Mike: 00:08

Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church and counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello. We are back in studio and we have with us today in studio, Shauna.

Mike: 00:28

But Jeremy is not with us in studio. He is joining us via Bluetooth on phone in this beautiful machine known as the Rodecaster Pro. And again, they are in no way associated with this episode as a sponsor, but I wish that they would be.

Shauna: 00:43

You just wasted like thirty seconds.

Mike: 00:45

It was more like five seconds. I said that pretty quickly.

Shauna: 00:48

Hi, Jeremy.

Jeremy: 00:49

Hey guys.

Shauna: 00:50

I'm so glad you

Jeremy: 00:51

I wish I was there with you.

Shauna: 00:52

I know.

Mike: 00:53

So today we have, in this podcast, we're going be talking about something that has just been recently written and is featured on the Christian counseling website. And Jeremy, do you want to take this away, brother?

Jeremy: 01:07

Sure. One of the things that we want to do at the association of biblical counselors is continue to provide our members with quality resources that they can just simply download off of our website and use in a counseling situation. And so this week or this month, we released an equip you, which is one of our resources called the Heart of the Matters series. And this is a part one of the series, where we're looking at, putting off. What does that mean?

Jeremy: 01:32

One of the seminal ideas within the biblical counseling community, and I think it was first put forth probably by David Palatin, Ed Welch, Paul Tripp, those guys, is this idea that we have to have an answer for what psychology would call nature versus nurture. Nature being the idea that is very prominent in many circles, especially within psychiatry, the person that you are is completely determined by your physiology and your biology. And then the other school of thought, nurture, is that you actually are born a blank slate, John Locke's idea of the blank slate. And then your life experiences are ultimately what make you who you are. And we see a lot of that in identity literature.

Jeremy: 02:16

And so Palafin, his colleagues decided how does the biblical, how does the Bible square with those ideas that I do what I do, I am who I am based on nature, nurture, or both. And so they did a beautiful job pointing all of us in our counseling work to a more biblical answer which is the heart. So we would say that nature and nurture definitely have great influences on us as individuals. But when we look at a scriptural understanding of what really is the causal core of our humanity, Scripture points us to the heart. You might remember in the Gospels where the Pharisees are criticizing and getting on to the disciples because they were eating with unwashed hands.

Jeremy: 03:00

And Jesus' rebuke was it's not what goes in that ultimately defiles you, it's what comes out of you that defiles you. What comes out of you comes out of your heart. So the very architect of the soul, Christ Himself laid out an idea of why we do the things that we do and He didn't point at our world or our biology, He pointed at the heart. And so this series is basically just a basic tool to help people begin to examine their heart in a way that helps them gain self knowledge, self understanding, because we know that what is ultimately going on in terms of how I respond to my life, even in my emotional experiences, that the heart is very active in that. And so this resource is simply a tool to help counselors and counselees very systematically go through a process where they are able to begin to examine the heart.

Jeremy: 03:50

So it begins with just a basic log and I'll often give this, I typically give this to anybody that I'm counseling. Cause I just think it's very important, for people to learn to examine themselves through more of a biblical lens than what is often taught out in the culture. And so this log, it's very simple and it's just basically data gathering. And after I have an initial session with somebody, I'll give them this log and it simply has several columns. One column is situation.

Jeremy: 04:18

One column is emotion. One column is your thoughts or belief. One column is desires and wants. And then the final column is behavior. And in my opinion, all of these columns are very important.

Jeremy: 04:28

And so I'll have them go home and if they experience a difficult emotional struggle, if they experience a struggle with sin, if they have a conflict with a spouse or a child, I'll tell them, I want you to go to this log and I just want you to write out what was going on in the moment. My wife did not give me a hug when I walked in the door. That might be the situation. Emotion from that might be sadness or frustration. Thoughts could be my wife should always want to call me when I get home.

Jeremy: 05:01

Desire could be affection. And maybe my behavior was I lashed out. So it's just, it's a very simple tool where I'm just asking people to literally give me what's going on. People will tend to say, I ultimately felt what I felt and did what I did because of my situation. So I felt the sadness because my wife didn't give me a hug or I lashed out because she didn't welcome me.

