Season 4 Episode 1: Intro
Brenda Payne (00:06.634)
Well, hi Alex. I'm excited about our recording today because we're starting a new season and we are rolling out the season called wisdom for life's common struggles. And what everybody already knows that that means an opportunity for Brenda and Alex to make more confession. Cause that's where this thing typically goes, right?
Alex Kocher (00:08.161)
Hey Brenda.
Alex Kocher (00:14.536)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (00:29.665)
Exactly. Wisdom for our common struggles is really what it is.
Brenda Payne (00:34.494)
That's right. Well, and you know what? There's a lot of truth in what you just said because the six topics that we picked are very common struggles, not only to our listeners, we presume, but also to us, and that's why we've chosen them. You know, 1 Corinthians 10.13 tells us that as unique as we think we are, Alex, that no struggle is actually unique to us, right? And so the kind of struggles that we wanna talk about in this series, we are calling common
Alex Kocher (00:53.089)
Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha.
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (01:03.648)
their normal, their typical, their ordinary, everyday struggles that people living in a fallen world deal with. And these are also the kind of struggles that people have been dealing with for over 4,000 years. And since the fall, we might just say that they're part of the human experience. So the six topics that we want to cover in this season include anger. And we could just look at the scriptures and see all kinds of angry people. We've got Cain, we've got Saul,
Alex Kocher (01:10.006)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (01:33.528)
got, you know, Herod, we've got the Jews, the Pharisees. I mean, there's all kinds of anger going on in the Bible. We've got anxiety. I mean, we can turn page after page after page of the Bible and see anxious people for all kinds of reasons about their home, about their family, about their barrenness, about relationships. We've got depression. And you know, nothing screams depression more than reading the prophets, right?
Alex Kocher (01:58.731)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (01:59.326)
So we see in the prophets that we have a lot of depression going on, a lot of discouragement. And of course, King David also would be in that category because in the Psalms we see a lot of giving voice to a lot of discouragement, a lot of hopelessness, a lot of depression. We're also gonna be talking about fear of man, which we call also people pleasing or love of approval or fear of disapproval. And maybe the most infamous of all people pleasers that we might think about is Peter and his denial of Christ.
Alex Kocher (02:26.765)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (02:29.2)
talking about bitterness and Naomi is a beautiful story for us to unpack because we're gonna really be talking about bitterness in light also of hurt and grief. And then we are also going to be talking about guilt and shame and we can have a lot of examples of that. I mean King David, we've got beautiful Psalms written by David having to do with his guilt and shame over his affair with Bathsheba. But really in a lot of places of the scripture we see guilt and shame
And then when we just really consider that the Bible is written to people throughout history, I mean, not just the people who are in the stories, but the people who are reading the stories are all people who have struggled with these common issues as well.
Alex Kocher (03:14.126)
Mm-hmm.
And I think what we've seen Brenda over the last 50 years is that things that we're calling common struggles are now being talked about more in what professional language or language of mental illness. And so we've seen that everyday problems now are things that people are being diagnosed with. And of course there is a place for those diagnoses. We're not taking away from that. But I think what you and I
see is that first of all these common struggles are they are categories of sin and suffering and we want to talk about them in terms of sin and suffering in a way that the world is now classifying them as mental illness and what we also see is that even as we sit down with people on a regular basis to talk to them and we're doing that oftentimes in a professional capacity but a lot of the
Alex Kocher (04:14.991)
friendships. They need deep friendships and we would even argue that they wouldn't need to come to us if they had friends who would walk alongside them in these common struggles. So we're hoping that what this series does is help people feel equipped, help people feel we say confident and competent to walk alongside others and as we always say first to counsel their own hearts and then walk alongside someone else. And so what we want to do is
Brenda Payne (04:22.015)
Yeah.
Alex Kocher (04:44.931)
is we want to demystify some of these struggles and we also want to give some body solutions and some soul solutions both. And we wanna make sure that we're considering the whole person.
