing what the bible says they just completely fell short just like david was saying when he introduced this they they would end the book so it would be somewhat biblical in the sense that you can change your brain your brain can change and then towards the end it would say so what you need to do is think positive thoughts about yourself that you are awesome and that you you know all these positive self-esteem things and i was thinking well i just am not so i don't exactly know like how that's supposed to help if i don't feel awesome about myself am i just supposed to tell myself that i'm worth something and so i think watching my daughter for five years five years she was pursuing this um i i saw and read a lot and i realized the church is is afraid of this topic and yet it is absolutely biblical the so that was the first thing the second thing that happened was i went through a season of doubt for 18 months following a crazy story um that it was just dark and so i entered into the season of just wrestling with my faith and for 18 months i woke up in the middle of the night and would ask myself is this true does it fade to black why are you wasting your life on this if it's not and that sounds very alarming but somehow you know in my experience the devil never likes to be noticed he wants to do things in a very subtle way and so looking at that over time i don't think i let anybody in or i talked about it but it wasn't because i was embarrassed or or hiding it it was that i didn't think it was a big deal and yet 18 months later i feel my faith eroding i would be speaking on stages about jesus and in the back of my head i would be i would be questioning am i am i selling a myth y'all let me just tell you you don't know my faith you don't know my story but i just i've gotten to be someone who's walked on waves and seen god do complete miracles like the fact that i was questioning my faith did not equal the life i was leading at all and i don't tell anybody and then 18 months later i do finally open my mouth and i say this has gotten pretty bad now the irony is the reason i finally told people was i watched the second to last avengers movie yeah and it's the one i'm sorry if y'all don't know this but you are really late and i am not going to protect you from the spoiler okay at the end of the movie um the second to last one you all know what happens the the like some of the superheroes and half the earth like evaporates into like dust that's the worst yeah it's a bummer and then they let they leave you there so i see that movie you guys and i go home and i i can't breathe and for two to three days i'm having panic because that's what i'm afraid of i'm just afraid it goes to dust and that none of it mattered and so finally you know i start talking i'm realizing this is really affecting me my fear of death you know i can't even watch a marvel movie without having panic attacks and so i i mention it to a friend and what happens when i bring somebody into it two things first thing that happens is i said it out loud and as i heard myself say i don't know if i even believe in god anymore that's how dramatic it was 18 months of wrestling with stuff like that it was dramatic when i said it and as the words came out of my mouth i started laughing and i was like that's not true i believe in god like i literally heard myself say what i'd been saying in my head for 18 months and i said it and i was so aware that it was not true and my sweet friend that heard it she watched watches me live and she was like jenny that's not true i've watched you live the last two years you love and trust god and then the second thing i said was i think i've been under spiritual attack yeah i mean it was obvious and i totally missed it and so after that to answer your question i i got angry like this wasn't any longer just this situation of you know what we all think negative thoughts let's be authentic about it what do you think about you know negatively and and what's your anxiety let's talk about it it turned to war i was like no no no like this is the enemy and he got me alone in the dark and he told me whatever he wanted and i am not going to let that happen to half the church or you know there's a bunch of guys here i'll i'll bring you into it too i'm not going to let that happen because if we are in a place where the enemy can tell us what he now listen i'm not someone who thinks the devil's under every rock that's not who i am i grew up in a church where they said don't talk about the devil too much and i took it very seriously until i read ephesians and it said dark cosmic forces are coming for us and i thought let's just talk about it a little and on this subject i think we need to bring that in and and i'll tell you why in a minute because there's some scripture that brings it in very clearly that that we are not fighting flesh that we're fighting spirit and we've got to recognize that that there's a war for our minds yeah so to the person who's listening because again the degree of anxiety stress worry fear that everyone's feeling um is is different but it exists either in this moment right now or you've had it in your life or you're going to have it or you're not breathing and um so to that person who was sitting there thinking i'm afraid i'm going to be single for the rest of my life you're just saying stop i'm afraid that i'm i'm not ever going to have a job that is inside of what i spent my entire last six years in grad school and my major studying and i'm just supposed to be okay with that or i'm not supposed to be anxious or i'm not supposed to feel those things like what am i supposed to do with those thoughts and we may be getting ahead of ourselves but you mentioned some in the book that i think is a really important whether it's now or at some point injecting and it is um you framed it up and say one of the most important truths you have to know is you know i'm going with this yeah do you want to finish it you have a choice is you have a choice yeah which i don't think most of us believe yeah i taught this bible study here some of y'all may have been in it it was up to 150 girls in the chapel and this was before the book was written and and when i taught it the number one feedback i got was i didn't know i had power over my thoughts it is the clearest thing in scripture you could go find how many times especially paul talks about think commanding language over our thought lives it is so clear take every thought captive the way that we change romans 8 that or not romans 8 um romans says that um that we change by the renewal of our minds so the way if we don't want to be conformed to the world and we want to be transformed we're transformed by the renewal of our minds so there's so much strong language about our minds being captive to us right not we're captive to our minds and so the idea of of that being true that that we have a choice i think is beginning of freedom now that's not it like you can't just decide okay tonight like before you go to bed i'm not going to think about that but you kind of can so i'm going to i'm going to read you some scripture but but