Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual in local church and counseling and discipleship. Hello, hello, hello. We are back with another episode of Speak the Truth. Yo, yo, yo. Oh, there she is. And. What's up? Yeah! There you go!

I love our intro music. It's so fun that you actually created that, but like, every time I hear it, it's just sweet. Would it bother you to know that I'm considering redoing it? Absolutely not! One, I don't like change, but two, that's good! Why would you even... Well, there is this outro version. That's great.

Yeah. It's like a darker version. Yeah, that's good. That still ties into the initial one. Yeah, totally. So that's really good. Well, I've been enjoying these podcasts just listening, so I want to make sure our listeners know I still love you know what? It's just been great to listen to Jeremy. I'm so thankful for just his study and experience.

And this topic of anxiety and you just articulate so well, Jeremy. So thank you for taking the time today to come out here and record the, record these podcasts. This is the third one now. So yes, it's been really awesome. It sounds like you just did the introduction to the episode. Well, I'll be quiet now.

No, go, please, please continue. Continue. I don't know what the intro is.

All right. No. So we are continuing. This will be the third installment if you will, of our mini series on anxiety. And. With the previous episodes that we had on anxiety, the first one was just basically surveying modern psychology's approach to anxiety and using the diagnostic and statistical manual.

And Jeremy kind of laid out a a survey of that a little bit, and then we jumped into a biblical conceptualization of anxiety and the way that we approach it. And for you folks who are considering level one certification at ABC, the second podcast, the biblical conceptualization would actually be a great podcast for you to get some insight on just some biblical methodologies on how we approach these topics.

And so. Jeremy talked about some paradigms that are essential to biblical counseling and how we approach anxiety. But this third installment, this episode, Jeremy has these four mysterious R's that we're gonna be talking about as it relates to anxiety. So Jeremy, you want to uncover these mysterious R's in anxiety?

I will do that, yes. So in, in working with folks a lot the past couple of years, especially with anxiety I've come up with this, it's what I'm calling the three Rs in dealing with anxiety. Three, not four. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The four Rs. Oh, okay. It is the four. So now I you for correcting me. Do we have seven Rs now?

I thought you were just adding. No, just four. I had a brain lapse there. That's all right. And the first one... Is that the other yard, relapse? We can add that one. Womp womp womp. Anyway. So the first one is very basic but important. And it's recognizing the anxiety loop. So just giving people a lens and a grid to make sense of the experience.

Okay. And so the anxiety loop in terms of what the person is experiencing. it's initially what is the perceived threat? What are you afraid of? Secondly, When you face that threat, what is the mental commentary? What do you start saying to yourself? What thoughts take over?

We talked about that earlier. Those are the, those cognitively fused thoughts that are, that are attached really firmly with the emotional feeling. What is the physical discomfort? You know your body can can deceive you yeah, I said before Some people think they're having heart attacks Some people hyperventilate because they think they can't breathe.

So helping a person just identify and recognize When my body does this It doesn't necessarily mean I'm in danger, it just means there's that anxiety issue that I struggle with. And then a very important aspect in terms of the anxiety loop is what is my behavioral response? What do I do when when I feel these feelings?

So it's the perceived threat, the mental commentary. discomfort and then what do I do? What is the habit that I create? Most people with anxiety develop some sort of avoidance habit or control habit. As we've been talking about the lady, Sally, who's would probably be diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and her habit to get rid of anxiety is.

prayer. The issue there, though, is that her prayer is not motivated by worship of God. It's really motivated by a worship of control and alleviation. And so that's the first is just helping people understand. Here's let's identify the anxiety loop that is happening when you're feeling these feelings.

And then the second art is reorienting motives for reading scripture. Okay, so if we're doing biblical counseling, we need to be using the Bible a lot with anyone that we're working with. But we want to make sure that we're reorienting the person as to why they are reading the scriptures. You know, I remember years ago, I used to really be terrified of flying way back in the day when I was in my 20s.

And so I would memorize verses that I would quote while I'm in the air and there's turbulence, but it never really worked. And for me, it wasn't about worshiping God. It was about, I'm using this as my formula to get rid of these feelings. Yeah. And so we want to just help We want to help educate people and guide them on why do we run to the scriptures?

