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Hey guys, I just want to tell you about something else that Bill Voldemort and I are working on. It's called Living Influence Leadership. It's for business leaders who also happen to be Christians. We think we've got some great stuff that can be amazing in your companies. It wasn't mine. Check us out at livinginfluenceleadership.com.

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Welcome to this week's episode of Living Influence. I'm your host, Scott Boyd, along with my friends Bill Thrall and Voldemort Cole. And we've got a book coming out, Living Influence. I encourage you to go to our website, livinginfluence.com. You can find out a little bit about that. This week, we're going to talk about the Christian, the long-term Christian that's in a crisis. Hmm.

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Maybe you've been a believer a long time and you find yourself struggling to keep hope in your marriage. Maybe there's issues at work that just have got you tied up in a knot. Maybe you're just filled with midlife issues. You know, kids leaving the empty nest. Okay, so here I am. I'm in a crisis. And I've tried counseling. I don't know if it's working. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't.

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You know, I'm looking for that preacher that can just, you know, give me that message that'll give me the motivation I need to keep this year's New Year's resolutions.

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Maybe I'm not journaling enough. I need to do more introspection. Or maybe I need to stop this emotion that I'm feeling. I just got to stop it. Stop being so anxious. Stop being so afraid. Stop being so angry. You know, and so I'm just, I just got to push those down. It's a problem with my discipline. Maybe I need more discipline. Yeah.

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It is funny how we can get ourselves tied in a knot on this journey. And so, Bill, let's start here. That's me. I'm in a crisis. Help. I've had the privilege of sitting across the table, so to speak, with a lot of senior Christians who have these kind of issues.

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And so often the question they tend to be asking is something like this, why isn't Christianity working for me? It's kind of like their general. And I know this is going to sound trite, but the answer is not in Christianity. It's not interesting. What do you mean? The answer is in Christ.

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Oh, okay. And really, there's a huge difference. There are reasons that Christians are living in crises because they have not been taught to understand that it's critical that their life be known and that the issues of their life be known.

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Not so they can blurt it all out, but that so somebody in love can actually protect them in their stuff, to free them from their stuff. See, there are, unfortunately, just the narrowness of my experience, but there are a lot of Christians that are even afraid to admit they have problems.

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See, there are some general truths. There is no one who's a Christian who hasn't been profoundly affected by sin. Theirs and the sin against them. And if into my years of life where these problems are common, I'm discovering that it's because most of these people have never, ever been taught

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that there is a way through the miracles of forgiveness and repentance to have the profound, unresolved life issues be brought to solution. I'm in a crisis because they're right. They're blaming Christianity for not working, and they're right. It never could. I'm going to sound like a heretic right now, but I'm sorry. But the answer is not in the church.

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The answer is in the Christ of the church. Okay, so those are fancy words. They are. The answer is not in Christianity. The answer is in Christ. What does that mean to me? That's good. That's a good question. Part of the, Scott and anyone, is this. For a long time, Christians often go into environments where,

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where they learn how to live, quote, the Christian life. Mm-hmm. Only to discover it ain't working. Because the Christian life is not something we discover how to live into. The Christian life is a natural expression of who we are. Like, I could say to a lot of people in this audience, do you understand...

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that the moment you accepted Jesus Christ, God made you righteous. That's what he did. So all your striving to become godly is going to put you in crisis because you already are righteous. That's who you are.

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So that they're sounding words, but it's like, unfortunately, just say it unfortunately, if the church I'm attending is not teaching me that I'm already righteous, but is reminding me that I am a sinner who has to struggle with sinning less, I'm in a crisis. It just has taken me a long time to become aware of it. It ain't working. Yeah.

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because that's not who I am. That's why I said those words, Scott, because if the message of my church is that I am still a sinner, then that church has no answer to my real life issues. But if my faith...

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is in what Jesus Christ has been able to do to not only die for my sin, but to in fact, I say this carefully, to act fact, to redeem me out of the mess that sin has done to me. That's what I need.