before i do i want to address mental illness because i think where the church kind of can fail is they can say you don't have enough faith or you don't pray enough or if you're just positive you know this wouldn't be the case the truth is the fall because of the fall our minds are broken our bodies are broken everything's broken our world is broken and so the reality is because of the fall there is a true you know fallenness to to our minds and so it is not always as simple as pray more have more faith and and i think that's where medicine and counseling can play a strategic role and be gifts from god in the right moments for the right people but we cannot stop there because scripture is pretty clear that this is a war and we have to treat it as such in fact the language that paul uses in second corinthians 10 if you've ever heard the verse before take every thought captive let me let me make it a little more complicated for you so the science what it says is that you today are thinking anywhere from 8 000 to 80 or 60 000 thoughts a day most of the girls i i am on the 60 000 thought train like how many of y'all are like i'm in the 60 000 i know some of the guys are like that's a lot of thoughts just five thoughts a day yep yep well my husband was like jenny your only qualification is that you think so many more thoughts than anybody else that's your that's your qualification to write this book and and so that idea that that we have that many thoughts and then there's a scripture that says take every thought captive that's totally overwhelming right i mean what does that even mean like i think about you know i start the book talking about this little bird that's just flying wild in our house and it was the most impossible thing to catch if i wanted to shoot the bird it would have been easier than trying to capture a bird and that's what we're doing with our thoughts is we're like running around trying to capture them and there's 60 000 of them and they're running wild and it feels kind of helpless so what does scripture say because it's very authoritative and this is what i found to be true is is when i began to think about my thought life in this way it changed everything second corinthians 10 verse 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of god and we take every thought captive to obey christ so this is fighting language right this is saying hey passively try to think different thoughts let's be positive about ourselves no paul's like you're at war there's an enemy that wants to take you down and what a strategic place for the church nobody sees it let's take that one down with doubt for 18 months in the middle of the night let's take the foundation out from under her and maybe she would not cause much trouble for hell well we're that didn't work so but for 18 months it did and and that what the weapons that we were given to destroy strongholds that's what we can talk about as we keep going but but that idea of power that god has given us authority over our minds guys if i tell you if you feel sad and i say you need to stop being sad it's not very effective but if i say you can interrupt a thought with another thought then that can change everything there's a spiral i want to show you guys because this is not just about our brains this is about every part of our lives as proverbs says as a man thinketh so he is so there's not much that is outside of is like it's all of us it's it's our whole whole being but what happens is our i put emotions first but just think of it as an endless circle right that's all running into each other our emotions our thoughts our behaviors our relationships and then there's consequences and they run back up to our emotions and our thoughts and our behaviors the greatest place i see in the scripture to interrupt that spiral is at thought at that thought that you are thinking constantly your brain is building little neuroplasticity places in it like literally a city is being built at every thought you think of in a physical city in your brain now what's so interesting is from the time you think of thought till that little neuroplasticity city exists in your brain it takes 10 minutes that means your brain is working for 10 minutes past your thought that's really scary when you think of the fact that of our thoughts over 85 percent of them are negative day in and day out research tells us 85 are negative and over 95 of our thoughts are repetitive from the day before 95 of our thoughts are repetitive from the day before so that means that we are thinking the same negative thoughts day after day after day and how do we interrupt that because for some of you it has been it has been decades you're pretty young a decade [Laughter] and and how do you shift because for some of you those thoughts started because something happened to you because the behavior was done to you or you went through something and and how do we change so yes it starts with what david said it starts with the knowledge that we do have a choice and so as i worked on this book i was like okay take every thought captive i've got to help all of these people take their thoughts captive how do you do that and so that interrupting thought of i have a choice y'all i tell it to myself every day you want to hear something crazy today i woke up this morning i had a great time with the lord i went to the office i had a great time with the lord with my team at the if gathering offices and for some reason physically after that my heart started racing and i had more anxiety today than i can remember having in months like today i have been in a stronghold of anxiety today i couldn't put a name to it i didn't exactly know what i was thinking sometimes you guys it's just a feeling you're you're like why am i anxious i'm not thinking about something anxious and so what ends up happening when i'm so glad that it happened because this is not something we ever just go okay i'm done fighting like it's not something that you just slap a verse on and then it should be solved it's something y'all god wants to walk with us with us every minute of every day and so the fact that we feel anxiety is this beacon to say come back to me like you need me you've gotten too far you're running off come back and so there's something about these struggles that that are meant to draw us to jesus they're meant to be something that causes us to recognize you know what i need god again today and so today what it looked like for me was i i processed with somebody that i feel safe with and close to and i said listen i've been anxious today i don't know what it is can you help me with this and i just i voiced it and and we prayed and we fought it today and i think that's what we've got to do what took 18 months last time now takes me about two hours i won't call somebody sometimes it takes 10 minutes but i usually won't call somebody or bring them in until about two hours where i'm like you know what i've been anxious now for two hours because why would i give the devil 18 more months or 18 more minutes you know we've got to we've got to fight it daily and i think that's that's what changed for