We run to the scriptures for wisdom. We run to the scriptures to fellowship with the loving God who is with us. We want to really help them. experience through reading and through prayer the great shepherd that is there at all times and he is a protective shepherd so that's a big thing when I'm dealing with folks with anxiety like why are we why are you talking about that Bible verse or why are you running to the scriptures some people will run to the scriptures with OCD to try to convince themselves that they're saved.

that is fear based that has nothing to do with communion with God. It has all the more to do with trying to control my fear. Does that make sense? it does. I'm just thinking about methodologies evidence based versus faith based to like fear based and like what's actually how we're applying certain things to alleviate, suppress, subside those things.

And so this helps us as biblical counselors, because if we're just telling someone meditate on these scriptures and journal. and they're doing it with the wrong motivation, then we're really feeding the problem. we're not assisting them in keeping their heart centered on the Lord.

We're just feeding a tool that they're already using to try to control things, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's good. So reorienting. Yeah, reorienting your motives for reading scripture and prayer. Another important thing is for Christians is to reframe our understanding of freedom. I think I said earlier in a podcast that people that wrestle with anxiety, who are Christians tend to beat themselves up.

They tend to do a lot of self condemning. And there's a lot of guilt. There's a lot of shame involved because the assumption is I'm a Christian. I should not struggle with anxiety. And if I struggle with anxiety, I must be a bad Christian or have a major shortcoming here. And so their definition of freedom is no more anxiety.

My anxiety has been completely alleviated. When that happens, I'm experiencing freedom as a Christian. I like to go back to a passage that I read and for myself often, but also for my clients or my counselees often. Has nothing to do with anxiety just like the, the passage in Romans, but it does have something to do with freedom and it's Galatians 5, 1 through 6.

And I'll always, I'll always do it this way when I'm reading this out loud in a session. I'll start with for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery. And I'll stop there and I'll say, tell me what you think Paul is referring to when he says yoke of slavery.

And 99. 9% of the time they'll say, it's my sin. Or they'll say the yoke of slavery is my anxiety. And so that's where you know, that's their concept of freedom is my slavery is my anxiety. Therefore, my freedom is. This anxiety being dissolved, but we have to reframe that because that's not what Paul means at all here.

Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision or the law or performance or works, we could say. He's specifically talking about circumcision, but it goes into the law, which is based on what I can do. Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

And while that doesn't say anything about anxiety, it definitely applies. Because if a person's definition of freedom is to no longer suffer with anxiety, if their, Saying that the yoke of slavery is the anxiety, they're missing the whole point because that puts them into this performance orientation.

Let me apply these methodologies and my ultimate goal here is my freedom, which is no more anxiety. And Paul gives some very sobering words here when he says when we do something like that, Christ becomes of no advantage to us. Now that's a terrifying thought. Or that we sever ourselves from Christ.

Doesn't mean that to the point that we're no longer believers, but the beauties of what Christ brings to the table through his finished work alone, when we're focused on our own ability and performance through methodologies, then Christ becomes of no value. Christ is a side note.

What's valuable is what I can do. Yeah. And I'll always also ask a person when I get to this part, what, how do you define falling from grace? Well, it's something like committing adultery or it's something, you know, horrible like that child abuse. But we have to reconceptualize that falling from grace means in my anxiety, we're talking about anxiety here.

When I'm anxious, I begin to rely on my abilities to alleviate what I feel is what I'm enslaved to. And when I do that, I'm actually falling away from grace because I'm leaning in to my own performance. I'm leaning into my own self sufficiency to get rid of these symptoms versus recognizing that.

having these symptoms, what I need to do is stand firm in the freedom to struggle, the freedom to not have this together right now, the freedom of the beautiful gift that Christ has given me in the gospel to not be able to flip a switch and no longer be anxious. And so a lot of the process for me in the beginning especially is when you feel anxious I want you to go start talking to Jesus about the freedom that he's given you to struggle with this with no condemnation.

Because Christians, again, really struggle with a sense of condemnation when they have emotional issues. Yeah. Yeah, that's really strong. Because it is, and it goes back to that point about narrative. There is a commentary. That's always active because the commentary is going back to the previous podcast about the dynamics of our heart, whether it's a Christ ruled or self ruled heart.

That's right. And what we know, theologically speaking, is that the heart is never idle, right? Someone's always on the throne, whether it's ourselves and creation or. our Jesus and our creator and that determines and defines our commentary.

