When It Feels Impossible (Theology Thursday)

Good morning, my friend. Dr. Lee Warren here with you for some self-brain surgery.

Here on Theology Thursday.

Hope you're having a great week. It's been a busy week. We've had a really bunch

of big, hard cases this week.

My body is tired, but you know what? My mind is ready to go.

We've got some theology ideas for you today.

This is the one day a week on the podcast where we go deeper on the spiritual side of things.

We're going to talk about how your brain and neuroscience and your faith and

all those things smash together other, to give you the power and the juice that

you need to change your mind and change your life.

Because that's where you can really become healthier and feel better and be happier.

You can find out about your purpose.

You can figure out the reason you're here and what to do about it.

You can understand why you believe what you believe and what to do about it

and how to defend it to other people.

And you can really find the footing and know that when life gets hard,

when you find the trauma and tragedy and the massive things that life brings

us, that you really can still have that abundance and that peace and hope that Jesus promised.

Remember, we have a quantum physics guide where two things are true at the same time.

And everything he does throughout nature, everything he does in creation is

consistent across all the other places.

So if he says in quantum physics, for example, that two things can be true at

the same time, that's also true in your life.

It can be true that in this world, you will have a hard time.

John 16, 33. And the back half of that verse is also true.

But I have come that you might overcome the world. It's true in John 10,

10, the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. But also the back half is true.

At the same time, I have come that you might have life abundantly.

Today, we're going to talk about monuments and footprints. We're going to talk

about whether you make it to a certain place and you give up and things end

for you and you put up a monument so other people can see where you wound up

or are you leaving a trail of footprints that other people can follow behind?

We had a conversation about this on the podcast a couple of years ago,

and I've been thinking about that conversation.

I just want to deepen it and broaden it and have a little bit more in that same

ideology, that same thought process. But today we're going to go deeper.

We're going to have some scripture. We're going to have some music.

We're just going to have a little talk here on Theology Thursday because you

can't change your life until you change your mind. And before we do that.

One 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 where 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, here we go. Let's get after it. Listen, a couple of years ago,

I did an episode on the podcast that I called Monuments and Footprints.

And I was thinking about that because

we had a family member who was going through something really hard.

I mean, they were going through something devastating. It's just some trouble

in the marriage that we didn't know about.

And they were ashamed. They were feeling, you know, some shame and some self-doubt and some worry.

How would we respond and what would people think and all that kind of stuff.

So our family member that we love so dearly carried this burden alone for a

long time, over a year, before they talked to any of us about it.

And by the time we knew about it, it was way too late to do anything to help them.

This marriage came apart and this family's in jeopardy and we didn't know.

And so we couldn't help. And I just want to tell you that when you're struggling

with something hard, when you're dealing with something devastating,

the worst thing you can do is keep that in the dark.

It's the worst thing is to keep it secret because when you keep it secret,

it can blossom and grow and smolder and become this raging problem that nobody

else knows about and nobody can help you with.

But when you bring it into the light, that community, remember that's the third

part of the treatment plan from Hope is the First Toast. You bring it into community

and you can find, number one, you'll find that you're not the only one that's ever gone through this.

Number two, you'll find that other people are not ashamed of you.

They're not afraid of you. They're not disappointed in you.

They're wanting to help you. They'll pray for you. They'll come alongside you.

If you've got people who don't do that, you need to get some different people.

It's one of the reasons the church is so powerful. It's full of people who have

also been through some hard stuff and are willing to help you when you're going

through some hard stuff to remind you that you're not the only one that's been

through this, to remind you that shame is not the appropriate response,

but but healing is the appropriate response.

So today I want to give you some concepts about monuments and footprints.

It was inspired by a poem by William Faulkner, and I first encountered that.

I've never read a lot of poetry.

I love it. I've just been so busy with my training and all the years in the

hospital and learning, all that, that I never really got deeply into poetry.

But every time I discover some dramatic poetry from the past,

I'm amazed that I never read it so much because I love it so much.

But in Eugene Peterson's book, his really incredible book that we talked about

a while back, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, which you should read.

It's this idea of following through the Psalms of Ascent in the Old Testament

and Psalms and learning sort of what people did when they went on these journeys to find God,

the journey back to God.

And the Psalms of Ascent are this idea that you're going back to get closer

to God, to touch the knee on the ground of where God is.