me was it wasn't something that was just going to get medicated or solved or you know fixed it would be something where i would walk with god all the days of my life i would surrender i would be with him and i would still struggle but i would fight back and i wouldn't just let my mind control everything so if i'm i'm listening in and i uh and you may answer this here in a second but um if i have lustful thoughts anxious thoughts if i'm finding myself going down that rabbit hole uh i heard i heard several things that you did in the moment of ways that we take every thought captive make it obedient to christ but how would you say here's how you cut it off step one is you you need to decide and know that you can cut it off and you can't stop having that thought but is there anything more practical whether now we can wait if we're going to get into it in a little bit yeah we'll get into practical but i'm just reading this verse again for the weapons of our warfare not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds and do we believe that like if we don't believe that church we we don't have anything else to stand on like the medicine it doesn't matter the other stuff is only going to be a fixed for a little while the practical ways that we can be grateful instead of negative all of that those practices are powerful and god taught us about these practices that that help us train our minds and discipline our minds scripture is full of that and we'll talk about some of those but if we don't understand first and foremost that we are at war there is an enemy and he wants to kill steal and destroy you and you have power and authority and divine weapons that destroy strongholds and i'm like that's where i'm like let's wake up to that first so that we quit playing defense and honestly we're not even playing defense we're laying down and like he's just beating us up like that's what i did for 18 months he just beat me up for 18 months and i let him and that's where i'm going okay let's change our posture let's start with this that that one do you realize that the spirit of god is available to you and that he wants to work with you and fight the enemy with you and that there are people that want to help you fight the the enemy and that there is a word that that teaches us how to fight the enemy but it's all going somewhere and it's not like i'm gonna get fixed today that's what i'm going to do because that's how we read scripture we want it to just fix us rather than we are at war and everything you think and everything you feel and every behavior you have and every relationship you have it's playing into that war and so the cost if we don't fight back if we just let the enemy stick us in a corner with anxiety and make us obsess about ourselves and our problems instead of the power of god in me and through me and what could happen that is is terrifying and it shuts us down and so what i love about scripture is it starts with this big story and it's narrative of hey let's start with hebrews 12. this is part of the narrative run the race that's set before you fixing your eyes on jesus throwing off the burden and the weight that is set before you but what i love is he sets in there a purpose run the race and i think as we're going as we realize like okay all of this is supposed to fit into this bigger story where where there um there's a plan and it is to take me out there is a plan and it is to take you out so we've got to start with and let me tell you why this matters because then you hate it then you're like motivated it's not just about your happiness it's not just about your freedom it's not just about the way you could you know have a greater impact on the kingdom it is about eternity and if you realize that that that anxiety i don't mean to put too much weight on it but i think we haven't put enough right i can see y'all are y'all with me okay so i think we put too much um of just this passing idea that we're just victims and how we feel and how we you know what we're thinking about all these things it's just like this is my lot this is what i struggle with i struggle with anxiety and i'm like all right well how are we going to fight that let's start fighting that and let's not just take that for granted and struggle with this for the next 50 60 years we have on earth and if we change our posture then yes there are some things we can actually do that help in that fight that scripture is clear about but but i think what i what i hope you hear from this and what i hope you take away is that you have a lot more power than you think and what you'll notice and i've talked to so many people that have have processed this and read the book and and gone through months after that and what it looks like for them is that you'll start to sense that you're anxious like i did today and you'll say you know what i don't want to stay there and i don't want my brain to stay there for more than a day so i'm going to go i'm going to make a priority for my mind today and i'm going to sit down with somebody that loves me i'm going to sit down with scripture and i'm going to fight this better so it looks like not just tolerating it in your life and again let me be clear mental illness is real and then there's also times where you've spent so much time in bondage that it's not going to just you're not going to come out tomorrow because because you enter in and you interrupt the thoughts it's going to take discipline and time think of how long it took you to get into that mess you know to get out of that it's going to take a little while too to retain your mind so i think that is a really important point and i think you bring it up in the book a little bit which is a sobering and empowering point which is um you know for the last six months everyone has had sixty thousand thoughts a day eight to sixty and they have been building grooves or pathways in their thinking and that can be a really daunting thing of like man i've spent the last six months and i have i've had so many lustful thoughts i'm now back addicted to porn or i'm i'm overwhelmed with anxiety and i've given myself to it and the sobering part of that what you're saying i think and i feel like there's an illustration in here if not maybe i'm making it up that uh those those pathways have formed and the only way to undo them is you've got to create new grooves which is both sobering and also empowering that you can make a choice to form new groups it doesn't happen overnight you didn't get here overnight but if you can learn to think to interrupt thoughts and agree and create new pathways you can begin to experience freedom from anxiety 100 it's why the science was such a big part of this book because the science you know this this says think on what is lovely what is true paul's so clear that we can change our thinking and so is science you can actually change the way you think you don't have to stay in thought patterns that are toxic there are interrupting thoughts you know in psychiatry that that can enter in as well but what i what i saw was you know what we've kept all of this over here in this corner of science