Brenda Payne (04:58.132)
Hmm.
Yeah, and we want to do that by applying wisdom. And that is going to be a very important part of the, as Bob Kellerman likes to say, solution, right? The S-O-U-L, solution. Just a basic dictionary definition of wisdom is the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good judgments and decisions. So when we look at that definition, we really see two parts. And we see it has part knowledge
Alex Kocher (05:02.187)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (05:09.739)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (05:29.876)
I don't know if it's one to one, but we need knowledge, plus we need experience as well. And you know, whether or not we realize it, we all subscribe to a body of knowledge that shapes the way that we understand, experience, and respond to the world around us. And we call this a worldview. And that worldview informs how we make judgments and what decisions we think are good and bad. And
at its core really our worldview and how we're going to decide how to make wise decisions is going to directly impact the peace and joy that we have in our lives.
And then the second part of course is experience. And so how do we get experience? We gain some knowledge through experience through direct observation or personal participation. So for our purposes, because we are biblical counselors and we want to show people how to have biblical wisdom, then we wanna talk about what does it look like to put biblical knowledge with our experience to make us wise in dealing with life struggles. So the body of knowledge that gives us
Alex Kocher (06:30.509)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (06:35.728)
understanding, of course, first of all established by God. Fundamental and foundational to all counseling is who decides what is wise. And I would say that in our culture we are in a crises about wisdom because we don't know the wise one, right? We're not looking as a culture to the wise one. But for the believer, wisdom has to start with God because he is in fact wisdom. And
Alex Kocher (06:50.157)
Hehehehe Mmhmm
Brenda Payne (07:06.348)
So in the scriptures, we actually will find wisdom for all types of issues and problems that are relevant for today. And I hope that's a piece that everyone will pick up on as we go through each one of these issues is that, wow, the Bible speaks to each of these issues and it actually has something to say about how to overcome or grow through or know more about God because of it. And so we can say a few things about God's wisdom that we can't say about wisdom from any other source.
One thing we can say is that it's infallible and that means that it is wisdom or truth that never changes. We can also say that it's authoritative. It comes from a source greater than man, right? All other wisdom sources, even if they're good, because we're made in the image of God and we can have some good, you know, we can have some good wisdom apart from God, if you will, if we're not a believer. But that's because of common grace. That's because we're made in the image of God and God allows the believer and the unbeliever to know some things. And we'll talk more about that.
sufficient and that means they're enough for all of our sin and suffering struggles in our lives that have to do with specifically what it looks like to love God and to love our neighbor.
Alex Kocher (08:17.36)
So not only is wisdom established by God, but it's revealed.
in the person of Christ. So Jesus was the personification of wisdom. So he came and he lived on this earth. He showed us how to live wisely. He showed us what the core of wisdom is, which is learning how to love God and love our neighbor. And I would also say that he also empowers that wisdom in us in the sense that because of the resurrection,
Alex Kocher (08:52.244)
that wisdom is empowered in us through Christ.
Brenda Payne (08:56.63)
Yeah, and that empowerment is applied by the Holy Spirit. Because Christ came and he left, and he says in Acts 1, he says, I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit to have power to be my witnesses, to your family, your neighbor, your city, and beyond. And let me just say too that God loves to give us wisdom if we will just ask. Like I think today if you're struggling with something and you're like, I just don't know what to do, go to James 1.5.
Alex Kocher (09:00.061)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (09:20.181)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (09:25.64)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (09:26.604)
Just ask me. I...
