Theology Thursday, and Two Books I Love

Good morning, my friend. I hope you're doing well. I'm Dr. Lee Warren here with

you for another episode of the Dr. Lee Warren Podcast.

We're going to do a little self -brain surgery today, and it's sort of Theology Thursday.

We normally do some kind of throwback episode, but I promised you this week

that we were going to get the first of three things I learned from three books

I loved, and I gave you the Mark Brogat piece from Dark Clouds,

Deep Mercy earlier this week,

so we'll throw that back here in a minute so you can have it all in one episode

but I'm going to give you snippets from two other books that I love.

We're going to address a reader's question and it's all going to kind of work

together in why I love these two books and we're going to get after it in just

a few minutes and I'm going to change your mind hopefully about one thing today

but before we get to that I have a question for you.

Hey are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.

You have to change your mind first and my friend There's a place for the neuroscience

of how your mind works smashes together with faith and everything starts to

make sense Are you ready to change your life?

Well, this is the place self brain surgery school I'm dr.

Lee Warren and this is where we go deep into how we're wired take control of

our thinking and find real hope this Is where we learn to become healthier feel

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

This is where we start today. Are you ready? This is your podcast.

This is your place. This is your time, my friend. Let's get after it.

Music.

All right, you ready to get after it? Here we go. So we're gonna do occasionally

these three things I learned from three books I love episodes.

I read a lot and we talk about books on this podcast almost every episode.

We mentioned something I'm reading or I take something from something that I've read.

And I have a lot of people write in and say, hey, you mentioned these books

and we'd love to hear more about them.

And I'll always put the link in the show notes, by the way, almost every time

I mention a book, if you go to the notes on that episode, wherever you listen

to podcasts You can always go to my website and get to the transistor page.

There's a transcript of every episode, all the new ones that come out anyway have transcripts.

I'm going back over time to add

transcripts to the old ones now that that process is a lot more automated.

And please understand, I got a comment on YouTube the other day that the subtitles

and transcripts are computer generated and I don't usually have time to go through

and check them word for word.

So there sometimes will be a typo or something funny. So if the words that you're

reading or seeing on the screen don't seem to make sense, just go back up and

usually you can hear what we actually said that the computer may have misinterpreted.

And if you just really get stuck on something, feel free to write in and we'll

see if we can address that for you.

But if you do, take the stress off me and tell me what episode and what time

point in the episode you're confused about.

So I don't have to go try to sort that out. We just don't have time,

obviously, to go back through 900 episodes and figure out what sentence you couldn't figure out.

So help me out as much as you can, and I promise as much to the extent that

we can, me or one of my team members will do what we can to help you understand something.

But those transcripts are getting more and more accurate over time,

and that's helped a lot to be able to add transcription to the episodes.

So I hope that you're utilizing that resource.

If you're a person who takes notes or journals or uses these episodes to help

you advance in your life, then the transcripts could be something really helpful

to you. You can copy and paste them into your note -keeping software.

I use a program called Evernote every day of my life.

Evernote is a great place to store snippets of things, make notes,

shopping lists, checklists, all

that stuff that's not a commercial for Evernote, but I use it every day.

You could copy and paste transcripts from my podcast into your journal if you're

using the podcast to journal and keep track of changes that you're trying to

make in your life. That sort of thing would be helpful to you.

We do a lot of reading and we talk about books all the time on this podcast

and one of the books that has shaped my life more than any other,

particularly as I learned how to write.

And of course we all know how to write, right? But when you start trying to

communicate in book form or in blog form or in essay form, you learn pretty

quickly that you need to work on the craft of writing.

And I'm forever in the debt of Philip Yancey, who was one of the first people

to ever say to me, hey, your writing sounds like you're writing for your wife

or your mom or your sister or your brother,

somebody who knows you, you're taking a lot of things for granted that the reader

has to make mental exercise to figure out.

And he was exactly right. My first book called out.

I wrote it for friends and family. I never imagined that anybody like you would

want to read or listen to something that I had to say out there in the larger world.

So I did. There was a lot of inside baseball, inside references and things that

nobody would be able to figure out if they didn't already know me.

And I didn't think about that when I was writing it, that a stranger would need

some explanation or that I should do a better job of making,

taking the workload off the stranger in some of those places.

And so learning the craft of writing really became important to me.

And when Phillip introduced me to my agent, Kathy Helmers, the very first meeting

we ever had, which was in Nashville, Tennessee.