Jeremy: 05:21

And I just want to help them begin to re frame how they're looking at that and realize that situation is just a context that exposes the heart. On this particular log, the aspects of the heart are emotion, thoughts, beliefs, desires, and want. So anything, I know you guys come from the same framework. Any thoughts so far on that?

Mike: 05:39

Yeah, I'm sitting here looking at it as you're talking, Jeremy, and just seeing how this can modify how I have my version of it, so to speak, with just having counselees when they come in and they tell me the circumstance or situation, just my first go to with homework is helping them to be much like you established in the first couple of minutes here as you introduced it. But just this idea of, Hey, are you aware of the progression from your thoughts to your emotion, to the way that you actually act out and how that it's associated with habits and all of that? And so always starting with having them go home and just write down. I even did this with like a 10 year old. Use your cell phone, keep a note log and just helping them create columns and stuff like that.

Mike: 06:22

This is even just the wheel, the heart of the matter wheel, how you've got these these main categories and then just like these subcategories that fall within the main categories is super helpful. So yeah, like this is definitely a really helpful tool. And a lot of the feedback that I get from counselees and that I have gotten from counselees has been, they found how difficult it was to actually sit back and reflect on their thoughts. And they're quick to share what they were feeling, but have a disconnect from thought to emotion, to action and helping them establish that and seeing that progression and actually showing them from this exercise, how that's biblical. Then all of a sudden it attaches them to scripture a little bit more in helping them see.

Mike: 07:01

So when you read scripture, like you clearly pointed out in this introduction here with just you understand how the heart works, this is a step by step analysis of how your heart works in real time in scenarios and situations. And so, yeah, it becomes a very helpful tool.

Shauna: 07:16

And it gets to the heart of the matter.

Mike: 07:17

Ah, I see what you did there. That was a stalled out pun. I like it.

Shauna: 07:24

Stalled out fun. Well, I was just gonna say on here as your form, it's just they're so in-depth and even gives examples when you look at it and even the deceptive desires of you saying it's important that you clarify to your counseling that not all desires are wrong or inappropriate. There's nothing wrong with a husband wanting to be greeted by his wife, but the thought process is saying when you're doing the journaling, it's more about saying what's the reaction when they don't respond in the way that you desire. And so then that really allows the counselor to go a little deeper and to really just take that thought and more just ask better data gathering questions in a way of saying, how have you communicated this desire to your spouse and how can you be patient in the process of allowing them to greet you and or even like praying for their heart, right? Lord, give my wife the desire to greet me and welcome me when I come home.

Shauna: 08:11

Right? So it's not about all about what I'm doing, but how am I taking that desire to the Lord for the Lord to give them that, if that makes sense?

Jeremy: 08:17

Yes. And I love Proverbs 20 verse five. It says, the purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. And I think that probably summarizes the rationale behind this tool. And so what I will do, as Michael was mentioning, there are several aspects of this.

Jeremy: 08:31

So you have the law, but this tool also provide basic guidelines to help people fill out each of those categories. And so I think it's very important that I put this emotion wheel in as part of a tool because I think it's important for people to develop a vocabulary to communicate things that they're experiencing. So very often people are extremely familiar in certain situations in conflict with anger. And maybe that's the only thing that is really seen in the conversation. But when, for example, a husband looked at this and he responded in anger, but he looked at this will and he begins to recognize that when he walks in and his wife ignores him, he feels insignificant or he feels insecure.

Jeremy: 09:13

So now he's starting to see some other things within his heart other than anger. And the anger is there and it's real and it needs to be discussed and dealt with. But behind that anger can be other things that people aren't even aware of. So try to help folks find words that capture the experience that they're having so that they can begin to have good conversation and not just this explosive anger or this shutting down that often happens relational conflict.