I am the person of wisdom. I love to give wisdom out and guess what the most beautiful part of this is he gives generously to Everyone who asked without finding fault with them and Alex I love this because I've been a dummy so many times in my life I've you know, I've been foolish at times. I've been rebellious at times But I love that God doesn't find fault right if we come to him in humility He is more than ready and willing to say yes We just got a new dog and whenever we train her to do something our trainer taught us this
Alex Kocher (09:42.576)
Hmm
Brenda Payne (09:58.352)
when she does something right, you go, yes, like that. And so I just, I kind of imagine going to God and asking for wisdom and he'll go, yes, you know, having that just enthusiasm like, yeah, you're doing the right thing. So, you know, just to recap, that God has a standard for wisdom. Jesus has given us the example and to your point, the power through the resurrection, his life, his death and his resurrection, to be an example of wisdom as well. But the Holy Spirit really gives us the ability
Alex Kocher (10:00.685)
Hahaha
Alex Kocher (10:06.803)
Hahaha!
Alex Kocher (10:28.717)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (10:29.232)
progressively we might even say as we continue to walk with the Lord.
Alex Kocher (10:34.213)
And then in addition to...
on what we've been given by God. We're also given these experiences. And experience is a place that we can gain wisdom. As you said, we don't always gain wisdom and experience, but we can gain wisdom and experience. It certainly gives us an opportunity to practice the application of wisdom. I think we, it reminds me of the verse in James, like we learn discernment by reason of use. We do have to apply our knowledge. We do have to get in the practice of applying it
Brenda Payne (10:45.454)
Hehehe
Alex Kocher (11:06.191)
to learn wisdom, so to speak. But we also have to be careful in thinking that that our experience defines what wisdom is. Like our experience is often just one experience and we can't always use that to apply it across the board. So there's even wisdom in knowing how to use our experiences.
Brenda Payne (11:14.808)
Yep.
Brenda Payne (11:27.87)
Yeah, really true. But I think that, you know, experience.
can really make us feel known. Like if we're talking to somebody who has a shared experience. And recently I was talking to a friend who was feeling really overwhelmed in parenting. She has three children under the age of three and a teenager. And she was going to a professional counselor who was very encouraging, but the counselor didn't have children of her own. And even though the counselor had some good knowledge, some things she was telling her, she just, she lacked experience. And at the end of our like 40 minute conversation,
Alex Kocher (11:44.843)
Mm.
Brenda Payne (12:03.034)
Wow!
I've gotten far more out of the short conversation than I've gotten out of hours of counseling with my counselor. And she said, because I feel understood and you've given me some really practical advice. And I had three babies in five years and before mom's on call, that's kind of the big thing right now that the young moms are using. I'm learning that from my daughters. Oh, it's so wonderful. It's all this information and yeah. But back before mom's on call, Alex, I don't know if you remember, we had the contact moms.
Alex Kocher (12:09.941)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (12:23.867)
Oh, I've never heard of that.
Mom's on call.
Alex Kocher (12:33.82)
Uh huh.
Brenda Payne (12:34.084)
who took phone calls and they were part of a family ministry that was very popular at that time. And I can remember being one of the moms who would take phone calls from around the country. So, you know, it helps to have experience. I had experience dealing with other moms with babies. I had my own babies. I got grand babies now. And then also I was able to put her in touch with a good friend of mine who had four babies in four years, four babies in four years, and who survived and was able to give her a lot of hope. So, you know, is experience alone enough?
Alex Kocher (12:39.501)
Uh-huh.
Alex Kocher (12:57.187)
Oof. Oof.
Brenda Payne (13:05.184)
But there's some real value in having some experience. We don't have to have experience to minister to somebody else in that particular situation, but oftentimes that kind of experience bleeds over and gives us some wisdom in other areas. And it really is nice to talk to people who can relate and do understand because of their experience.
Alex Kocher (13:07.634)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (13:14.679)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (13:26.277)
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.