And in Eugene Peterson's book, Along Obedience in the Same Direction,

he quoted William Faulkner, and that sort of led me to this idea of this episode.

And the last time we talked about this, I had less of a full picture than I do now.

That's one of the things I love about podcasting is that you go through your

life and you read and you study and you grow and you write books or you do whatever

it is that you do in your life.

When you come back to an idea that you had a long time ago, you find yourself

more able to sort of process and handle that idea and maybe even bring it to a fuller explanation.

And that's kind of where we are here. So we get this idea from Faulkner that

came from, this idea from Eugene Peterson that came from Faulkner and his life

that came from Peterson and my life, and hopefully it'll help you.

And here's the quote. We're talking about these Psalms of Ascent.

The idea that Faulkner said is they're not monuments, but footprints.

As a monument says, at least I got this far. If you see a monument on the side

of the road, for example, you say, okay, well, that person made it to this point

and they documented their progress.

The footprint said, this is where I was when I moved again.

A monument says, this is how far I got. At least I got this far.

A footprint says, this is where I was when I moved again.

And maybe that's a strange idea for you to think about. What's Dr.

Warren talking about today? What does this have to do with my life?

Well, it's relevant, okay? Trust me. I know you're going to trust me.

We're going to read Psalm 121 to begin.

Psalm 121 is the Psalm of Ascent that Eugene Peterson wrote this whole book

about, along obedience in the same direction.

Here's what it says. You've heard this verse before.

I lift up my eyes to the mountain.

Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip. He who watches over you will not slumber.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you free from all harm. He will watch over your life.

He will watch over you, coming and going, both now and forevermore. more.

Now today, friend, we're going to talk about monuments and footprints.

We're going to talk about living and sort of looking up to where our help comes from.

We're going to remind ourselves that today, what we don't need from God,

no matter how big or impossible or scary or shameful your situation feels,

what you don't need is for God to do a miracle.

What you need is for him to show up and be who he already is,

because you have a God who makes a way where there is no way.

That's That's Isaiah 43.

We'll talk about that in a minute. You have a God who's in the business of making

a way where there's no way of parting the waters, of creating an opportunity

for you, for bringing water into the dry place.

You have a God who routinely does impossible things because they're not impossible for Him.

So you don't need to pray for a miracle. You just need to ask God to be who He already is.

It's His nature. We're going to finish this episode with a Kerry Job song that's

called It's Your Nature. And it's really long.

I apologize in advance. It's one of those 11-minute worship songs that goes

on forever, but it's for a purpose.

I want you to spend some time, get into that abide frame of mind and worship

and talk to God and say, hey, it's your nature to come alongside when people are struggling.

It's your nature to come alongside when relationships are in trouble. It's your nature.

So show up and just do what you do and be who you are. Remember the book of Job, friend.

Job didn't get to the end of his life and get all the answers about why he had all these troubles.

He asked God for 40 chapters. He says, God, why?

What are you doing? What are you up to? Why did this happen to me?

And God never gives him why.

If you read the last part of Job, when God finally does answer Job, he tells him who.

He tells them who He is, and it's enough.

The implication is knowing who God is is enough to satisfy us when we go through

hard things, because what we don't need is answers.

We need help. We need God.

And so today we're going to remind ourselves that when it feels impossible, we don't need a miracle.

We just need God to show up. We have this God who does the impossible thing

routinely because nothing is impossible for Him.

So we're going to learn a little bit today about Psalm 121 and what it means

and what monuments and footprints have to do with this God who makes a way where there is no way.

We're going to talk about how to get your brain back on track and shift and

change trains from one thought process to another.

You have this incredible frontal lobe that God gave you. The only creation in

all of the things that he made, you're the only one that has this gift of selective

attention where you can turn your brain from one thought process to another. another.

That's what my whole new book's about. Self-brain surgery that I'm writing now

is this idea to use the things that God gave you in the way that he intended for them to be used.

And that's how your life will be as good as it can be, have the most impact

that it can to build the life that leaves footprints behind so other people

can follow. That's really good news, friend.

It's really good news. We're going to talk about how to get your brain back

on track so you can make progress again when everything seems so hard.

So here's the deal. We're going to put ourselves now in this situation of the

person that we're dealing with who's struggling.

Our friend, the person I told you about, our family member who's struggling,

who kept it in the dark, who kept the secret, didn't tell anybody the problem

and just kept it to themselves. And they felt abandoned.