Mike: 09:36

Yeah. I think what's good about this as well is it, I think it helps people understand the process of sanctification. The natural progression of realizing that because of the gospel and us being forgiven, yeah, we still get angry, but now I have a heart that can allow me to go back and actually analyze and see because of the way that I now see God. And I think this is a very practical tool to help people see even from an early age, helping them see, okay, what's happening to me? God's not taking it away.

Mike: 10:07

He's allowing me to experience things, to reveal things to me so that I can begin to be a part of this new growth as a Christian and circumstance. Like how does God use all of that? And they don't realize that they have an active role in the process of this stuff. They just, it's to me this, at least one of the things I remember in a couple of clients that I've had is it helped them realize that they were living life reactively. Like they were just a product of their circumstance or situation versus realizing through a process like this and an exercise like this that allowed them to see pretty quickly actually how involved they can actually be in the process and how it actually drew them closer to the Lord.

Mike: 10:45

Absolutely. It's good stuff.

Jeremy: 10:47

And one of the one of the ways emotions we can't always just automatically control an emotion, but where we can have a very active part as far as our sanctification and the heart issues is moving towards those other two columns of thoughts and desires. So I have created with this log some very specific thoughts that could be exacerbating a person's sin issue or just relational experience. So one of them is common thoughts we believe about our situation and others. So for example, on that very list I've written thoughts, others must be considerate of me or others must notice me. And so in the example that we're giving, if that's a baseline thought that this husband is clinging to, there's a lot of self centeredness in that.

Jeremy: 11:33

There's a lot of pride in that would need to be discussed, but he also needs to recognize that you're not angry because your wife didn't come and give you a hug. You're angry because you have this prideful belief that others must always be considerate of you or others must always notice you. And I'll have them identify that stuff on their own. But then it becomes a great conversation, as you said, Michael, where we can begin to talk about what is a more God centered, God glorifying thought that you can be thinking when you walk in the door of your home.

Mike: 12:02

Yeah. That's good, man. That's really good. Yeah.

Jeremy: 12:04

And we have the same thing with in terms of beliefs about ourselves. A lot of people have a a lot of believers have self condemning thoughts, especially if they're having struggled with a particular sin. And even a person that's wrestling with emotions like anxiety or depression, they can really become self demeaning. In Romans, we're told that it's God who justifies who has a right to condemn. So I'm always trying to let people know you don't have a right to condemn yourself if you are a child of of God.

Jeremy: 12:30

You're opposing the very thoughts of God about you. Powerful in why a person is experiencing certain things. And then the final piece on thoughts is a really interesting one. It's deceptive thoughts about God. And what I want to highlight with people always when I'm giving this to them is to let them know you probably do not walk around throughout your day.

Jeremy: 12:51

Now some people might, but for the most part, people are not walking around thinking things like God doesn't care about me. God doesn't care about my situation. God is not fair. God is cruel. Now sometimes people do think that, but what I try to do because many times people are very resistant to those thoughts saying, I don't ever think that about God.

Jeremy: 13:11

If you are feel, if one of your thoughts is that your situation is too difficult to bear, then you're, there really is a thought that is revealed about God, a functional thought. Paul Tripp talks about confessional beliefs and functional beliefs. And a functional belief could be that God is failing me or that God is not sufficient to get me through my situation. So if I think a situation is too difficult, that thought about my situation exposes a potential thought about God, a belief about God that he is not sufficient.

Shauna: 13:40

Yeah. That even ties into our last episode, the one that came out this week about faith where I was this is even like a personal wrestle where it's kind of stung stings a little bit in the way that I was focusing on my own ability and not God's ability through me. And but it's the very the it literally laid out exactly what you're saying was I it was what I was thinking about myself, but really in thinking that I was also it was showing my deceptive thought about God.

Jeremy: 14:05

That's great. Condemning thought about myself. I am I am making assertions without even realizing it about the insufficiency of the work of Christ.

Shauna: 14:14

Because I wouldn't I I wasn't out loud thinking in my mind that I was saying, oh, God can't do this. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't even Yeah. Think that. But because of what I was thinking about myself, that's technically what I was saying about the Lord.