One of the other things that we've talked about as we think about wisdom is that wisdom is often practically lived out in gray areas. I know the longer I live, the more I see that things are not as black and white as I used to think that they were, that there's a lot more complexity. There's a lot more nuance. And so part of wisdom is this area of discernment or judgment. I'm judging well. And so in order to do that,
to be able to look at the complexity, look at the nuance. And so one of the things that we want to do is really point people to the ability to nuance truth and love without compromising either one of them. And that's going to take wisdom. And I think as we talked to one of our guests Marty Solomon about, this really is reflected I think better in Eastern culture than it is in our Western culture. Like we see things more as either
Brenda Payne (14:26.862)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (14:28.939)
war and in an Eastern culture there's much more of a both and and I think we see that reflected in Scripture and yet somehow we still we still go to the Scripture and we still want to make it very black and white we want to make it either or. So wisdom is often just being able to hold competing ideas together at the same time which is hard for us to do. It puts us in a lot of tension that we
Alex Kocher (14:58.919)
that tension in terms of avoiding one of two ditches. And so the ditches are the either-or mentality and so we want to talk about some of the ditches that we want to avoid as we approach these common struggles. And the first one that I think about is avoiding the ditch of it's only your body or it's only your soul. So it would be anxieties only located in your body and so we only deal
or like anxiety is only located in your soul, or it's a sin issue. And so we want to avoid those ditches and we want to see that the goal really is that we want to approach each person as an embodied soul, that there are both and, that the body impacts the soul and the soul impacts the body and it gives us a more holistic view of the person. I think what's really beautiful is that we see as more comes out in the field of neuroscience
relationships, we see all the more that the body and soul are inexplicably intertwined and we get more information about how you you you really can't pull that apart. You have to treat and you have to approach people as both and.
Brenda Payne (16:22.827)
And I think we both know in our own lives and as we deal with women who come to see us oftentimes that if we don't care for the body, it's hard to care for the soul. In other words, if your body is in a ditch, there is no ministry apart from a body. And I think just so often, I think sometimes as Christians, we're kind of afraid to look at the body side because it feels a little bit like, ooh.
Alex Kocher (16:33.949)
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Right?
Alex Kocher (16:46.508)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (16:47.862)
That's getting out of the spiritual realm. But it's like, is it really? Because Jesus came in full humanity in a body, right? And we have instances in the Bible where God is specifically meeting people to restore them physically. He's basically eat and go to bed kind of counsel that he's giving them, recognizing how important the body is. So I know for me, one of the things that I'm learning as I get older is to listen to my body for lack of better way to say that.
Alex Kocher (16:50.145)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Alex Kocher (17:04.448)
Right?
Alex Kocher (17:15.979)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (17:17.776)
What is my body telling me? As I've gotten older, I realize anxiety and stress affects me, affects my body more. I feel it more in my body. Just having that awareness that I can begin to say, uh-oh, I'm really beginning to feel this in my body will cause me to step back, reevaluate my schedule, look more at my diet a little bit. It's never in place of feeding my soul or time in the world or my spiritual disciplines,
Alex Kocher (17:19.503)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (17:27.779)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (17:47.736)
help me alongside of.
Alex Kocher (17:49.437)
Mm-hmm. That's good.
Brenda Payne (17:52.382)
Yeah, so there are some other ditches that we can fall in and we have a I think in season one we actually did our podcast on Saint Supper Center. Our first podcast we talked a lot about these ditches of seeing people as only sufferers versus seeing somebody is only a sinner or seeing ourselves that way. Rather than recognizing as a sufferer that we're frail and finite and as a sinner we're fallen. And so we can see ourselves simultaneously as believers as Saint Supper Center.
Alex Kocher (18:01.769)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (18:10.644)
Right.
Alex Kocher (18:22.817)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (18:23.096)
And you know, we don't have to be afraid to name sin because we have a Savior. My memory verse this week is Acts 3 19. And I love this idea like repent and turn to God. I think that we hear repent and sometimes our hackles go up. You know, it's like, wait, what does that mean? I did something wrong. And it's like, what an invitation of God. Repent, turn away from yourself and all those things that are distracting you and taking you away from me and my love for you. And turn back to me, the lover of your soul.