Lisa and I went over. We actually took Mitch and Kalen, our two kids that were

still at home with us at the time, and we went to a Taylor Swift and Need to

Breathe concert while we were in Nashville.

It was one of our great memories that we had with Mitch and Kalen together.

It turned out to be about three years before we lost our son.

You don't have any idea when you're sitting at a concert with your son that

three years later he'll be gone,

but these things happen in life, And so we had this meeting with Creative Trust

and Kathy Helmers and her two partners in that publishing agency,

representative agency.

Decided to take a chance on an unknown rider based just really on the on the

recommendation of Philippians Ian so we had this meeting we signed a contract

and we got after the idea of turning called out into what?

Ultimately would become no place to hide And

at first there was all this discussion of ghost riders and

all that kind of stuff and and we made a decision that we Just

couldn't tolerate I couldn't tolerate letting somebody else

tell my story and so I said to Kathy well

do you think I can write it myself if I study hard enough

and she kind of jokingly said well do you think I can do brain surgery if

I try hard enough and she was joking of course but she basically gave

me a bunch of books to go read she

said if you're really serious about learning how to

write it yourself then take a year or longer and

go read as much as you can and study and do what you would do

in any academic area and go try to get better start by

reading about writing and then start by writing a lot and so we did that and

one of the books that she recommended to me was Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

who had never heard of Bird by Bird some instructions on writing and life Bird by Bird and so,

there are multiple things I could do 10 episodes about things I learned from

Bird by Bird and I still read it again every once in a while and one of her

books, almost everything notes on hope.

I read almost every year. It's one of my favorite books about hope.

And I've told you before, when I recommend writers, that doesn't necessarily

mean that I agree with everything they say, and it doesn't necessarily mean

that I agree with their theology if they state theological positions,

but you can learn something from just about any book and just about anybody.

And I've found Anne Lamott to be somebody I learned from all the time,

although I don't endorse her theology.

Okay. That being said bird by bird.

She goes into really a great working definition of what hope is I learned from

her because she quoted from GK Chesterton,

which is a another way of saying Read other people's

work and you can build on their shoulders and you never know if you're GK Chesterton

100 years ago and you write something that and Lamont is moved by and she writes

something about you and her book and Lee Warren has moved by it and it turns

out to be a little bit of the rope that I'm able to hold on to when I'm hurting or hopeless.

So Anne Lamott said, "'Hope,' as Chesterton said," Chesterton,

I'm stumbling over his name today, G .K.

Chesterton, great book. Orthodoxy is my favorite of his.

So Anne Lamott says, "'Hope,' as Chesterton said, "'is the power of being cheerful

in circumstances "'that we know to be desperate.'".

Now that's a funny way of saying what hope is. Hope is the power of being cheerful

in circumstances that we know to be desperate.

Now that's a pretty superficial definition of hopefulness.

You and I both know, and we've talked a lot about it, that hope is not about being cheerful.

Hope's about being able to see a path forward when you're in a desperate strait.

And I think that's what Chesterton meant, as he certainly has a strong theology.

Chesterton has a tremendous grasp on deep theological concepts,

And he's not saying that you just put a smile on it and act act cheerful and

even in a desperate circumstance That's not what he's saying You can have this

sort of cheer about you That I'm gonna find a way forward in this because God

has promised me that he will be with me No matter how desperate my situation

so that's a good working definition.

You can have this Spirit about you in my book.

Hope is the first dose we call these people untouchables these people who are

able to plow ahead knowing the situation is desperate, knowing that the end

point might not be what we would have wished for, but still knowing that we're

not alone and that we have a hope and a future.

And that's what allows us to have this peace about us, this untouchability.

And I call that happiness. And we've talked a lot before about the definition

of happiness and how lots of Christians have been sort of hoodwinked about that word.

Because somehow in the 20th century, people said, you know what?

Christians aren't supposed to try to be happy.

They have this joy, this inner peace, this sanguine, joyful state.

And I even got an email from someone recently, wonderful email,

kind email, but she said, hey, we love your podcast, and I just wanna tell you

a word that I use instead of happiness. I use the word content.

I'm able to be content. Well, let me just challenge that thought a little bit,

because content, happiness, and joy are not the same thing.

In almost every example, if you look at the Hebrew or the Greek and the Old

Testament and the New Testament, joy and happiness are essentially synonyms.

The idea that they're separate things is a 20th century evangelical Christian

construction that's not biblical.

The idea that there's a difference between being happy and being joyful,

that there's some sort of two different states, that happiness is for the world

and joy is for Christians, that's not a biblical concept.