They felt crushed. They felt ashamed.

They felt like they couldn't even talk about what was hurting them because other

people would be judgmental instead of helpful.

And if that's you, if you're feeling abandoned, crushed in spirit,

broken, betrayed, lost, afraid, grieved, hurting so much, you never thought

this could happen to you. You tried so hard and you did all the right things.

You tried to be a good person, but the bias you came back bad or he cheated

or she left or it's just not working or you're out of money.

How did you get to this place? you might be asking yourself.

And what happens now? What will happen to my family? What will happen to my

child, my future? Will there be enough money? Will I survive?

What will become of me? What will my legacy be? What if the tumor comes back?

What if we can't fix this relationship? Will I always be alone? What if?

What's going to happen? Why me? Listen, that's a bad place to be.

All those questions swirling around. But the reality is that all of us have been there.

And many of us listening to this podcast right now, many of us are in that place

right now where the whole thing feels impossible.

It feels desperate. It feels like we can't possibly go on from here.

We need to hide in the bunker and wait for the war to pass.

I've been in that situation where the bombs are falling. You just hide and hide,

waiting for things to blow up. And you're wondering if one of those shells is going to land on you.

Maybe you should just give up and let the bombs blow you up and take you out.

But just for a minute, I want you to engage your frontal lobe.

I want you to engage the incredible gift of selective attention that you have,

and I want you to change trains.

I had the great honor of being asked to do a bunch of little spots for MyBridge

Radio, which is this 155,000 listener central Nebraska radio network that goes all across the Midwest.

And they gave me this opportunity before Hope is the First Dose came out to

do a bunch of radio spots for them.

And I've heard from so many listeners over the years that they found me and

my work and my books and my podcast because of MyBridge.

We're really grateful for that. I'm going to do some more for them this year,

actually, coming up soon.

But my first one was called Changing Trains. And here's the idea.

I wrote this. I said, imagine riding a subway in a big city.

At every stop, you have a choice. You can keep riding and go on wherever the

train will end up, or you can change trains to go where you want to go.

And guess what? You can do the same thing with your thought life.

Thanks to our perfectly designed brain, we have the ability to stop thinking

about one thing and direct our attention to something else.

Philippians 4 gives us several things to think about to reduce anxiety and change our own minds.

Fix your thoughts on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.

Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. And that,

my friend, is self-brain surgery.

You can do it whenever and wherever you are. It's how we change trains from

automatic or reactive thinking to more positive, helpful thoughts that get us where we need to go.

We have a choice between letting our circumstances or other people determine

our mood, our train of thought, and our actions.

We're letting God teach us self-brain surgery to change our minds,

change trains, and get to where we need to go.

Self-brain surgery to think about your thinking is a superpower for your life, my friend.

It helps you take charge of your thoughts, change trains, and wind up in the right place every time.

So that's the idea. You can't change your life until you change your mind,

but you have the gift of selective attention and you can do it.

So the first move, if we're going to change trains, the first move,

if we want to get this brain fog storm, this why me, what's happening, what are the answers?

If you want to get that thing under control, you're in the middle of this brain

fog and all you can think about is what's happening to you and all you can see

is the bad and and the impossible,

and the negative, and the hurtful, and the pain, if you want to get that under

control, friend, right here on this Thursday, here's what you got to do.

I want you to think about the fact that you're at a crossroads right now.

You're at a crossroads, okay?

At the crossroads that you're at when you're facing this situation is in this

moment, this moment I am that I'm in right now, I'm at a crossroads. I'm at a decision point.

And is this going to be a monument, monument, a tombstone, a roadside marker

that this place is where it needed for me.

This is where it ended for me. This place, this time, this situation,

this tombstone, this marker, this roadside sign marks the end of my progress.

Is this going to be all I end up with at the monument?

I think about monuments for a minute. Monuments say that when we come upon something,

we're walking through life, we see a sign, we see a statue, we see a cross on

the roadside, and a monument says, she made it this far, and then she gave up.

He tried really hard, but this is where he quit.

This is where he turned around and went back. The battle was mighty.

It happened right here on this ground, but there was no more progress.

This is where it stopped.

The crash happened here. The end

of their journey was right here on this ground. On this day, Lee gave up.

On this day, Brian made it as far as he could. On this day, Sally retreated.

That's what monuments are.

They're a marker of something that happened in that spot.