Alex Kocher (18:38.134)
Yeah.
Alex Kocher (18:49.495)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (18:52.216)
the one who will really take care of you. And then it says, turn to God so that your sins are wiped away. Like God is not there to produce shame or guilt on us, it's going away. So times of refreshment can come from the Lord. And so, if we only focus on our suffering story and we don't focus on the sin story, we're not gonna get this blessing that God is saying right here. We're not gonna get this refreshment from the Lord. But by the same time, if we only focus on the sin and we don't ever look at the suffering,
Alex Kocher (18:58.91)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (19:06.249)
Mm.
Alex Kocher (19:14.686)
Right.
Brenda Payne (19:23.236)
if you're suffering, you're suffering, and if you're sinning, you're suffering. Right? So we don't need to be afraid to sit with somebody who's suffering either because we have the promise of comfort. And I was thinking about these, I think these words rhyme lament and repent. Aren't those rhyming words? I was like, oh, the normal rhythm of the Christian life is lament and repent, lament and repent, lament and repent. Right? And I think we can just move out of those so beautifully and without fearing even within the same two minutes, my heart can
Alex Kocher (19:25.819)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (19:36.753)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex Kocher (19:41.961)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (19:52.116)
you know, sorrowful over something happening and some sort of suffering, but also confessing and seeing the yuckiness of my own heart. Almost simultaneously, actually, Alex.
Alex Kocher (19:55.622)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (20:01.341)
Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I like that, avoiding either one of those ditches. Another ditch I see that we, or other two ditches that I think we need to stay out of is these ditches of, I'm only going to use scripture. Not that we don't wanna use scripture, but I'm only going to use scripture, or I'm only going to use other resources, not use scripture. And so we wanna bring that together. We wanna know that scripture gives us just a more robust view of mankind.
but we're also able to use scripture to evaluate other resources, be, you know, some people say be Berean in nature. And so we look at other things, we look at descriptive psychology, we look at neuroscience, we look at medical doctors or other resources that help us understand the human experience, but we always take that back to scripture and we bring it together. And so it's not an either or, but
Brenda Payne (20:43.778)
Yeah.
Alex Kocher (21:03.791)
It's a both and.
Brenda Payne (21:05.758)
Yeah, you know, since I went to Israel, I've been really.
fascinated and I think studying more just the ancient culture and trying to learn more about the writers and that time frame. And the Apostle Paul really had an incredible education and I've learned it was both in Torah and the scriptures but also in the Greek philosophies of his day. He would have been one of like 500 of his his rabbi's students that was chosen that was like you know one of the best students and so it's interesting because in knowing
Alex Kocher (21:25.771)
Mmm.
Alex Kocher (21:29.203)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (21:37.896)
Uh huh.
Brenda Payne (21:41.336)
was actually able to go into places like Athens and Corinth where there's a heavy Greek influence and reason and engage with the people, not debate them because debating is just about being right, right? But reason and engage and he wasn't afraid to learn other worldviews or look at writings outside the scripture but we can see as we go through his writings that he interprets everything through a
Alex Kocher (21:44.673)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (21:53.694)
Right?
Brenda Payne (22:11.536)
that we don't need to be afraid of outside resources, but we need to know the truth. And so we got a major on the truth. We have to know the truth if we're going to eat the chicken and spit out the bones as I like to say. And my sister and I were on the treadmill yesterday and we were having this discussion about Paul and Axe, because I'm in the Axe of my quiet time right now, and
Alex Kocher (22:23.347)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (22:31.478)
We were just saying that Paul didn't do this in a vacuum, though, he didn't go learn about the pagan philosophies and then come back and try to talk to the people. He did it under a rabbi, and he did it in community with other Jewish students. And so I think that's instructive to us that even as we engage with what I'm gonna call extra biblical resources at times, I think it's really great that we do that with some supervision of Christians
Alex Kocher (22:35.089)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (22:46.613)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (23:01.592)
and have more knowledge than us and in community with one another and I feel like something that you and I have really been able to do well in our relationship. I love being able to read somebody who maybe we don't a hundred percent agree with. I mean some of our guests that come on we may not a hundred percent agree with but we can look and say wow they add value and there's something about what they're doing that's putting God's glory on display and by the way ten years from now we might decide that we were actually the ones that were wrong and they were right because that's already happening to me.