The words are synonymous in

every circumstance, but the word content is an entirely different thing.

It's an entirely different meaning, an entirely different circumstance,

and let's talk about that for a second before we go on to finish why I love Bird by Bird so much.

Okay, so content is a different word than happiness slash joy joy slash happiness

Okay, i'm not being disrespectful.

This is really important because

I think it's a trick of the enemy The enemy your enemy of your soul,

Has convinced us as a church as a group that we're not supposed to worry about being happy,

And the problem is the most basic human drive inside us of the way that our

nervous system is wired is to seek reward and pleasure There's nothing wrong with that.

Don't hear me. Don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying seek whatever strikes your

fancy I'm not saying that that's what makes you happy. I'm saying the opposite of that.

So stay with me your nervous system is rewired is wired To with this internal

reward system that when you do something that produces reward It makes you feel

a certain set of things that you associate with well -being and happiness.

Okay, that's just how you're wired God made you

that way and so to tell the outside world who don't know Christ Who don't know

the hope that we have to tell them that it's inherently wrong to want to be

happy It's basically trying to convince them to join a team that goes against

all of their basic internal.

Neurophysiological drives,

Don't worry about being happy that doesn't make sense and it creates cognitive

dissonance inside you the difference is this,

There is a type of happiness a pursuit of things that actually produce happiness

That does not pale and become stale and decay and rot and die And that's what

we should be shooting for as christians c .s.

Lewis said it perfectly when you aim at heaven You get heaven with the earth

thrown in And when you aim at the earth, you end up with neither Neither heaven

nor earth and what that mean. What does that mean?

Exactly. Well, what it means is if you spend your life pursuing things that

you think will make you happy okay,

and That's what your goal is to feel something have something earn something

win something Have win somebody over to your perspective or into your bedroom

or into your life If you if that's what defines happiness for you then you will

end up having nothing able to satisfy that for you.

And that's the entire problem I would submit to you. That's the entire problem

of our current, really all human history's secular worldview.

Is that we think we're chasing something that lacks the inherent power to produce real happiness.

The Bible says it plain, delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the

desires of your heart. Why?

Because your heart changes, your

mind changes, and you figure out what it really is that He's offering.

The story in John of the woman at the well, He says, hey, you're thirsty and

you're hungry and you keep drinking and you keep eating and you find yourself

thirstier and hungrier because you're eating and drinking the wrong stuff.

So let me give you the water and the bread that actually fills you up and satisfies you.

Understand this, I'm not picking on the people that say we're supposed to seek

this sort of internal peace and balance and joy, but what I'll tell you is that

if you're trying to show somebody why they should want to be a Christian,

why they should want to pin their hopes on Jesus Christ,

it's really to answer the question,

I know something that will actually make you happy that's different than the

things that you've been chasing after that you think will make you happy,

because how's that working for you?

And the bottom line the truth is the things

we seek and chase after in the world Never make

us happy and once we get them we either

lose them they die they get cancer The inflation goes up and they don't have

the purchasing power that we thought they did anymore something changes and

the thing that we thought We needed to have to be happy doesn't work anymore

and doesn't make us happy anymore Or we lose it and then we can't be happy because

we thought we had to have it and now we don't have it right,

The difference is when God says you drink this water you will never be thirsty again.

You eat this bread you'll never be hungry again.

You change what you identify as the

things that make you happy and I'll give you all those things too in a better

state where they won't decay and they won't go away and you won't lose them

and they won't cheat on you and the diagnosis won't come back bad and you're

gonna have a life with me that never decays or fades. How's that sound.

Now, let's talk about content for a second. Philippians 4 .11 is where this idea comes from.

Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatever state I

am, therefore to be content, therewith to be content, okay? That's the King James.

Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state

I am, therewith to be content.

Let's look at the Greek, okay? In the Greek, the word that's translated into

English as content in the King James, this idea that we're just supposed to

sort of be okay with whatever happens, and that's how we can define our own happiness.

That idea in Philippians 4 .11, that word, content, actually would translate

better probably as self -sufficient.

It's a verb, archaeo, and this is from the Interlinear Aberram Publication,

Interlinear Greek New Testament.

It says the verb archaeo describes structural resistance to an outside pressure.

Remember Chesterton said, hope is this idea that you can be cheerful in a desperate situation.

That's sort of the connotation that this archaeo, content or self -sufficient

idea is trying to connote here.