Shauna: 14:24

And I think that's where it can easily get so damaging into our life, into our heart is when we, and that's why we have to dig deep to the heart of

Jeremy: 14:31

the matter.

Mike: 14:32

And that's what's beneficial about this particular tool as well in using this as a tool is it reveals the deceptiveness of it, right? That otherwise it wouldn't be deceptive. Is this masking itself as something else where confessionally we're like, wow, I would never And think then functionally, absolutely, the way that you're living things out, the way you're responding to things is actually demonstrating the opposite of what you think you believe.

Shauna: 14:54

And I'm thankful in this particular moment and kind of what I shared in this past podcast was the fact that obviously this was revealed to me in my time with the Lord, right? So I'm thankful for the Holy Spirit in that, but oftentimes the Lord uses the one another context in our life and counseling discipleship where we're so ingrained in our thoughts and it's just so deep rooted in a way that we need someone from an outside perspective really help us dig a little deeper and ask us the right questions and give us that new view. And so I love Jeremy how in this particular resource, you've really even given counselor the tools of examples to allow, okay, this is what he's talking about. This makes sense. And you've given us a lot more than we're actually talking about on the podcast here.

Shauna: 15:35

So when you go to the resource, you'll see it and it so it automatically gives us a picture of, this is what this means. It just have to thoughts about God. So here's examples. And then you can obviously apply it specific to your counselee and the way that it best fits. Or this isn't an exhaustive list.

Shauna: 15:51

There's obviously way more. You're just giving us great examples. So I'm thankful that you took time to do that because I think it it really allows it to to jump out immediately and put it in perspective for all of us.

Jeremy: 16:00

Yeah. Something that I have noticed in counseling, historically when I've given this log out, that people when they are filling out the thoughts and beliefs, they're typically I have to do a lot of work to clarify once because they're just missing the mark of what we're looking for. So you're exactly right. Those thoughts and beliefs on this particular resource, maybe the thought is actually on that list. If not, those are just examples of how we would wanna frame the thought process.

Shauna: 16:27

So on this piece, like when those who are listening or looking at this form and they're seeing these examples on these three sheets, do you actually use this? Is this like a tool just for the counselor or do you suggest that the counselor actually give this to the councillor to help them?

Jeremy: 16:42

Oh, yeah. So I always give this to the counsellee because I want it to serve as a guide on how they're formulating their statements in those columns. Yeah. So definitely I would hand this whole hand all the log, the thoughts, the desires, the behaviors. I would definitely hand that to the counsel to just guide them in what we're looking for.

Jeremy: 17:02

Just the other two columns very quickly. The next one desires. And I will spend, hand this out to people and then we may spend the next session might be just totally on belief and we'll talk about that. And then another session, we're just going to talk about emotions, and another session on desire. So I really want to dig in with people and have deep good counsel and conversation to have them wrestle.

Jeremy: 17:24

And I always give people permission in counseling to push back. If they don't agree with some impressions that I'm seeing, I want them to tell me about that because that helps me know what's going on inside of them as they're responding to the counsel being given. But the next column, potentially deceptive desires. There was a sentence in an article that David Palletton wrote many years ago that really drew me into the biblical counseling world because I was suspect of that in the beginning. But those guys, Welch, Palletton, Tripp, some others created just a beautiful theology of motivation.

Jeremy: 17:57

And that's what helped me be convinced that, hey, scripture is actually saying a lot more than what I've realized in my counseling study. And it's the theology of motivation is really on this one, primarily in this one column of desire. And that quote from Allison was that even desires for good things can become evil in God's analysis of what makes us tick. So on this list, and again, this is not an exhaustive list, but I put things like acceptance and approval, fidelity and marriage, sexual frequency. I even drew from some of the literature that's out in Christian counseling world, like words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service.

Jeremy: 18:33

And none of those things are bad. None of those things are innately sinful. The idea of the dynamics of the human heart in that pulling from James chapter four, when he's asking the question, why are you fighting? He points to desires. It's because you're not getting what you want until you begin to covet.