and the church is kind of crossing their arms at it like i don't know and i'm like actually it's really cool if you read the bible of course the brain god built what they're finding out about it is backed up in scripture right that's not surprising to us that are christians so so i think yes what's cool about the brain you got to understand what they've learned about the brain in the last 20 years is more than they've learned about the brain in 2000 years so we're just beginning my one of my best friends had a massive stroke when she was 35. and so i sat in with the leading experts in neuroscience and recovery from strokes in the state of texas and you know it bothered me at the time but they just kept saying we don't know we don't know to every question we would ask because they still don't the leading experts don't know how powerful the brain is and how much it can recover um but what they are continuing to find out in those 20 years is that that the brain is is it repairs and it rebuilds and so i think that's what we've got to understand is when paul's saying these things about changing your brain that you don't have to um stay in these toxic thoughts that you can think on what is true let's just take that one line think on what is true that's what he says at the end of philippians so think on what is true just that think of how many anxious thoughts aren't even about something real how many of your thoughts you know let me give you an example so i have a son when i'm writing this book he's about to go to college now he's a junior when i wrote the book um i was obsessed with him making good choices and you know just sending him out on his own because no offense but like frontal lobes are missing and like he's supposed to just go into the world and so i'm i'm i think about it all the time i think about it at night i think about it in the day i i obsess about it and so my friend that's a that's a counselor i was interviewing her for this book and and she told me that that every human has three lies that they believe fundamentally and i was like i have one thousand she goes no jenny you only have three that's the science it all comes back down to three and i've asked around about this because i just still don't believe it that it really is only three but every person in science and psychiatry is like yeah it's like psych 101 like this is this is just human nature three lies i am helpless i am worthless i am unlovable i am helpless i mean about ourselves i am helpless i am worthless i am unlovable and so she's sitting there counseling me which was awesome it was free because i was just interviewing her i tricked her and so she was like so give me an example of one of your one of your worries or one of your fears and so i told her about my son and so she said well jenny so so what if he makes some bad choices and i was like well if he makes some bad choices then then he might end up marrying somebody i don't like or getting pregnant and then having to marry eat somebody and you know i just start playing all this stuff and she was like okay then what then what and and where i ended was prison [Laughter] and so she said so so and at that point i'm just kind of reeling and and she said so you feel helpless and i'm like oh yeah that was good good job yeah so so all of our our fears and our lives can kind of go back to those three things and so i am helpless i am worthless i am unlovable and and that's been cool for me to to boil it down because there is a liar and that's what he does and and if we as the church don't realize that that there's a great um advantage to us believing lies for the enemy like that's a great advantage for us to be shut down to feel worthless helpless and lovable now what's interesting about those three lies is there's a little bit of biblical truth in them right like we're grasshoppers before i mean you could find you know stories about the fact that you know what we are a little bit helpless this is a little bit true right i don't know are you all not i can see you totally yeah you're not you're like i got this um we are a little bit helpless we are you know there is something of like yes we're just passing through like there's this so and we are sinners we're all born sinners and so in that regard we are unlovable and yet the gospel and it changes everything and so what the devil does is he takes something that's a little bit true and he sticks it in our heads and then we obsess about that even if it doesn't look like those words and then all of a sudden we are shut down we are insecure we are addicted we are coping instead of living and we're useless and so this is where i got excited is if we could attack this and go okay wait a minute what is true about those lies what is true biblically about those lives i'm helpless i am filled with the spirit of god i have given the word of god that is sharper than any two-edged sword like i'm not that helpless and then i'm not worthless i was worth dying for you were worth dying for that's the story of the gospel that's right and i'm not unlovable because a god created me in my mother's womb and even knows to this day how many hairs on my head even though i find that useless but but he does and and he he delights over me he even likes me but that's because of the righteousness of christ that i've inherited so so that story is completely busted up with the bible and so what paul did in this was he was like listen fight this destroy every stronghold because you have the power to do it you destroy every stronghold because you have the power to do it and that's where i again i'm kind of stuck on this dave and i'm sorry we can move on but i just feel like if we understood the spiritual authority that we had over these lies if we saw it the way that god sees it we would not stay stuck in porn we would not say second anxiety we would not stay stuck in places where we don't belong as followers and children of god and again i am not saying that all this is not real just let it be said in case i got sound bited out because i i just i need it to be clear that i understand there's a real fight and for some of us that fight is harder than others and we need to have that grace but for some of us we just need to stand up and start fighting instead of letting the devil just take us out sure that's right that's good i um so i think uh just take a little aside here one thing it seems like women are often more in tune with their emotions their feelings even their thoughts but to trace because some of the guys may be going i've never had the thought that i'm unlovable i was just wondering about dinner and uh but in terms of like man just having done this in the last 12 years those those anchor some of you you chose the job that you're in because you didn't think anybody would love you if you didn't have that degree the number one reason statistically in studying pornography which you just talk about a lot just because it's it's so rampant and prevalent that um books have written about the driving number one reason why men turn to porn and women i'm not actually confident on the breakdown there i know at least