The English word arc, arc and arch, the latter of which describes a construction

designed to resist gravity caused by the weight of stones atop the arch.

Think about a stone archway, okay?

What's the physics of a stone archway? It's that each stone puts some pressure

on the others and that the combined structure of all that pressure pushing together

creates resistance to any of them falling individually.

And that's the idea that this Archaea is trying to get at, that I can push back

on the pressure that I'm getting from the outside world, and I won't collapse.

I've learned that whatever situation I find myself in, I can be sufficient in that.

I can hold up to that pressure, and I'm not going to collapse.

That's what content, that's what

the idea is that's being translated as content in Philippians 4 .11 is.

So, back to the Iberian publication, this word appears to derive from a really

old Proto -Germanic word for bow, or more specifically, something that has the

quality of a bow or pertaining to a bow.

Our word arrow derives from this word. These roots also provide architheos,

which is a noun that describes certain plants and trees that have resilient

or bendable branches, like juniper trees and the famous cedars in Phoenicia.

Okay, and then more generally this verb archaeo means to ward off or support

against collapse brought on By outside forces and so the noun that our cases

means to help in the adverb,

Arcanutos means strong enough or sufficiently supportive the adjective archaeos

Means to be relied on sure enough and the noun Arcos means defense so basically

what you're getting with this word in Philippians 411 is not Not anything to

do with an emotional state like joy or happiness,

but rather a structural state of being able to resist external pressure and

not collapse. That's what content means.

So it's being able to bear, to be docile, but also wildly strong if you need

to be so that you don't get crushed by outside forces.

Okay, and so that's kind

of a long -winded Winding way to say I want you I want us to be careful when

we accept outside ideas That indicate that we're not supposed to want to be

happy because Jesus Christ said the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy

But I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.

Okay, I have come that you might have abundant life and in the Beatitudes when

he says the way that we've translated it Blessed are those, blessed are they, blessed are those.

That word blessed, blessed, is a made up word.

It was a German translation that's trying to get at something more than what

the scripture actually says.

The word is makarios in the Greek.

And every time it shows up in the Old Testament, it's asher,

and that word means happy.

So what Jesus is trying to say is if you live your life in this way, you'll be happy.

It's counterintuitive, but you'll be happy by becoming meek,

you'll be happy by becoming poor in spirit, you'll be happy by becoming mournful.

You learn to overcome the world, and therefore you can have a happiness that

doesn't match up with anybody on the earth's idea.

And that's why what Jesus is selling, if you will, is so compelling and why it's lasted so long.

Because when you try the world's way of finding happiness, it doesn't work out.

And you beat yourself over the head and you spend your whole life chasing

after the next thing and it just doesn't work out and

you're not happy and you don't know why but when you try Jesus's way

you say wait a minute that doesn't seem to make any sense but

let me just try it and lo and behold guess what you

don't find yourself so thirsty anymore do you you don't

find yourself so hungry and yes you find yourself

more content and more able to bear up but that's

different and I just want to tell you we're going to get to it in a minute with

the third book I want to tell you that the idea that joy and happiness are two

different things is not a biblical concept and it didn't exist in literature

or anywhere else in the world in any sort of context other than them being perfect

synonyms until sometime in the 20th century.

So this concept that joy and happiness are different is not a biblical concept.

That might be a little bit off, it might be a late 19th century idea,

but really it shows up first in the Christian world in the writings of Oswald

Chambers, who lived from 1874 -1917,

did most of his work in the early 20th century, so forgive me if the decades

are perhaps a little bit off,

but I'm trying to drive home a point here that content is different than joy

and happiness, but happiness and joy are the same thing.

And so if we want to convince people that their way isn't helping them,

and get them to open their eyes and look at what's happening in their lives

and what their secular worldview is doing for them and it's not working,

but that our way has something to offer them,

we won't be successful if we lead with, oh, don't worry about being happy.

You're not supposed to be happy.

You're supposed to just knuckle out your life and look forward to some eternal

place down the road when things will work out for you.

But don't be concerned about being happy now. That just doesn't sell very well.

And it doesn't sell very well because your nervous system is wired to seek reward.

Enjoy and happiness are part of that reward pathway.

Okay, God made you that way Why because Jesus said it I came that you might

have an abundant life He wants things to taste good for you He wants them to

smell good for you wants you to laugh and have fun and enjoy your life It doesn't

mean that when hard things happen,

you don't get knocked off your feet It doesn't mean that you will okay,

and you might not find your way back to the kind of humor and happiness and

general a well -being that you had before.