They're markers of the place where something ended or something reached its

apex or something occurred. And then no more. I'm not saying monuments are bad.

I'm just saying monuments tell a story of how something ended or how something occurred.

But I want to tell you a different story. I wrote about this in my book, Hope is the First Dose.

Back in 2020, Christmas time, we went to Keough Island in South Carolina.

That's our favorite vacation spot.

And it's our favorite vacation spot because we rented a house there one time

when the kids were all growing up. And we stayed there and we had this incredible incredible visit.

So we found that house again in December of 2020.

Lisa was able to rent the same house and Kimber and her little boy Jace were

able to come and Kaylin and her fiance Noah came and everybody else was busy.

But we got there for Christmas and we decided we were going to spend a few days on the beach there.

The reason it was so special is that a few years before, we had a family vacation

in Kiowa and that house, Lisa's mom, nanny was there back in 2010.

Or 11, I think it was. And then we lost Patty, of course, in 2018.

But when she was still healthy and Mitch was there before everything happened

in 2013, all the kids were there except Katie. She couldn't come. She had to work.

But everybody else was there. We had our family unit together there on the beach.

And Nanny and Tata were there. And we had all this fun.

And Mitch and me, Josh ran and played in the ocean.

All this great time. So then in 2020, we decided we were going to go back.

And somehow that same house was available and we rented it.

And I had somehow built it up in my mind that I was going to be able to go back

to that beach and make some kind of peace with the place that I had spent time with Mitch there.

That maybe I could find him again somehow on that beach. And my father-in-law, Tata, didn't go.

He came to this conclusion that he couldn't bring himself to go there because

that was really the last place where we had a family vacation.

And he had all these good memories of Patty and Mitch playing together and all

these good, healthy, happy memories. And he thought, you know,

I want to leave those memories intact. I don't want to go back there.

And so for him in his mind, it was insurmountable. The pain and the memory and

the grief was going to be there on that beach.

And it was going to be too big. He couldn't make himself go.

So he didn't go because he wanted to avoid feeling something that he had felt in that place.

And I went there thinking I could find something that I left in that place.

And what we figured out was that as I walked that beach, is that the tide comes twice a day.

The tide comes and washes up over that beach. And so because of that,

there are no old beaches.

This is a monumental discovery in my life, friend.

There's no old beaches. You're walking to a place and a piece of ground,

and you think you're going to find something that you left there before.

Or you think you're going to avoid going there to protect something that you

left there that you want to stay intact.

But the fact is, every day that tide comes in twice and washes away that beach. There's no old beach.

And when I got to Kiowa in December of 2020, I thought I was going there to

find something with Mitch and his footprints weren't there anymore.

Those memories are just memories, and they're with me wherever I am.

I don't have to go to Kiowa Island in South Carolina to find Mitch's memory.

But something remarkable happened while we were there. Little Jace had never seen the ocean before.

He was two years old at the time, almost two, and he had never seen the ocean.

And he played on the beach, and we held hands and walked in the surf and built

sandcastles and splashed and laughed and had the best time.

And then one day, Lisa and I were walking towards the end of the day.

We were heading up to the boardwalk to go back to the house.

Everybody was waiting. They were going to play board games and goof around.

We were just going to have a good time on Christmas Eve.

And we saw little Jace's footprints leading up to the boardwalk.

Lisa pointed them out. Look, there's little Jace's footprints.

And I realized that, yeah, there's no old beaches.

And the tide turns over twice a day. And Nanny wasn't there.

And Mitch wasn't there. So the things that Dennis was trying to avoid weren't there either.

And since Mitch wasn't there, the things I thought I was trying to reconnect

with with also weren't there because they're everywhere.

But what was there was Jace's footprint saying, hey, I'm walking forward up

to the house and I may have lost my son, friend, and we may have lost nanny,

but we still have this beautiful family that was waiting up in that house for us.

And all we had to do was follow Jace's footprints to get there.

But before I could do that, I had to change my train of thought.

I had to switch my brain from the loss and the pain and whatever it was I was

trying to connect with and find again.

And I had to follow Jace's footprints into the future and the reality that we

actually had this incredible, beautiful family now.

So the thing is, I sort of made a monument in my mind to the last time I felt

happy and that I had my son alive.

That's why I went there. I was going to go put my knee on the hallowed ground

of where that monument was.