for men one of the leading reasons is they don't they want to feel wanted which means i don't feel lovable and so the the ways that this really is and if you can't conquer these lies today they're not going away and the reason why you end up in toxic relationships or you settle for jerk after jerk in dating or jerk after jerk girl in dating is because they're these things are playing themselves out and they're affecting your mind and so learning to be able to confront these lies to identify them as lies to identify them is not true whatever struggles you would admit to right now like yeah sometimes i get too angry sometimes they get too drunk those are directly correlated to everything that we're talking about so that's why this is such a huge thing and um and even to your point today you know uh we both my wife is a counselor we have mutual friends christina and just the counseling world like science does to just punctuate what paul says in romans chapter 12 about renew your thinking if you can transform your thinking you'll transform your living that is what 000 years later cognitive behavioral therapy which is just it's a new psychology term basically they're going oh yeah if you transform your thinking you'll transform your living as though like huh that's what paul said two thousand years before freud or before any of you guys came along welcome to where we've been for 2000 years and uh and so that's why this is such a crucial and important topic and uh anything you'd add on that oh that's good yeah i just i i feel like i thought so it was well delivered it was well delivered well done well done yep yeah i mean here's the thing we're all trying so hard to work on our behavior and this is why if you've never done the work in your life if you have been abused in any form any form if you have you know for all of us i bet most of us can remember a time when everything changed you may not have been physically abused but you can remember when you picked up one of those lies i was 12 years old i'm sitting in my dad's recliner with him and i felt so safe so safe enough to sit like really close to my dad and just sit there and talk to him and we were looking at the ceiling i remember it had popcorn we were taught my childhood home and i remember he asked started asking me questions like this 12 years old do you think you're going to make homecoming court this year do you think you know so-and-so likes you how are your grades he was running through a list of things that i could tell he thought if you maximize those things then you're going to be a good daughter then you're going to be a good human and as a little girl it's the first time i remember feeling like i am not safe and i am not enough as i am and that began a journey for me that i struggled with until 30 years old where i felt like i could not hit an invisible line that kept moving and i was chasing it with all my guts and i loved god but there was this competing idol of approval that ran right beside my my love for god in it in that verse in hebrews 12 that that it hindered me and was it my fault that i picked that up no but was it my fault that i didn't fight it yes so there's probably a moment that you can remember when when that lie entered in and so we've got to do this work i know some of you guys are like oh my gosh like i'm going to have some deep talk with my girlfriend tonight i feel it but but i promise you it is worth going back and figuring out what did you pick up and where did you pick it up because if it is from the enemy which all lies are from him john tells us jesus was really clear he's the father of lies and it's his native tongue it's how he speaks so if we've just let those lies grow in us then we don't want to live with that anymore yeah that's good anything you've pointed to god's word multiple times and then uh god's people i don't know if you've directly said that but you have referenced how in the midst of fighting those battles it's you really can't do it alone you can't and that that is something that sounds cliche or preachy or like of course you would say that but anything else you would add on just the importance of being known this is not something where you can do it just with with jesus and me here if you want to experience victory on this you've got to have other people in your life that are a part of that battle anything you would yeah so that's actually what i'm working on right now and i've spent the last six months yeah of community and i mean a lot of you know this but god created out of community he was in community with himself and so i think we go through life and we think this is an optional thing like i should have better friends or i think i'm going to join a small group when actually because god is community he birthed us to community there's not an optional factor to this it's literally in the dna of who we are my friend kurt thompson that's um a counselor says when a baby's born it's born asking the question or looking for somebody that's looking for for him that we're all doing that even to this day we're looking for somebody looking for us and so i think that idea is just so human that we literally are aching for connection and guys the funny thing is is we think that these struggles are going to be the thing that that cause us to not have connection well that's another lie the truth is that that our struggles are what actually bond us to other people and so struggling together that's good is is how we were built to do this and god knew it that that we couldn't do it alone in fact most of the scripture is not written to an individual it's written to a people group the new testament to the church and the old testament to israel so so it's just we read it we're like you be a holy people well okay that feels hard to do but together as we're running after god we become more holy and so i think watermark is so good at that our church is really unusually good at community but i think all of us as americans are very fundamentally bent toward individualism and i don't think we even realize all the ways that it has changed the way we do life and so my plea is don't do anything alone like as you are going you know you spend time alone with jesus he did that some but a lot of his days was were full of people and i think that that was a pattern for us of living that that we got to be running together and we've got to bring people into everything we're doing and i'm teaching my team this you know that they ask for help even if they don't think they need it just because we don't do anything alone we do everything in community if god does not exist alone then we don't exist alone and so i think what begins to change as we live in godly connected community the way we were built the way that trinity exists connected to people in a really deep intimate way is they know everything now my good friends they see it before i even tell them they'll see it they'll see it on my face they'll call me out this happened last week we were at a little prayer gathering at my house and i was trying to just get through the night because i had things i needed to do and they were