But you can find a way to have a life that looks like an abundant life again.

It looks like a life that does have happy moments and does have hopefulness again.

You can, I'm telling you because I did it. I found my way there.

And I found my way there really through writing and through getting to know

what Jesus really meant when he told me that he came for me to have an abundant life,

because I couldn't square up how my life could feel so hard,

but it was also supposed to be happy again.

I couldn't square it up. And I found it in the Gospel of John,

as I've told you a million times, and I found it through writing.

And I found writing as a way to unpack all the things I'd gone through and be

able to articulate them in a way that made sense to me.

And then by extension, it turned out to make sense to Lisa and our family,

and then you, other people.

So I found bird by bird to go all the way back to where we started,

I found Bird by Bird as this book by Anne Lamott to help me understand how to

put together words in a way that made sense.

Now I made a great mistake and I think all authors do is that I had thought

that writing this book was going to produce some sort of inherent reward for

me in the sense that I would be so proud that I had done it or that lots of

people would line up and pat me on the back and tell me how great it was and all those things.

I fell into this idea that it was the getting a book published that was going

to help me find my way forward again.

That doesn't really make sense, but it's true and here

in an Lamont's book bird by bird She

gave me this understanding that all writers think that

in fact all people think that on some level That when they accomplish this thing

that this is gonna be the thing that finally helps me get everything together

And wrote this she said I believe before I sold my first book that publication

would be instantly and automatically gratifying an affirming and romantic experience.

A hallmark commercial where one runs and leaps in slow motion across a meadow

filled with wildflowers and to the arms of acclaim and self -esteem.

This did not happen for me. The months before a book comes out of the shoot

are, for most writers, right up there with the worst life has to offer.

Pretty much like the first twenty minutes of Apocalypse Now.

The waiting and the fantasies, both happy and grim, wear you down,

plus there is the matter of the early reviews that come out about two months before publication.

I had secretly believed that trumpets would blare, major reviewers would proclaim

that not since Moby Dick had an American novel so captured life in all its dizzying complexity.

And this is what I thought when my second book came out, and my third,

and my fourth, and my fifth.

And each time I was wrong, but I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so.

I just try to warn people who hope to get

published that publication is not all what's cracked

up to be but writing is Writing has

so much to give so much to teach so many

surprises That thing you had to force yourself to do the actual act of writing

turns out to be the best part you get that So it's not the having written a

book that makes you happy or gives you satisfaction It's the act of performing

the writing of the book, the learning, the growing, the healing,

the finding community of people who are willing to read books written by this

weird neurosurgeon and get up in the morning with me and listen to me talk about

all this random stuff that somehow has to do with how our lives get better, right?

So what I've learned is it's not the, I get to have written a book that gets

out in the store and I get so much praise and pats on the back and feedback

from the book, it's not that.

It's the fact that I learned so much about myself and my characters in the story

and ultimately for you as well How we engage in this process and really that's

the point Of christian happiness.

That's the point of the abundant life that jesus gave us It's not that we get

to the end and we say hey We finally have this thing that we were shooting at

it's that god gave us the ability to enjoy,

And have quality in that life while we were engaging in it And the last thing

I learned from Bird by Bird, well, not the last thing, I've learned many things,

but the third thing I'm going to share with you today is she tells a story about her brother.

When they were little kids, her brother was assigned a report at school and

his report was to be about birds. He was supposed to write a report about birds.

And he had all these bird books spread out on the table in front of him and

he was overwhelmed. There were so many birds and so much information.

He couldn't get started. He was stuck. He was overwhelmed.

And she tells this story, Anne Lamott tells this story about her brother being

so frustrated and stuck and her dad came along and said, it's okay,

buddy, just take it bird by bird.

And that my friend, turns out to be an incredibly powerful life lesson for us.

Trauma and tragedy and massive things are going to strike and sometimes you

are just completely overwhelmed with the idea of how in the world am I gonna

be able to move forward in my life? How in the world am I gonna find hope again?

How in the world can I find anything that resembles meaning and purpose and

the happiness and hope that I used to have? How can I find it again?

I'm completely knocked off kilter by this thing.

And you might hear the Lord come alongside you and say, it's okay,

just take it bird by bird.

My dad always said, if you wanna eat an elephant, you have to do it one bite

at a time. Like it's a massive undertaking and you can get overwhelmed in it.

But just take it bird by bird. And that turns out to be a really good paradigm

for life. God doesn't give you a problem that can't be solved.