Alex Kocher (23:16.044)
Right?
Mm.
Alex Kocher (23:22.616)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (23:28.973)
Yeah, yes.
Brenda Payne (23:31.932)
Right? It's things that I held so precious, beliefs that I've had dogma, you know, I would debate you on and now I'm holding a little bit more loosely. But Alex, why don't you why don't you take us to our next point?
Alex Kocher (23:43.253)
Well, so just to sum up the ditches, I think what we're trying to say, they're probably more ditches than we've mentioned here. They're a lot more. These are just some major ones we see that to hold a place of wisdom is gonna be to hold the tension in between these two points. And so as we're thinking about wisdom for life's common struggles, one of the other ditches we see is that you may fall into the category where you think,
Brenda Payne (23:50.411)
Yes.
Alex Kocher (24:13.727)
friends who are believers, I only need spiritual friendships, or I only need a professional counselor. And so we have, you know, we probably all know people who fall in either one of those. And what we're arguing for here is that we we grow best in these healthy spiritual friendships, but because we're made for community and so we need Christians around us. But there are going to be times
or problems that we face that may cause us to want to go beyond the scope of friendship and seek someone who is professional. We may want to enlist the help of more mature believers in our church or we may want to actually find someone who is a trained counselor. So we, you know, when I think of areas especially over the last several years things that I've studied have recognized
Alex Kocher (25:13.007)
abuse, things like that where I've needed special training and I've sat with people who need a little bit more than what their friends can provide, especially as they're addressing body and soul issues within themselves. And so there are places to be clinically informed about these things and to seek that help. And part of wisdom is knowing when to seek that help, when to go outside of normal spiritual friendship.
Brenda Payne (25:41.931)
Yeah.
I think the key words there are really when we're beyond the scope of our knowledge or our experience. And it's okay to admit that. There have been plenty of times even as a professional, quote unquote, professional counselor that I have been outside of my knowledge and experience. And I've had to go to other people, whether like you said, it may have just been pastors or somebody like yourself who's also a counselor, a different resource to gain more knowledge and information.
Alex Kocher (25:47.485)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (25:57.838)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Alex Kocher (26:10.781)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (26:12.788)
through the situation that has experience but they are a believer and they've done it well. So there's kind of a lot of ways to achieve that. But I think you know our whole kind of point of conversational counseling is that we would convince every person listening you know that they can have the wisdom to help themselves and most people in most situations. And you know there's really no
Brenda Payne (26:42.728)
And I'm thinking, there's no hard cases here. These people are in the first century church. They're getting persecuted unto death. Talk about fear of man. Talk about legitimate fear. Talk about anger. I mean, all kinds of issues, not to mention the fact that in their cultural context, they're just dealing with daily life as well under that sort of stress. But the thing that's really stood out to me is that through prayer and encouragement, God's people were strengthened. And I love that.
Alex Kocher (26:50.962)
Yeah.
Alex Kocher (27:03.014)
Right?
Alex Kocher (27:11.522)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (27:12.528)
was the prayer and encouragement. That word encouragement just would encompass so much of what the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and we see that as Paul and these disciples are going around and helping the church at that time. So they had all the same problems we have, and probably even worse, culturally it was worse, but they relied on one another. And the Hebrew writer says, let us encourage one another daily. We go to church weekly, it's not gonna be enough. You may go to small group once a week, or Bible state, it's not enough.