Jeremy: 18:50

So this idea of the elevation of desire that my desire can very quickly turn into something that's not glorifying to the Lord. And it can turn into what we call in biblical counseling idolatry. And a definition of idolatry that I often use with folk is idolatry is when you want, when you give yourself permission not to love God or someone else because you didn't get what you want. Whatever that is that you want, whether it's affirmation, whether it's sexual frequency, whatever it is, if you don't get that and that in a response, you give yourself permission not to love God and the person that you're wanting that from, then you are probably operating in the realm of idolatry or if you choose to sin because you don't get what you want.

Shauna: 19:32

Yeah. I would just encourage those who are listening just to pause really quick and rewind and actually write that down because that's going to be something that's definitely used as you're encouraging others in the word for sure. That's good.

Mike: 19:45

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good, helpful, self confronting thought to put in your thought process.

Shauna: 19:51

I cannot see how anybody could hear what was just said and not feel convicted.

Mike: 19:57

Like

Shauna: 19:58

even for the most, I don't even know how to describe as far as like the most in doubt Christian or whatever, most self disciplined Christian or spiritual disciplines Christian or however you

Jeremy: 20:06

want to

Shauna: 20:07

describe it. But just the thought of just saying, I don't know how you could hear that and not see that we that plays out in our life in so many different ways, even like our kids. Daily. Oh, Daily. For sure.

Shauna: 20:16

That's good. I love that definition.

Mike: 20:18

Sorry. Go ahead, Jeremy. I just wanted to say that.

Jeremy: 20:20

No. That's actually a very important point, Shauna, because Christians know the word idol and idolatry. We don't really have a working functional definition that hits home. And so many people will, they'll either be confused because we're using that word or they'll just deny, I don't do that. But when you bring it down to brass taxes in the way that we just defined it, then all of us yesterday I had a guy that was just resisting that word and then I threw that definition out there and he paused and I just said, Hey brother, your counselor today, I will do this.

Jeremy: 20:56

I can promise you it's going to happen because I'm going to fail to love God at some point in this afternoon. And so, you know, and for us as counselors to say something like that is that's honest and it gives other people just freedom to actually examine their hearts in an in an open and honest way.

Shauna: 21:18

Yeah. Just but again, going back to that definition how you described it, there's so many things going on in my mind right now of examples of of how that should seem playing out with others around us. Just even just the thought of divorce in the church today. What we're saying is because you're not doing this for me in the immediate, this obviously the only option and result I have is not patience and loving the unlovable and all these other things that God's called you to in scripture. It's about saying because I'm not getting these types of things and you're not doing these things for me or for our family, it's the only option is divorce.

Shauna: 21:49

And I'm talking to the one who's making that decision to say I'm out. But even in your heart diagram where you put the potential deceptive desires where you have acts of service, no one would say that's unbiblical. That's a and there's so many people who serve the church and in a lot of ways and serve others in the community. But often I just was working with someone recently where their acts of service was self fulfilling. It was all about how they fit in.

Shauna: 22:12

As long as it wasn't lined about what they wanted to do, then absolutely I'm Okay to serve others. But what come to find out was what was deceptive in their heart. They were doing it for themselves. They weren't doing it for God. So on the outside it looks good.

Shauna: 22:24

Wow, look at this person, how much they serve the community. But in reality it was for their own pleasure and not for for the Lord. So good. Again, I just love that. Alright.

Shauna: 22:34

It go back to the heart of the matter series.

Jeremy: 22:36

I love your thought. Totally agree with that. The final piece to this is sinful behaviors or habituation. So I want to just say something quickly on this First generation biblical counselors, the founder of what we would call modern biblical counseling was Jay Adams. His model of new set of counseling really emphasized the importance of habit.

Jeremy: 22:55

So he literally in his book, A Theology of Christian Counseling, one of the methodologies that he would pull from was called habituation. We are creatures of habit, that's a gift of God actually. So I don't have to relearn to tie my shoes every time I put my shoes on. We are, that's a gift. And another guy that's more modern that's talking a lot about this in our time is James K.