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Let me go back to what you started with, which is the Christian in crisis. It could be an issue with their marriage. Their kids are wayward. Yeah. Yeah. I'm blocked at work or I've gotten fired. Right. Right. And then, Bill, you're saying, like, the answer is in the person, not in the faith, not in the church. Right. And then the other part that's coming to my mind right now is this idea, which we talked about earlier, that,

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First step is to acknowledge that I'm hurting. Exactly. And I'm experiencing a crisis and I can't solve it. Right. I had a mini crisis. I mean, it was a mini crisis. Back then it felt bigger. And I remember talking to my mentor and it was interesting. Out of my mouth was coming like, I know this isn't as big as all the problems that everyone else has. And I remember him just stopping me and saying, stop. Just be real. This is a crisis for you.

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And that was that first step, because for some reason, my natural instinct was to not, for it to not be true. Amen. Can't be a crisis. Or to minimize it. Or to minimize it. Right. Can you explain maybe why I might have that response? Why is it so difficult to even admit that you're in a crisis? We have this innate desire to be known well, to be thought of well. And if I have a problem...

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then there must be something that I can't share because it'll break down the image. Our friend John Lynch said this originally, and every time he says it since then thousands of times, he said, what if I was in a place where the worst of me was known, and I would be loved more for the telling of it?

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That's the reality. See, we're so afraid. I'm so afraid, Voldemort, of what you might think of me. Yeah. But it's amazing. In our last session, we talked about being vulnerable and being open and letting somebody know. It doesn't turn people away from you. You fall in love with them. Actually, you fall in love for them. You don't run from them. You actually run to them. So that's part of it.

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my bias is that's shame keeping us from being known. There's an amazing power in light.

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When you bring something that has been in darkness into the light, there's an amazing biblical principle there that that which is in darkness gets broken in the light. I know this sounds corny, but I remember really young somebody saying, you know, you can bring light into a dark room, but you cannot bring darkness into a lit room.

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You talked about when someone shares their story and you hear it, you run to them. Absolutely. So a connection just fired off in me of like, oh, okay, that's proof for this statement we make so often that humility is trusting others with me. Exactly. When I trust others with me or when someone trusts themselves with me, I run toward them.

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That's the opposite of what would be the case if they were puffed up with pride and telling me about all that they did. Exactly. It's almost like proof of like, oh, that is humility. Good for you. That's good. Because the opposite is opposing that behavior. Yeah. Oppose the proud. Yeah. That's a good insight, Scott. Yeah. And it draws us to each other.

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Yes, it does. And it's so beautiful. We said this last time, but I'm going to repeat it here. And that is, do you know that when we actually trust each other, we experience grace in our relationship? Because it frees us to love. Yeah. It frees us to love. Yeah. How many times have I said these words? The degree to which I trust you is the degree to which you can love me, no matter how much love you have for me. And lots of people in crises—

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do not understand. A solution to their issues is to discover someone they can trust. Because when they discover someone they can trust, the reality of what is bothering them can be known.

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Because honestly, when you say that, the degree to which I trust you, the degree to which you can love me. Yes. You mean I got to tell you my story. I got to tell you all my hidden things. That terrifies people. Of course it does. In fact, I don't even want you to tell me all your stuff. I don't want to hear it yet. I'm not ready to hear it. What I really am saying is, what if you trusted me a little bit?

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So you could begin to experience a little bit of my love. Because we're talking about the Christian crisis. There's an immediate need, a crisis-level need. Exactly. And there needs to be that I need help. I'm in a crisis. I need help. How do I receive that? Because the other part of...

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This idea of you loving me and love being the process of meeting someone else's need. Right. And I am a Christian in crisis. I have great need. What if a solution or maybe even the solution to your crisis would be to trust somebody so they can love you? Love has a profound ability to heal.

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the profound ability. My mind just now ran to several, several people in the course of my life. Some dramatically, dramatically opposed to life, angry, abusive people who, when they're loved,

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changes everything. I'll give you a quick story. It just came to be. But years ago in our ministry, a biker gang got some literature from one of our young people. And the biker gang owner, boss, wherever he was, he became a believer. I mean, he was a drug lord and a bunch of, he was ugly, everything was wrong.

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But he really struggled with how deeply he was affected by somebody loving him.