like jenny your heart is hard and i was like my heart is bored and i need to go do other things and i'm going to steal that and i didn't say that exactly but that's what i was thinking and then they just don't leave me alone and before i know it like i'm crying and they're praying over me and i'm like okay my heart was hard yeah it was and and i love people that that see us and that can't they don't let us get away with things but but let me say this because i do think one thing we could fall prey to is that being authentic is enough because i've watched this happen over and over again where everybody's in their small group and they're all confessing their sin and they come back the next week and they all confess the same sin and they come back the next week and and everything nothing really changes and i think that's where we've got to be better friends to each other and say listen we're going to go to war and we're going to take these tools these weapons that god has given us and we're going to implement them and we're going to fight the devil for you and we are going to pray over you i mean that night my friends were praying for me with their hands on me just because i had a barely hard heart y'all like this this is how seriously we take this is is we're not going to get derailed by anything we're not going to get derailed by anything we're going to fight for each other and yes you're going to feel weird the first few times you're like somebody's like you know i've just had a hard week and it's like in jesus name like we are going to pray for you but it's but i think we've got to start to one get better at articulating what it is that we're fighting and struggling with guys you too and then we've also got to get better at receiving people fighting for us after i was well you know after i was honest about what i was going through those two friends they said we are fasting and praying for you on this day and i was kind of embarrassed and i felt like i don't want them to take a whole day and not eat like that's a big commitment for me like i felt selfish and like it's okay it's not that bad and then i was like no it's that bad let's do this and so we all prayed and we fasted and and i received that it was awkward and hard to do but i received it because they knew that i was in deep and dark and i needed somebody to fight for me that's good so what i hear and essentially to summarize everything hey you're at war your thoughts determine the destinations and direction of your life which is just the proverbs of as a man think as he is and part of the weapons that you have to use is god's word what is true interrupting you have a choice and every thought you have and every thought you tolerate and every time that you allow thoughts to continue to take other thoughts and lead you in a path you're shaping your future in your life so go to war and the way part of the weapons that we have is god's word and being real with god's people and having really uh having real followers of christ who are willing to call you out and say hey i'm gonna i'm going to war i'm going to come over at 2 a.m i'm going to come over meet you i'm going to text you every morning to pray for this and i need you to do the same thing and that's how we do that anything before i move us on to two final questions that are less related to this topic and more related to some of you and zach and just your experience with this generation anything else you'd add on this whole subject before we move on i just want to encourage you i i have seen this change people's lives i know some of you are like i don't know how it would if you take your thought life seriously and you bring that to jesus and you say god help me with this like i really want this to change he has said it can he has said it's possible and so i think that if there's one thing if there's only one thing you take away let it be that that the way we are transformed is by the renewal of our mind that means it's possible so we've got to start by just believing you know what god can remake this rather than being victims to what the enemy has lied to us about for too long come on so good um yeah so you've been married to zach 23 years 23 years razorback was he a razorback no we met at canaccot camps oh yep nothing like a good camp loves yep we were kissing in the k dome yeah we did wow that is that definitely violates camp police [Laughter] sorry joe it ended up working out so and uh and you guys have four kids um what would you say to a lot most of the room by far as single and in terms of qualities that drew you to zach no marriage is perfect i know you guys have even shared here i think before even you know we're all on a journey but what were the qualities that drew you to zach other than he was a good french kisser in the uh dome that was a joke he is okay um just save the email i apologize it was a joke other than that what godly qualities would you say these are the things to look for because you have a daughter and uh you have you have young adult kids who you would say these are the qualities absolutely okay so this is this is a little bit secret story i don't think i've ever told so right before we got married this is probably two months so we didn't do save the date back then that's a new expensive feature of weddings um but so that hadn't gone out but it was probably about the time that was would have gone out and i was having doubts that i should marry him and i remember we were long-distance dating and so i barely knew the guy like we we just it was scary that we were getting married except that the guy was godly and i remember one day we were together and i just i was like lord i can't go into marriage wondering if i should be married to this guy like you've got to seal the deal here and i prayed i remember that day just going to war with it and saying god you got to you got to be clear with me if this is the man i'm supposed to marry and of course a voice from the sky i'm just kidding that didn't happen but what did happen was i opened my bible and i began to go okay what do we know about marriage what do we know about the kind of guy i should marry and i just began to write a list in my little journal and i was like he needs to be humble he needs to pray he needs to be committed and surrender to jesus and do whatever he says check he needs to honor me he needs to believe um that i have you know gifts and that that he's gonna partner with me in those check like i just made a list of just what the bible says it was super simple things and at the end of it that i looked at the list and i was like is this is this who he is and the answer was absolutely yes i mean he's not perfect in any of those things in fact we went on to have a difficult first five years of marriage and did get some counseling a lot of counseling after that but but he was a godly man and he he loved him and he was going to follow him and i knew it and and so i committed to marry the man and i'm saying this because i think we think there's some special feeling that will come over us at some point that's like light shine from heaven anoint the girl this is