Jeremy: 23:17

A. Smith, in his book You Are What You Love. He really points to habituation. I love his phrase, our life is our liturgy. So that the patterns of our life, the habits of our life are going to show us and reveal to us the things we value and love.

Jeremy: 23:32

So when we're in difficult emotional states, when we're in difficult sin states, when we're in difficult relationships, we will often create habits that become the norm. It becomes the gut response. And Jay Adams would call that habituation. And so part of his protocol was to identify those habits and then commit to de habituating. In other words, these are the habits we want to stop in when we're feeling anxious or when we're feeling angry or when we're in a conflict or when we're tempted by sin.

Jeremy: 24:02

And then we want to rehabituate. We want to develop some new habits. And so habit, Jay Adams' model, but really going back to the early church fathers, we see this a lot too. Habit shaped the heart. And for a long time in my personal ministry, I'd ignored this part.

Jeremy: 24:18

I liked the thoughts and the desires of the heart and look inside the heart and all that. And I really wasn't paying much attention to habit. But through the years have realized it's profoundly important that habit becomes a part of the change process and habit does shape heart. So I have put things on this particular list, again, it's not exhaustive, but it's things like withholding kindness, withholding affection, withdrawing, abusing alcohol, immersing oneself in TV, books or cell phones. All of those things are shaping our heart and they really can reveal when we look at our habits, it can reveal to us what we treasure.

Jeremy: 24:55

So I want people to look at habits just as intently as they're looking at those other aspects because that's going to be a part of the change process. And so this series, this particular handout is available on our website at christiancounseling.com and it's the series of putting off. So we're trying to identify what are the problems that we need to look at in the heart and in our behaviors that we need to identify and examine. And then the next series is going to be the Put On series. Okay, so once we've identified the problems, once we've identified those things not bringing glory to God, what do we do?

Jeremy: 25:31

And that'll be coming out in our next series.

Shauna: 25:33

This is great. I cannot wait to read your next one. And this is actually a podcast I think that I'm going to go back and listen to because it's really good. I, my mind is just go and ramp it on how this directly applies to not only my own life, those women that I'm walking with. It was really good.

Shauna: 25:49

And I love of all me, I'm the how to girl. Right? So I love the practical, just how this is laid out. This is literally something I can print off and just immediately use in helping others. And so you've laid it out in a very visual and clear way.

Shauna: 26:04

You have tons of scripture on here. You have passages that might be helpful to explain to the counseling the purpose of the series. And so you've laid all those scriptures out. And so it's it's really jam packed with a lot of just a lot of tools right away that can be used practically in the counseling room. So thank you for that.

Mike: 26:20

Yeah. This is good. This is really good. This can actually be used in the local church as well for discipleship.

Shauna: 26:25

Absolutely. Oh, yeah. How would you use this in discipleship?

Mike: 26:28

Oh, I would use it in a lot of ways. No, just from varying context of medium group environments, smaller group environments. And I think that's the good thing about this particular, this particular piece. Information and tools and exercises is you can hit this at a summary level and then you can hit this at the granular level as well.

Shauna: 26:48

I just remember I got to a point in counseling where I just I hate I disliked when people would be like, I feel this way. I feel this way.

Mike: 26:57

And it

Shauna: 26:57

was all about that. When I've I've seen like this emotional will before, it's just give me like a one of the things recently, there's actually been quite a few books and articles coming out about what that emotions, right? And the feelings of our faith and such a such a good material that has really just refreshed my mind and heart on what that looks like from a biblical perspective and seeing this will and how you've laid it out and used it in this Heart of the Matter series, there's a purpose behind it. You're not just getting them stuck on. I'm angry.

Shauna: 27:23

I'm frustrated, but in identifying this specifically now, how are we looking at what scripture has said on how to put that off and going all the way to the heart of like, why are we angry and frustrated? And then obviously complimenting it through the scripture of what we're then called to put on. Very good resource. We hope that you've enjoyed this episode. Again, christiancounseling.com is where you can find the equip you material.

Shauna: 27:46

There's this plus many more practical tools you can use in the counseling room. So thank you for joining us at Speak the Truth and we will talk to you next week.