087 - SWORD Drill

Welcome to the Pure Desire Podcast where we partner with you to bring hope and freedom on your journey to purity. Hey, ladies. I wanted to let you know about an upcoming event, the Pure Desire Women's Conference. This two day conference is designed to help all women find grace and peace in their daily lives. Doesn't that sound nice? Regardless of where you've been in your life, through this event you'll get a break from the daily grind. You get a fresh dose of encouragement and look. You'll also get practical tools to help you find emotional, spiritual and sexual health. This conference is from April 5th through 6th at the Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel. I'm excited for you to hear from Heather Kolb, Ashley Jamison, and our featured speaker, Patty Moreno. Come gather with other women looking to find ways to be healthier people in today's world. To register and get more info on the speakers, on the schedule and more, visit PureDesire.org PDWomen Again, that's PureDesire.org PDWomen that's all I got for now. Enjoy the podcast. Hey there. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and we're so thankful you're taking time out of your day to hang out with us. I'm here, as always, with my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Vote for Pedro.

Pedro who?

That is a quote from one Napoleon Dynamite.

A forgettable movie, in my opinion, but I know a lot of people loved it.

Okay, here's.

It had a couple of funny parts, but here's.

Here's. This is my. I know we're gonna get a little off topic, but we always do. So this is one of the things with that movie. If you go and see it, especially by yourself, and you just go see the movie, it's trash. Like it's not a great movie.

But who thought of this, right?

But I found out that if you sit around a table and you talk about how terrible it is with a.

Bunch of drunks, a bunch of drunks has to be, right?

No drunks on my end. Just with my family, which, I mean, I guess they're not drunks. So we sit around a table and we talk about it. Then all of a sudden it's very quotable.

Yes, yes, yes. Why I say forgettable. I can't even remember that line from the movie, but I know that's where it's from. And one of our avid listeners wrote that in as a suggested greeting. And I thought at the time of this recording, we're in the middle of a government shutdown, so maybe people would be in the mood to vote for someone new? Vote for Pedro.

Why not vote for Pedro? Well, back with us today is the founder, Dr. Ted Roberts. Thanks for being here, Ted.

Hey, good to see you, buddy.

Yeah, glad you're here. So today's time's gonna be spent walking through a Bible study tool. Now, I know this isn't something we predominantly do, but this is a tool that we use in a few of our resources, and it's called the sword drill.

So.

So we're going to take a passage. We're actually going to take Nehemiah 8, and we're going to walk through this, use this drill together, and Ted's going to kind of help us walk through it.

Yeah, and I'm excited about this one because for as long as I've known Ted, I've not actually heard him teach on the sword drill, but we encourage people to use it all the time. And I just. I wanted to say up front, you know, I don't use the sword drill as my method. And maybe there's a lot of listeners that already have a method that works for them, and I want them to be encouraged to still listen, because I know we're going to glean a lot that we might add to. To how we use a method. And then for those that are listening that have maybe found they've never really found a consistent way to be in the Word, we hope this is a pattern that works for them and that breathes life into their recovery. Because if we're trying to do recovery without the word of God and without the Holy Spirit being the voice that's a part of that, our waste of time success. Yeah, it's very, very minimal. So just excited, Ted, to glean from you more wisdom in this area and walk us through how the sword drill is used. Yeah.

Okay.

So before we walk through the drill itself, Ted, can you tell us a little bit, like, where did the sword drill come from? Who created it, that sort of stuff.

Great question. You know, I wish I'd always written up in our journals how to use a sword drill, because people think it's a simple Bible exercise. It's very, very deep, very challenging to do correctly, but if you get it right, it'll change your life. I didn't really develop it, but I guess I call his name, Hank. He's the first guy ever pastorally counseled. I just started pastoring a church, and he walked in, sat down in my office, which is my home, said, I need to talk. I went, okay. Well, in those days, I was really into academics. I was really a headache kind of guy.

So nothing like you are now.

No, no, no, no. And I mean nothing like I am now, really. And the reason was my insecurities because I flunked every answers exam they gave me for college. And they told me I couldn't go to college. Well, I couldn't fly an airplane in the Marine Corps if I didn't get a college degree. So packed up my car, drove to college, and sit there and pounded on their door until they let me in. I had to sleep in my car for the first week I was in college because I didn't have any money. I had 20 bucks. And the only place I could eat was down Denny's. Had all you can eat for breakfast. So I ate one meal a day down there, tanked up. And that got me through the whole day. And eventually I got in, got some loans and was able to go to college. And I had to take every bonehead class that they offered. And I'll never forget the moment I was sitting as early early fall. I was sitting in English class and I realized I had a brain. That was a massive revelation to me.

Whoa, there it is.