her and i'm i'm having these conversations with my kids i was like it doesn't work like that look around and see who's following god i don't know if you're attracted yes maybe that's a part of it but no that's not really a biblical part of it mary a girl that loves god and is spending her life doing that because the purpose of marriage is that we display the relationship between jesus and the church and if if it is not sacrificial if it is not committed no matter what to biblical story lines that that he's given us then i don't i don't see it's just what the tv teaches us it's just what you know it's just what culture teaches us that's not love what love is is two people committed to god and committing to each other for all their life and it won't feel because here's the thing if you get the attraction good but it will go away so it's like why chase something that's that's fickle if you get a guy and i did if and i was attracted to him at different times but i did he's going to kill me he's watching live i love you baby i'm so attracted to you now oh my gosh i'm in so much trouble but it wasn't what did you say well nothing i'm not going to repeat it um but it wasn't about the attraction it was that i just felt confused and i didn't feel sure and what made me sure was not feelings that seemed to come and go it was the character of god that i saw in his life and i think that is what has seen us through 23 years and i look at him now y'all and i am totally attracted to him baby i am so attracted to you i cannot wait to get home tonight but but but it isn't about that even today because if that goes away tomorrow i don't care like i'm in this with this man to to be for the good of people and the glory of god so it's just a different way to view marriage and we are such teammates and we are we have fun and we are running the race but it was built on a vision of obeying god together not on feelings so good okay last question just as we wrap up your your ministry has given you a platform you speak to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people a year a lot of them are young adults you have young adult kids anything you would say to encourage sharpen challenge just if you had a few minutes to share anything with with this group and those listening i would say this that go build a life that is building heaven and leave the details out of that if you can look around at your life and i'm not talking about vocational ministry for goodness sakes i'm largely ministering we largely minister to christians you know you guys are the ones in the trenches what we're supposed to do is equip the saints for the work of the kingdom i'm just talking about in everything you're doing like spending it in this eternal story we've been talking about tonight and and the reason i say that is guys i don't know how much longer we have before jesus is going to come back and my sense is i'm spending a lot of time actually with gen z right now that's a lot of who we minister to is college students i'm looking at gen z and some of you are are in that category and i'm going we may be preparing them to usher in the kingdom there's that sense in me of just i want you to be daniel's in babylon and i want you to know god and to be disciplined and to care about i mean when that becomes the storyline when you're like you know what jesus could come back soon the bible i work with battle translation too and bible i'm a big translator for a people group in a jungle i'm just kidding i just give them money um but but i do think that in 13 years they're saying that we're going to have reached every single language 13 years which is one of the things that has to happen before jesus can come back so the fact that we're closing in on almost everything that we would need for revelation to happen for for jesus to come back means that we should be taking our lives very seriously and so the addiction the distraction the anxiety that i see in the church i want to fight it not so that you can live happier lives so that we can usher in the kingdom of god together because we might just be up like it might be the calling of our lives so take it all seriously take it all seriously because we don't want to be those that are sleeping when he comes back we want to be those that are running and we're out of breath and we're not surprised we're like hallelujah i don't even have to die like i get to just fly up to heaven you know let's be that that and and i think if we could take it that seriously you know i just gosh the world needs hope right now and we could be that hope for them so good would you mind yeah would you mind praying um praying that that would be the case and then praying in particular for anyone who is trapped whether they would say that or not just in the spiral of fear or anxiety or lust or anger or um just sad yep i'm going to pray on my knees because we are fighting spiritual forces because the greatest desire of the enemy would to cause every single human that hears my voice right now to be stuck and helpless and hopeless and distracted and addicted checked out and god that is against your will for us and i believe things are at stake that we can't imagine and yet you imagine them and you know them and so i pray for your spirit to set us free god and not in some magical way but in participation choices that we make every day to pursue you instead of pursue the world to pursue you instead of pursue our flesh and what it craves and what it wants god i pray for a holy people set apart and blameless god not perfect but covered with the blood and living like it believing it god not just just saying yeah i'm a christian but believing that that changes everything and letting it god i pray against half-heartedness i pray god that our whole hearts would be surrendered to you and in any place that they're not god would you root it out would you show us would you help us name it the place that we've that we've loved something more than you that we've let the enemy lie to us that we've completely submitted to to darkness in a way that that is not pleasing to you god show us make it so clear where we can't shake it and help us confess it help us surrender it god i pray for every person hearing my voice god would they not be apathetic would they walk out of here would they grab people by the shoulder and say how can i fight for you how can i pray for you how can i help you love jesus more would we be those kind of people for each other would we believe that you are more powerful than the enemy that is seeking to kill steal and destroy us and would we act like it and would we go to your word constantly god not even daily but hour by hour would we be going to it constantly because it is the only hope that we have without it god we are hopeless we are helpless we are worthless we are unlovable but because of you we are the most loved people on planet earth so help god that love go and reach out to the ends of the earth god i just i picture everybody in here and i'm picturing this generation and i'm picturing us in heaven and i just i want so badly more than anything else on earth i want so badly