He'll give you a problem that's bigger than you can handle, But he won't give

you a problem that you can't solve with his help and he'll help you take it

bird by bird You can just break the world's massive thing that it throws at

you down into the bite of how can I get my brain under?

Control for the next moment, even if it's just can I take a breath again?

And God will come alongside you and help you take it bird by bird Now let me

be very careful to say when I said a second ago That he won't give you a problem

that can't be solved that you understand what I'm saying.

There are some things Glioblastoma usually.

Some of the things that happen to us in our life, these traumas and tragedies.

You lose a son. God's not gonna just bring your son back, okay?

I wish he would, but he doesn't usually do that. What I mean to say when I say

he'll give you a way to solve the problems that come along, is he'll give you

a paradigm and a strategy and a.

A process by which you can learn to move forward again.

And you learn to live and sit with these things that happen, these massive things.

Since they don't go away, and since they have a nasty habit of keeping on happening,

then we have to be able to live and work and survive and find peace and hope

and strength and purpose again, in spite of the fact that our lives are hard, right?

So when I say he won't give you a problem that can't be solved, what I mean to say,

I hope it's obvious is that there is

a path whereby you can find hope and purpose and move forward again No matter

what comes along in your life And in order to do that You have to be able to

learn to get your mind under control Which in stock sort of stop the crazy train

of being overwhelmed and take it bird by bird Does that make sense?

So three things I learned from this incredible book so far a.

Working definition of hope from Chesterton The idea that writing or anything

that we set our mind to isn't actually going to lead us to a place where all

of a sudden everything's magically fine and fixed,

but rather gives us a process and a paradigm of the fact that it is working

through these things in our lives that actually produces the peace and the happiness and the purpose.

And it's the going through them writing or problem -solving or whatever it is

that you do to unpack your brain That's that's the journey and it's the journey

that actually creates the value Okay,

we're on this long narrative arc. Have you ever sighted in a rifle?

When you're gonna deer hunt or go shoot it shoot at a target You have a scope

on your rifle and there's a crosshair in the scope Okay,

and when you first get a rifle and mount a scope to it It

will be wildly inaccurate because you have to

cite the rifle in you have to To dial in the

scope to where the bullets actually going so that

then you can reliably Shoot at the target and

one thing about bullets is they don't travel on a flat line They travel

in arcs that the bullet actually goes up and then begins to fall down And if

you want to learn how to hit the target you've got to account for the arc that

that projectile is going to travel in and you have to dial the scope up to actually

be aiming at the target downstream.

Now if you don't sight it in properly you might hit something that's in the path of that bullet.

But it won't actually be the target at which you are aiming unless you properly

sight in the scope, okay?

And that's what I want you to get at with this idea that your life is a journey

It's a pathway and there will be many traumas and tragedies and massive things

But there also will be many other things and the target you're shooting at isn't the fleeting.

Momentary pleasures and happiness of this life.

That's not what I mean when I say that we're supposed to want to be happy That's

not what I mean when Jesus says I came here to give you an abundant life,

That's not the right target And if you set your sight

on that target you might hit something you might

find somebody to sleep with or something to buy that makes

you feel good or something to put in your body that Alters your

mindset for a little while you might find a thrill from gambling

or or something else You might pursue work as

your ultimate passion and it might feel good for a while But guess

what there will come a time When you can't perform

like that anymore or when the economy changes and your

job is replaced by a robot or something else happens The person leaves the diagnosis

comes back and if your happiness is defined by a target that you were shooting

at that you could actually lose or it could be taken away from You or that they

might change their mind about you or any of those other things then you'll find

that this site that you set your,

intention of being happy on is unhittable or that when you do hit it,

it wasn't the right target.

And so this concept of learning to enjoy the process, learning to live in the

moment of where God has you right now, because remember you can't have the past

and the future is not guaranteed,

so you've got to learn how to be at this place where you're pursuing hope and

happiness and meaning and purpose right now.

But you do that by Fixing your eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of your faith.

That's how he comes down and gets in the story with you Okay,

you redefine not what the fleeting pleasures of life are going to give you that

you can define as happiness But what actually produces that stuff that when

you drink it, you don't get thirsty anymore that we talked about earlier.

So, the last book I want to talk about this week is Happiness by Randy Alcorn.

We've already covered most of what I learned from Randy. The idea that in the

Old Testament, the word Asher shows up and it's translated as happy. It means happy.

In the New Testament, the word Makarios shows up.