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It just rattled every part of him to the core of his person. And for him, it became the evidence that he was a Christian because he said something that radical has to come from someplace beyond me. And this guy brought the woman he was living with. She'd become a believer. He said, well, now that we're Christians, oh, my gosh, he said, we probably shouldn't be living together.

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And I said, you probably, and I said, have you thought about getting married? And he swore a lot. He swears, five or six swear words, and then he says, no, never thought about getting married.

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Well, do you love her? Oh, no. She starts crying. Oh, no. And he looks over at her and he says, Well, you don't love me, do you? And she starts crying even harder. He starts swearing so far. It's quite a scene. And she said, yes. And I remember, I remember this really tough tattooed couple. They both start crying, you guys.

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It was powerful. It was powerful. That's an extreme story, but not really. It's a story of somebody, in that case, a nonbeliever in crisis. But it could be a believer in crisis. I wonder if we could just pause for another minute and say, do you know your greatest need might be to let someone love you?

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And as you said, well, how would they know they're doing that? Because they would let somebody in on their great needs. And that's when I begin to hear your story. You know, for a lot of people, I hate to be this negative, but for a lot of people, they believe the solution is in the telling of their story. That's not the solution.

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That's the beginning of a process. The beginning of a process. It's the beginning of a process. Right. Right. Here's what we need to learn to do. We need to learn to tell our stories to people who will love us so we can deal with the reality of our story. Mm-hmm. So let's continue this a little bit. Let's say I've been in crisis. Right. It happened. It happened.

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And now I'm not sure what I think about my faith. Well, I can see that. I mean, I could see that as a resulting effect. Yeah. It's like I've gone through—I'm in this crisis. It's been a while. So I begin to ponder—

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What is this faith? Why isn't it working for me? Why am I stuck in this crisis? There's never a time where it is not all right to reexamine the object of your faith. There's never a time where it's not all right to reexamine the object of your faith. Right.

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I was teasing, talking about Christianity, the church not working. Let's make a whole bunch of pastors read mad at me right now, but no, that's not the object of my faith. What is the object of my faith? Did Jesus let me down? Is that what I believe? Am I afraid to admit that I believe Jesus let me down? Is that the root of my crisis?

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Or maybe I need to re-examine at a very deep level, maybe with somebody who I can trust, how I'm really feeling about God, how I'm really feeling about my faith.

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because I wonder if I haven't been spending a whole season on my symptoms because I haven't had the courage to deal with the root. And let's just say, if you, whoever you are, struggle with trusting Jesus or trusting why he let you down in your words, I would just say to you, this would be a really good time to re-examine the object of your faith.

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Who is this Jesus? And can you really trust him with who you are? Don't be afraid to ask those hard questions of him. I love the answer because the answer leads me to going, Oh, Jesus, he's God. Yes, he is. He's the perfecter of my faith. It's not about me having more trust. Amen. It's about who I'm trusting.

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Somehow when I let that be true, I can relax a little bit. And somehow when I relax a little bit,

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Life gets a little easier. Absolutely. It's amazing. Very much so. A little bit of faith does. And I just pray that our audience has trusted friends where they can bring that doubt to. Sometimes I just can't process what I really am wrestling with about the nature of Jesus. Amen. I can go sideways. And having trusted friends like this to be able to just say, this is where I'm at. Yeah. All right. Well, that's important. And what if that was okay?

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What if it was okay to question? God's big. Jesus can handle us. He redeemed us. So why don't we let him be God and let him just do what he does?

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and that is accept us where we are and who we are. But it's okay. I want to keep saying, I don't want people to be afraid to doubt. What I want them to do is find relationships where they can experience the expression of their doubt. Imagine this could be for you. Amen. We were talking earlier, and when...

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When I've had friends who have begun to imagine that these things might be true for them, it's changed their lives. Absolutely. They've actually blossomed before my eyes. I totally agree. Just when I find myself a mechanical contractor with a master's plumbing license doing a podcast with them.

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Because I can't imagine not wanting others to experience this thing called grace with Jesus. Amen. Who's an amazing person. Well said, Scott. Thanks for listening this week, and we hope to see you next week at Living Influence.

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Thanks again for listening to Living Influence. We appreciate you. We'd love it if you'd go to livinginfluence.com, contact us, and send us an email. We'd love to know what you're thinking. See you next week.