Alex Kocher (27:37.557)
Hmm
Brenda Payne (27:42.466)
daily to hold firm and hold fast. And so we're gonna have to be in relationships with people, Alex, who we're rubbing elbows with, we're stepping on toes with on a daily basis to be comforted and to even know that we need an invitation to change a lot of the times.
Alex Kocher (27:43.806)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (28:00.145)
Yeah, it's really good. Yeah.
And I think when you say that daily, it takes me to the place of, one of the things that we wanna encourage, we always are encouraging people, we're always reminding ourself of, is that to be truly wise and then apply that wisdom to life's current struggles, we're gonna have to do that in our own lives first. We need to be about self-counsel and that self-counsel is really our primary means of personal sanctification. And it's also our best training
help others. So we like to say you can't give what you haven't already received. Like you have to receive it first to be able to give it away. And so the goal of biblical counseling is to grow and mature in Christ and to look more like Jesus. And as just as Jesus put the Father on display, God is calling us to do the same thing. And so we want to be regularly asking ourselves questions like can you counsel yourself from the scripture? Can I counsel myself from the
Brenda Payne (28:34.175)
Yeah.
Alex Kocher (29:02.539)
Can I see progressive growth and change in these areas of personal struggle that I have? Do I see how my own personal sanctification is tied to my ability to glorify God? Am I putting Jesus more on display every day? And so each of our podcasts is going to have a biblical definition of these problems and practical tools, and we hope that you'll always apply them to your own struggle with these.
each area first before you go try to apply it in someone else's life. And each one of these areas as we said before is going to have a body component and a soul component. We want to give tools for each one. We hope that people will find that they're not just theoretical but they're deeply practical things that they can do each day. These are not just theories or therapies. They're ways that
we want to invite people to use God's means, use the means of grace, use our super powers as we call them, His Word, His Spirit and other believers so that over time we are not only experiencing comfort and change but we are also growing to love Jesus more and we are also growing to trust Him more. So you are going to see, and Brenda does a really good job of making sure that she brings
into each one of these podcasts where she's been so willing to share how she struggled with this and how she's personally wrestled with the Scripture, wrestled with the Holy Spirit, and then brought the counsel of God to bear on that. And so we we really do want want this to be a very practical series that feels like you can listen to it and that you have a tool and you can apply it
someone else who's struggling with the same thing.
Brenda Payne (31:05.61)
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah, and it would really be a shame if all the biblical knowledge we gained and the experiences that we have were just left with us and we didn't give it away and share it. Because one of our goals should be that we give it all away, all of it. All of the knowledge Jesus gives us, all of the experiential knowledge of walking with him and seeing his faithfulness when we've been obedient and disobedient. You know, and that's, you know, we talk about experience. One of the beautiful things about Christian experience is that we can, you know, fail forward.
Alex Kocher (31:15.573)
Hmm
Alex Kocher (31:20.658)
Yeah.
Alex Kocher (31:31.333)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (31:38.14)
or fall forward or that repeated repentance is progress or you know that we can learn to struggle well and that's not imperfection but in that process of sanctification. But we also are hoping that the podcast will be something you could use when you're maybe helping your neighbor or your daughter or your son or maybe even your husband or a friend or a co-worker but you could you know if somebody comes to you and they're struggling with one of these issues you could say hey why don't you listen to this podcast and maybe we could sit down
Alex Kocher (31:39.277)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (31:46.977)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (32:08.82)
Biblical counseling is part of the Great Commission and because of that we're all called to grow up to make disciples. Romans 15-14 Paul says, I myself am convinced my brothers and sisters that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, and competent to instruct one another.
Alex Kocher (32:11.972)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (32:28.518)
And so we had the privilege of talking with Elise Fitzpatrick and we talked a lot about this idea of being confident and competent. And we get confident as we grow in our walk with God and we see and we experience him in our own lives and we become more competent as we spend more time getting to know God through the scriptures and with dependence on the Holy Spirit and in community.