The problem with Makarios is it's often translated as something that means this

sort of spiritualized idea of blessedness or joy or some kind of a sanguine

state where you're not stressed out about anything and you can just be at peace,

but that's not what it means.

That's a translation error. It's a process error.

And what the word Makarios actually means is the same word that in other places

shows up and is the root of things like the Macarena, which is a really happy,

fun dance, or Macaroni, which is

there any food more fun than macaroni and cheese really, if you're a kid,

that the word Makarios simply means happy, and the idea that joy and happiness

are different things is not a biblical concept.

It actually came from late 19th and early 20th century writers like Oswald Chambers,

that somehow Christians aren't supposed to be concerned about happiness.

But the problem is, the world is looking for something that will make them happy,

and if you tell them they're not even supposed to be happy, there will create...

You even in your own mind, you know there's a cognitive dissonance there that

God didn't create you to be miserable.

The problem is we have what's called in philosophical circles a process error.

Okay a category error Category error is where we're both talking about something

But one of us thinks it means one thing and the other one thinks it means something

else And we can't really come to any sort of agreement because we have a category error.

We're arguing Philosophically, but we don't understand what we're actually talking

about and in the case of the word happiness,

Christians think it means some sort of spiritualized thing where we say,

well, it doesn't really matter how miserable and terrible we are now because

we know we're saved and someday God's gonna make all this right.

And the world says, I don't understand all that stuff. I just know that this

is gonna make me happier. She's gonna make me happier. That's gonna make me happy.

And I can't feel happy unless I have this, that or the other thing.

And we're both wrong, okay?

What Jesus said is I came here when the world is full of what the thief is doing

to steal and kill and destroy your life.

I came here that you can have an abundant life anyway.

Abundance means peace, hope, happiness, purpose, meaning all those things in

the midst of the steal, kill, and destroy part.

And the abundance is greater than the steal, kill, and destroy, okay?

Jesus gave us a whole list of things in the Sermon on the Mount of,

if you live this way, you will be happy.

He's not talking about some close your eyes and meditate and say Aum,

and you can find some way to make peace out of this painful moment.

He's not talking about that. He's saying it's counterintuitive,

but I can give you water that won't leave you thirsty.

I can give you bread that won't make you hungry ever again. You'll never feel

hunger and thirst again if you learn how to eat and drink the right stuff.

Changing your mind about what happiness is is what Randy Alcorn's book is all about.

And this book changed my mindset so much and changed my life so much and it's

so powerful. And let me just give you one little comment that he makes.

Randy Alcorn says, this is why Psalm 32, one, which uses the Hebrew word Asher,

a very common word that means happy, says happy is the man whose sins are forgiven.

And then in verse two, happy is the one whose transgressions are not counted against him.

Now you are made right with God. You have a deep reality -based happiness.

It's based upon the truth that you are made right with the happy God of scripture

who created you and wired your brain to be happy.

But up until now, until your sins are forgiven, you've been trying to satisfy

your happiness and find it in all of these cul -de -sacs and dead -end streets.

But now you truly found it in God. And when you find it in God,

then you can look at nature and have greater pleasure in it.

It is what Lewis, C .S. Lewis talked about when the first things and the second things.

Lewis said, if you put the second things first, then you lose,

in many ways, the value of the second things.

But if you put the first things first, and the first thing is really the first

person who is God, then everything else falls in place.

So here's the deal C .s lewis said it succinctly if you aim at heaven You get

heaven with the earth thrown in if you aim at the earth you get neither and

that's why people find themselves chasing after,

this thing or that thing or that person or this feeling or that drug or that moment or that.

Amount of income or that new possession?

That's why they chase after all this stuff is because they think that things

or people or circumstances can make them happy.

All the research I did that turned into I've seen the end of you and hope is the first dose.

All of that research showed me that the secret to finding hope again is to separate

your circumstance from your emotional state.

If you can learn the Ten Commandments of self -brain surgery that we're always

talking about then you can set your target you can set the crosshairs of your

scope at the right stuff and guess what all of a sudden you get all the other things too.

All those second things that Lewis was talking about, all those second things

that Randy Alcorn is talking about.

You get your sights set right on the Lord, you get relationships that don't

fade and erode over time because they're built on the right stuff, right?

You find things like intimacy and meaning and purpose and value in your work

and and all of that stuff.

You find how to manage yourself financially properly and all of a sudden you've

got peace around things that have always brought you stress.

You find how to manage relationships properly based on giving and sacrificial

love and you find all of a sudden after many unhappy relationships or divorces

or all the things that you've been through in the past.