I think Martin Lloyd Jones said it initially in his spiritual depression preach to yourself, Don't listen to yourself. Talk to yourself. That's great. And that's more or less how using God's Word is just

We've got to use it. So that's super helpful. That's really good. Yeah, that's a very powerful statement preach to yourself. Yeah, that's really powerful for Anxiety. Yeah, that's a great way to say it right because it's hard in those particular moments because In that moment of anxiety, everything, like all cylinders are firing, meaning intellectually, my thoughts my emotions, fears are deriving from that, and then physiologically, my body.

So all those points that you made in the previous episode, all of those things are happening simultaneously. Simultaneous. That's right. And what sort of component comes in? To start processing and working through the reality of being able to struggle, right? Yes. And then It's almost like identifying, it's kinda like the way that our, our body finds a sickness or a bug and it goes in and it fights.

it identifies it and then it fights against it. Mm-hmm. , and that's literally in effect what we have to do. That's right. As believers. That's right. That's good. It's good. and it is a battle. Yeah. Matter of fact, the final R is reinforcing the right battle, and I'm, I'm really honing in here.

It, it can be for just the general struggle with anxiety, but I'm honing in really for those that might struggle with. Scrupulosity. And if you'll remember from the previous podcast, Scrupulosity is when religious or Christian people have this constant, intrusive, invasive thought process that they've either committed the unpardonable sin, or if they have a doubt when they're like, they're reading a passage on a promise and a doubt pops in.

Now the scrupulosity is, Oh, maybe I'm not a Christian because Christians shouldn't doubt like this. And it's just this, cycle. And so for those individuals especially, they've got to reinforce the right battle. What battle are we fighting here? And the battle for them specifically is this a spiritual crisis of salvation?

Or is this a weakness in anxious tendencies? Okay. The reason that's so important is what I have experienced with folks that have this struggle is if they put it in the spiritual crisis of salvation category. Then what happens is their compulsion becomes. combing through the scriptures over and over and over and over to find proof that they're saved.

And, and when they do that, it might alleviate the anxiety for a few minutes, an hour, but when the next thought comes, here we are again. And again, they're going to the Bible not really for worship, but as a compulsion. That's like self assessed assurance. Yes. That's exactly right. And so a big part of the work when we're dealing with this particular issue of scrupulosity and anxiety is I'll have them imagine two boxes in their mind.

Like there's two boxes. This box over here is a spiritual crisis of salvation. This box over here is simply a weakness in anxious tendencies. Every time from here forward, what I want to task you to do when you are having these doubts is let's read, let's make sure that we're telling ourselves this is not a spiritual crisis of salvation.

This is a weakness in my anxious tendencies, because now when it's weakness and anxious tendencies, we're not running to the Bible to find security for our salvation to get rid of this obsession. We're going to the Bible for different reasons. And we're going to approach that. So I think that's a very, very important are for people who have scrupulosity and you'll, if you're working with folks like that, you'll come to, you'll circle back to this over and over and over and you'll ask them when that happened, which box did you put it in?

Because depending on which box, you're either going to go further in your compulsive activity because you're allowing this to go in the box of spiritual crisis of salvation, or you're going to deal with this as a weakness and apply the word in that regard, which is going to be much more helpful spiritually and with sanctification.

You know, and just helping them, like, what's the process and approach to reframing or sanctifying their thought process? Yes. Because it, go ahead. You know, I do want to say, I, I use this concept of the two boxes when we've had the conversation about salvation. So when this person, it's obvious that their hearts have been made alive by the grace of God.

Then this is when I would use this. And, and often this reassures them while they're in my office. It's not very helpful when they leave. Yeah. But I, I always tell them, because you're struggling with this, it's evidence that you've been made alive. If you weren't alive and you were having nasty, intrusive thoughts about God, you wouldn't really care about that.

But because you are, there's something there to that. Now that helps them in the moment, but when they're out on the battlefield by themselves, that becomes something that they struggle with believing. Yeah, and which is why then talking to themselves versus listening to themselves is so key.

Yes. Yeah, that's good. All right. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for, for bringing some closure around that that idea and just again for those of you who were with us and, have been counseling for a long time, or those of you who are really beginning to get your feet wet with biblical counseling and going through the certification process and just those pathways.

I hope and pray that this was helpful and beneficial to you. We'll see you guys next time.

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