But what I found out was that Jace's footprints leading up to the house where

we still had this growing, lovely family, there wasn't a monument to the end of our family.

It was footprints to follow saying, hey, I decided to move again.

So when you find footprints, it's telling you a story of somebody else that

didn't stop walking when things got hard.

It's somebody that decided I'm gonna take another step.

I'm gonna take another step forward. And so footprints tell a story of forward progress.

Monuments tell a story of where it ended, where it stopped, where it finished.

And so I want you to change trains, friend.

That's what I want you to know about Psalm 121. In those days,

it was common for people to build temples to their idols, their false gods,

up on the mountaintops in the high places. So people would look up to the hills

and they would think that's where my God is up there on that hill.

But the Bible says this over and over. We read in the Old Testament about these

people who would succumb to this seduction of the high places,

the temples where they would try to do things to connect with their false gods.

And what the psalmist says in 121 is, I lift up my eyes to the hills,

but I know where my help comes from.

It doesn't come from the hill. It doesn't come from the idol.

It doesn't come to the monument that I built up there of my false god.

I'm looking past that false thing. I'm lifting my eyes up to the hills.

Hills, I'm lifting it past the bottle that I thought I need,

the habit that I thought was going to help me get over this,

the relationship with that person that I thought I needed to make my life work,

and that financial situation that I thought, that extra money that I thought I had to have.

But God says, look past all that stuff and look to me, and I'll show you where your help comes from.

Psalm 121 is just a little bit of self-brain surgery. And what he does is he

lifts up his eyes to the help of the hills and past that because because he

knows where his real help comes from.

My help comes from the Lord.

He won't let my foot slip. He watches over me. He won't let me,

he won't sleep. He watches over me.

He's at my side. He's at my shade when my sun is hot. He keeps me from harm.

He watches over my life. He watches over my coming and my going both now and forevermore.

You see what David's doing here? He's reminding himself. He's doing prehab.

He's using memory and movement to find hope again to flex the muscles of hope

and he's saying I'm not going to let this spot be where they put up a monument

and say this is where it all ended for me,

I'm not going to let there be a monument that said, this is as far as Lee got.

And then he gave up. It got too hard and he went back or he gave up.

I'm going to leave a trail of footprints behind to say, my God is with me.

I'm going to keep moving.

See, the thing about God is, friend, is he commonly is up to things that feel

and seem impossible to us. I did an episode about that.

Impossible, possible things. I played it not long ago.

Just to remind us that God is not limited to what we think is possible.

He's not. He's over and over throughout history doing things to rescue people,

help those in need, save those who are lost, raise those who are dead.

Here's a few of the things that I mentioned in that episode that Scripture says

God can do that seem impossible to us.

He whistles and bees come in Zechariah.

There's actually four places, three places, Zechariah 10.8, Isaiah 5.26, Isaiah 7.18.

God whistles and creation responds.

Flies come when he calls. Bees come. People come. God whistles and calls for

a bird of prey and it comes at his command.

These are impossible to us. The eagles do not come whenever I go out in the

backyard and whistle for them.

They just don't. They come and go where they please. God calls and they come.

It's not impossible for him. He roars like a lion, Hosea 11.10.

He gets up out of his chair when you need help, Isaiah 30.18.

He roams the earth looking for those who need his assistance, 2 Chronicles 16.9.

He sees the end from the beginning so he's never surprised at what you're going

through isaiah 48 10 i'm sorry 46 10 he finishes what he starts and he ends

things like he says they will end he knows before he takes the shot what's going to happen isaiah 46 11.

He can make an axe head float when the servant dropped the axe that he needed

to make his livelihood god made it float second king six one through seven he

sends bears to do his justice second kings 22 32 through 35.

It's a story about how God sent a bear to help a prophet when he was in trouble.

He parts waters. He makes waves in the desert. He does all these things,

and there's tons more in the Bible.

Tons of things where Isaiah or the Bible shows that God does impossible things.

In Isaiah 43, it's kind of our theme verse for New Thing November every year.

He says some really big things here that seem impossible. Isaiah 43,

too. When you go through deep waters, I'll be with you. you.

When you go through rivers of difficulty, you won't drown. When you walk through

the fire of oppression, you won't be burned up. The flames will not consume you.

And listen to this one. Those of you who go to the prayer wall and talk about

how your kids have cut you off or you have a strained relationship with your

child or you aren't allowed to see your grandchildren, there's a lot of heartbreaking

prayers about strained relationships with kids right now. Listen to Isaiah 43, 5 and 6.