for us to get up there and like high five and be like we've left it on the field like we did everything we could to build the kingdom of god while we were here and so anything prohibiting that in me in us god take it out and help us be faithful to choose you day after day in jesus name amen amen thanks guys thank you jenny you guys give it up for jenny allen thank you jenny man i um i'm just going to wrap us up and we're going to close in song i uh i think some of us in the room were in that escape room and you're in that place and you feel stuck and i want you to know it's because you are and it may be sucking depression it may be stuck in anxiety it may be stuck in in a pornography addiction it may be stuck in a really toxic relationship it may be stuck and that there's so much trauma from sexual abuse you've never told anybody about it wasn't your fault but you've never dealt with that and now it begins to bleed out into your life you don't trust people because of what your dad did and you're stuck and you're in those walls not physically but inside of your mind and inside of your life and it's impacting the rest of your future and your current reality and you're going to be there and you're going to be stuck until you do what we had to do in that escape room where you're willing to say hey i don't care i need help i need help i need a clue i need something from the outside to help me get unstuck and you go to god's word and god's people and you know what you're gonna find you're gonna find steps towards freedom and you don't have to stay stuck but let me be abundantly clear you're going to until you're willing to do what the bible says is called surrender i can't do it all on my own i can't fight this on my own you weren't made to fight it on your own you were made to go to god's people to god's word and to say i need help and tonight is a chance for you to do that and if you take those steps your life and your future is going to change and if you don't let me be clear if you're 30 10 years from now you're gonna be the same that thing you're hiding eating disorder past abortion shame and guilt you care for think they're not going away if anything they may just grow and grow until you're willing to say i need help and what you'll find is god his word his people come rushing in and tonight i wanted you to hear there are steps you can take but you got to be willing to say man i want to be free i need help others of you you're in a place where you need to know that you the greatest thing you need to surrender is the fact that you think that you could earn a relationship with god you'd never put your faith in jesus in fact you don't even know what the bible teaches you think the bible teaches good people go to heaven bad people go to hell i just need to be a good person this place is pretty cool vibes and you know don't make me wear a suit and church that's kind of cool so i'm coming in here and you think that god is angry at you can't forgive you you need to read your bible and attend church and then he'll love you more then you could have a relationship with him and you have bought a lie the bible doesn't teach that it teaches not good people and having bad people in hell forgiven people go to heaven and the only way you get forgiveness is by putting your trust not in what you have done or what you did to be the thing that keeps you in relationship with god or keeps you out of heaven with god that's never been what christianity teaches it teaches you know who gets to have a relationship with god you know whose life begins to change you know who spends eternity in heaven people go i'm not enough i surrender if i'm ever going to have a relationship with god it's only because of jesus i think i'm a good person try to be nice pay my taxes not enough the bible has never taught those things matter it's never taught those things change how god feels about you it teaches people who say i'm a sinner my life is full of messed up decisions i made i have hurt people i've done things i'm ashamed of but because jesus on that cross gave his life for me paid for my decisions my sin all of those have been forgiven god doesn't hold them against me any sin in my future already forgiven because on that cross the son of god came to this earth was crucified was buried and he rose again and you know what that shows he paid for all sin ever he conquered all sin he even conquered death when he rose from the grave it's like the check cleared the credit card went through it was more than enough people who accept jesus paid for their sin those are people who spend eternity with god those are people whose life changed but you know what it takes in order to do that's a really hard thing you got to say i need help i can't do it on my own i can't do it on my own and you know you can't and god doesn't want you to and he's done everything that he can to say you can't that's why i gave my life for you if you'll trust in that your eternity will change and your present reality will begin to change let me pray father thank you that you are more powerful than any thought any thought pattern any cosmic forces of darkness any enemy in this world you're more powerful than any evil that could take place in the hearts of people you're more powerful than sickness than sin then death you are victorious and nothing can stand against you and you have allowed us through your spirit the weapons to wage war in the mind so i pray tonight that those who are battling anxiety they would experience freedom not just in a moment but in a day by day moment by moment second by second thought by thought war by holding on to what is true what's noble what's pure what's lovely what's right you begin to create pathways and change the way that they think and therefore change the way that they live and you would set people free i pray for those who've never put their faith in jesus tonight they would realize they're a sinner they've done things that you according to your word you say man the wages of sin or the repayment for sin the consequences is separation from god unless you're willing to say i need help and i ex accept what you did for me that they would receive the payment your son gave the savior of the world the king of kings and they would find rest in your hands and your plan and your love father we need your help all of us we've got 60 000 thoughts a day many of which maybe most of which are not in a direction that's leading us to the life that we want they're not captive to your spirit so we ask and invite just plead that you would help us god thank you that you provided your word and your people help us to go to war we love you christ's name amen

Channel: The Porch

Views: 46,924

Rating: 4.9293022 out of 5

Keywords: the, porch, dallas, watermark, community, church, christian, christianity, ministry, movement, fort, worth, faith, sermon, dating, truth, bible, advice, biblical, counsel, jonathan pokluda, the porch, watermark community church, young adults, fort worth, david marvin, todd wagner, the bible

Id: fKwFzY44_oo

Length: 70min 1sec (4201 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2020