Alex Kocher (32:36.653)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (32:52.021)
Yeah, and I really like that you're touching on the fact that this is a form of discipleship because we've probably all been in what we call process-oriented discipleship where someone's teaching us how to read the Bible and how to pray and what are our spiritual gifts. We've probably all experienced at some point or another that stage of life form of discipleship where somebody shepherds us and walks with us through being single, getting married,
young children, a new job, those types of things. But what we are really trying to equip people towards is what we call problem solving or problem driven discipleship where we want people to realize that one of the biggest entry points we have into other people's lives is we are allowed to enter into where people are struggling. And we want to equip people to feel like they can enter into that place.
where people are struggling. When we're struggling, we are looking for solutions. And so we want to equip people to say, like, hey, I can walk alongside you and I can point you to some places where there are real solutions, the real solutions, as we say. So this is a form of discipleship and I think a very needed form of discipleship in the church at large that we sometimes forget about. And so we just wanna point
people back to Ephesians 4 to recognize that as we meet people in those problems is one way that we help to instruct people to how to become mature in Christ. And so what Paul says is the way that we help people become mature in Christ is that we learn to speak the truth in love. And there again we're having that tension, truth and love, that requires wisdom. And so we need truth, we need biblical guidance and direction, and we need love. We need to be able to display
empathy and compassion. People need to know that we see them, that we hear them, that we're willing to be present with them, and we need to recognize that the wise counsel that we're encouraging people towards is going to encompass both of those. And so we're hoping that as we tackle each one of these topics, although they are short and they're one-off, we're hoping that we can give a flavor of complexity and nuance to each one. We're hoping that we
Alex Kocher (35:22.115)
body tools and some soul tools and we recognize that each one of these podcasts could be an entire season or more. It could be a whole book, right? And so we recognize that we are we are compacting a lot into a little time but we're doing that on purpose because we want people to feel like okay I've got I've got a good tool I've got a good hammer now against anxiety I've got a good wrench
Brenda Payne (35:30.814)
Yes.
Alex Kocher (35:51.575)
It's not the only tool, but we do want to give one good tool, one good overview of how to use that tool. And we hope that, again, that this will be very practical, very where you live.
Brenda Payne (36:04.51)
Yeah. Well, true enough that there are many tools, but there is only one wonderful counselor.
Alex Kocher (36:12.117)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (36:13.074)
And if our struggles lead us to an encounter with Him, then we really will be changed, Alex. And that's really our goal in giving these tools as well as in this whole season is the tools are a means to draw closer to the Lord. A lot of times when we are struggling, we're just looking for relief and relief isn't bad. I think the Lord welcomes relief. But but what he really wants is to draw us closer to himself and for us to find our relief in him and not just the tool.
Alex Kocher (36:18.189)
Hmm.
Alex Kocher (36:25.601)
Mm.
Alex Kocher (36:32.339)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (36:41.344)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (36:43.488)
And so what we want to do is show the incredible life transforming power of biblical counseling you know I've been walking with Jesus for about 35 years now and 20 years as a professional biblical counselor and I can see that with little little more really than you know knowledge from God's Word and knowledge that I've gained from God's people and the power of the Holy Spirit and my own personal experiences God has entered into my world and as
own struggles, I've just had the privilege of seeing not only my own life be transformed, but the privilege of seeing countless others be conformed and changed in ways that are truly remarkable that really do point to the goodness and the glory and the greatness of our God. And so we're looking forward to everyone hearing this new season and would love to hear from you on our social media handles. I don't know if that's how you say it.
Alex Kocher (37:32.245)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (37:42.888)
platforms to give us some feedback and if you have questions please you know let us know those are great platforms to engage with us and yeah so we're looking forward to it and we'll just see what the Lord does we pray good things will come from this
Alex Kocher (37:43.508)
Hahaha!