Don't be afraid for I'm with you. I will gather you and your children from east east and west.

I will say to the north and south, bring my sons and daughters back to Israel

from the distant corners of the earth.

God wants to restore your family. It's not impossible for him.

Isaiah 43, 16, I am the Lord who opened a way through the waters and make a

dry path through the sea.

Verse 18, but forget all that. It's nothing compared to what I'm going to do.

I'm about to do something new. It's already begun. Do you not see it?

I will make a path through the wilderness.

I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

Listen, friend, God is up to impossible things because they're not impossible for him.

They're possible for him. And he's in the business of doing those things.

He makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters. Listen,

God will make a way when your eyes tell you that there is no way.

When your brain says there's no way for this to happen, it's time to change trains.

The diagnosis that this is a hard situation that's produced pain.

Our brains are not our friends normally because we get in this train of thought

where everything is a disaster. We want to know why.

We don't understand it. Your brain's wired to cause your out-of-control thoughts

to trigger fear, limbic responses, emotional, deep survival things in your brain

that trigger the fight-or-flight response, that trigger the hide and wait it

out and avoid the pain response.

And we start reacting to these chemical signals that our brain is triggering us.

And we believe they're true, but we forget get the self-brain surgery 10 commandments

that feelings aren't facts. They're just chemical events in our brain.

We want to run, hide, fight, curl up in a ball, give up and die,

put up a monument and call it a day.

And if you don't get that thought process under control, friend,

if you don't engage that prefrontal cortex to allow you to engage selective

attention and executive leadership to the situation,

then that storm of neurotransmitter-fueled terror will cause your brain to crash.

So it's time to change trains.

Listen, remember you're at a crossroads now. This difficult situation that you're

in is producing a crossroads, and you have a choice on this beautiful day.

You have a choice, my friend.

Is it going to be a moment where it all ended, where you gave up,

where they put up a sign on the roadside that said, this is the day she quit

trying, she stopped fighting.

It's the day he gave up, and we put up a sign to say, this is as far as he came.

Or is it going to be a trail of footprints that somebody else can follow or

to see how your story kept going from today.

Listen, this is critically important. You might be in a place where you need

God to do something that you feel like is an impossible miracle,

but you need to remember that He doesn't need to do a miracle.

He just needs to be who He is, and you need to rely on Him because it's in His

nature to help you when you're hurting.

That's what the changing trains of thoughts will do for you.

And that's what i want you to do today it feels

impossible but it's not to god it feels

unsurvivable but it's not because he's with you you feel abandoned you feel

hurt you feel left or deserted you don't know what's going to happen but here's

the thing god does he knows the end from the beginning this is one of those

abide prayers you can pray pray truth scripture and and connect with God's promises.

Eugene Peterson said, hope commits us to actions that connect us to God's promises.

Hope commits us to actions that connect us to God's promises. Isn't that powerful?

So when you feel like it's impossible, you feel like it's not,

that there's no way forward for you, just remember who God is,

that he's already promised you, that you can change trains, You can decide to

connect to his promises and commit to actions that will lead you forward,

to leave a trail of footprints behind instead of a bunch of monuments.

God has a plan for you. Pray that out. Jeremiah 29, 11, God,

you said you got a plan for me to prosper me and not to harm me,

to give me hope and a future.

That's how you change trains, friend. That's how you do it.

That's how I do it. There are no old beaches. There can either be a monument

on the beach with a cross where you quit, or you can find the little trail of

footprints that leads back to the life that you can have and still do have.

And people love you, and God is with you, and it's not impossible. It's His nature.

We're going to play this Kerry Job song in a minute. It's your nature.

It's really long, but it's a good time for you to spend thinking about God's

promises, thinking about the things that seem impossible, and asking Him to

come into this moment, to to this time, you've got a hammer in your hand and

you were getting ready to put up a monument.

And he says, put that stuff down and keep walking cause somebody needs to follow your footprints.

And right here on Theology Thursday, you're gonna leave a trail of footprints

and you're gonna find the path that God has for you when he decides that he's

already made a way when it seems like there's no way to you.

And all you have to do is remember that it's his nature.

And the good news is my friend, you can start today.

Music.

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 audiobooks.

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 WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer,

WLeeWarrenMD.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.