All of a sudden you have a relationship that works because it's centered on

the third person who's actually the first person and both of you revolve your

lives around how to serve him and serve your partner well,

then your life can actually look like relationships that make sense and produce

that lasting happiness.

You aim at the first things you get all the second stuff, too.

I learned that from Randy Alcorn I learned that Asher and Makarios those two

words that are often Wrangled into meaning something that doesn't mean what it means.

They actually just mean happy God wants you friend

to be happy and as much as I

knew about neuroscience I never thought about it properly until I

read Randy Alcorn's book and he's exactly right Your nervous

system is wired to produce a

sense of happiness when you operate it properly

Why is it wired that way because your creator built it that way you have an

entire reward circuit a system in your brain trying to search out and automate

things that produce safety and security and peace and wholeness and happiness

and Opportunities for you to find those things The problem is,

we hack them and we try to just take the easy way out to get some dopamine and

we think that's what is happiness,

but dopamine in and of itself isn't the happiness chemical, it's the reward circuit chemical.

Dopamine is telling you that you're on the right path to something that's going

to be good for you Okay And that's why it's so easily misunderstood when you

get it from cocaine or alcohol or sex or gambling or something else Did you

define in your brain that this thing has produced this good feeling in my head?

And in my heart and in my brain and my mind and the truth is it's not that you're

just hacking the chemical route To the feeling that it produces and you're attaching

the reward to it in your mind The truth is,

real happiness comes from setting your mind on things that you can't lose,

from developing relationships that won't erode and change over time,

because they're built on something that really lasts.

And that, my friend, is the mind shift that I want you to have.

Content, yes. I want you to be content in all circumstances.

That's what Paul was talking about, but that state of being content is about

building stuff in your life that's going to hold up under pressure, okay?

It's different than the emotional state or the spiritual state of happiness

that you can build where you know that nothing's gonna happen.

No trauma and no tragedy and no massive thing is gonna come along in this life

and be able to take that from you because it's built on something that's eternal,

that's built to last, that will never fade and never fall and never crumble no matter what happens.

That's how you can survive the phone call when you find out your 19 year old

son's been stabbed to death.

That's how you can survive it when you find that number on your husband's phone.

That's how you can survive it when you have to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings

for the rest of your life and you're struggling in your recovery.

You know you're gonna make it because you've replaced what you thought you were

thirsty for and you found something that really leaves you truly satisfied.

That's how, okay? You take it bird by bird.

You learn what hope really means, that you can actually maintain a cheerful

state in the midst of extreme pressure, that's being content, okay?

You learn that the writing and the journey and the unraveling of the problem

is actually the place that you're trying to get to.

All along. It's not the end, the book on the shelf. It's the process of writing it.

It's learning how to take your

life bird by bird and letting God be enough in this moment to help you.

It's learning that macaroni is really fun, that the word macarios means happy,

the word asher means happy.

When God's trying over and over and over and over in Scripture to say,

I want you to learn how to be happy, He really means it.

Don't try to make an operation out of Convincing yourself that it doesn't mean

what it says he's saying I came here Because somebody's trying to steal and

kill and destroy your life And I came here that you can have an abundant life

in the face of that at the same time because of the same God That's telling

you he wants you to be happy also invented quantum physics,

and you know my friend I've told you many times in

quantum physics We learned that two things can be true at the same time And

that's how you can live in a world full of massive things and you can also live

in a world That's beautiful and abundant and you can find hope and peace and

purpose and passion and power and all those things again in your life And yes,

even happiness my friend.

Even happiness, you know why because you can't change your life until you change

your mind and these two books have helped me unpack that I've learned so much

from Anne Lamott and Randy Alcorn and Mark Roget I gave you him earlier this week,

and I just want you to have a little piece of that That's why I unpack all these books.

That's why we talk about all this stuff The most important thing though is you

can't do any of this until you change your mind and the good news is You can start today.

Hey, thanks for listening the dr. Lee Warren podcast is brought to you by my

brand new book. Hope is the first dose It's a treatment plan for recovering

from trauma, tragedy, and other massive things.

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

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

available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries .org.

They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship the most high God.

And if you're interested in learning more, check out TommyWalkerMinistries .org.

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

wlewarrenmd .com slash prayer, and go to my website and sign up for the newsletter,

Self Brain Surgery, every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states

and 60 plus countries around the world.

I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon. Remember, friend,

you can't change your life until you change your mind. And the good news is you can start today.

Music.