I was good at this. And what happened is my family origin always told me I was an idiot. And I bought into that big time. So it's amazing. I just was sitting there going, man, this is huge. So I got straight A's all the way through college, except for the last quarter. I met Diana, got a B in one class, and I blame her for that one. But it was worth it.

Totally her fault.

That's pretty good. A lot of us fell off the cliff a lot.

Or dropped or dropped out of school.

Yeah, you guys. You guys did that. Yeah. But it became a. It became a mantra for me. I had to be at the top of class no matter what. I was in the military or academics, always graduated with honors. And I realized I was setting myself up for a real trap. Hank helped me to see it that day. I tried to impress it with my intellect. And so I taught textual criticism and in the hermeneutics in the college level, which is pretty heady stuff. So my first statement to Frank was, I said, what do you think of Bullman and Telik and their hermeneutics? I never forget. He looked at me with this blank look on his face. He worked down at the local lumber mill. He said, who the hell is Pullman dealing? I don't know who those guys are. My wife just left me. And that was it. And I sat there and I was blown away. I realized how heady I was, and that's why I could not understand God's word. Very often I felt distant from God. And sometimes why I was so trapped in Romans chapter seven, because it was so heady and it really changed my life. That moment was huge in my life. I began to realize as I sat there with Hank, how screwed up I was. I spent years studying scripture from a totally prefrontal cortex perspective. There's nothing wrong with that intellectually. So I studied Scripture in its original language for years. But a deep limbic system keeps you trapped in Roman chapter seven. That's where you end up doing what you don't want to do all the time. Because we'll argue, we're what we say we believe, but we'll die for what we really believe. And so I became explosive with my wife. I wasn't a sexual addict anymore, but I was really angry with my wife. And the reason why, she'd bring up something that I did wrong or stupid. She didn't mean to say I was stupid. She just bring it up and say, why'd you do this? I took it as personal criticism because it was so insecure. So I'd react. And I said, man, I love this woman. Why am I acting like such a jackass? I was trapped in my intellectualism. I couldn't even realize what I was doing. And let me. When you go limbic, there's only three reactions you can have. Fight, flight, or freezer is the fourth one, which is drop dead and play possum with your wife. You're not going to do that. You know, you want to win type stuff. And you know, if something doesn't make sense, it's usually limbic. And most of scripture doesn't make sense. I don't know if you realize that or not. Explain the divinity of God in Christ and the manhood of Christ. Make this make sense. You can't explain that. The Trinity explained that one to me. Can't do that. I look at what Augustine said. He says, at every great point of theology, you're reduced to one thing. That's worship. You're brought to your knees. You don't understand. And my intellectualism has keeping me trapped, really trapped. So what I would like to do is underline three things about the limbic system. Then I'll tell you why I developed this type of Bible study. Number one, your limbic system is fundamentally programmed by the time you're six years of age by your family of origin. So it gives you the window through which you see your world and who you see yourself to be. That's very deep. And it's fully developed by 10 or 6 years of age, 80, 90% of the decisions you make on a daily basis, you don't consciously make them there at the limbic level. So you're making these decisions all the time. And I'm thinking about it. But what's really critical is when you understand the limbic system is reprogrammed through new experiences, not data download. So if we're going to be healed as someone who's struggling with sexual addiction, we have to type a Bible study that's not going to give us a data download. It's going to develop new experiences in us. And therefore, Bible study has to be not just prefrontal cortex. Theological download has to involve what you're feeling, what you're thinking, the depth of who you are. I love this book. I just recently picked it up. It's reading the Bible from Rabbi Jesus with Rabbi Jesus. How a Jewish perspective can transform your understanding of the Bible. We read the Bible as a Western reader.

Yeah.

And it's mostly an Eastern document.

Yeah.

And so we don't figure out what's going on a lot. And being intellectualism will really set you up. So we're going to take Hebrews chapter. I mean, pardon me, not Hebrews Nehemiah, chapter 8. And that's the first Watergate incident. I don't know if you know that or not. It's the first place the Watergate took place.

So Nixon's in there somewhere.

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Feels a little like revisionist history to me.

But no, no, no. You look at verse one of chapter eight says at Watergate, you know, and when I read that, I thought I could just see Nick and was jowls going, I'm not a crock, you know, I'm going, man, is that Olympic moment or what? You know, so what I want to do is take this and I'm going to look at it, and I want to look at it deeply. I'm going to ask you if you could read it, Trevor. Chapter eight, beginning in verse seven through 12. Yeah.

Right now?

Yes, sir.

All right, so there's a bunch of names in there. And because I'm a prideful man, I'm not going to try to read all of them. So the Levites and then a bunch of names instructed the people in the law with the people. While the people were standing there, they read from the book of the law of God, making It clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read. Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them, said to them, all this day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep, for all the people had been weeping and they listened to the words of the law. Nehemiah said, go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks and send some of send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. The Levites calmed all the people, saying, be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve. Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food, and to celebrate with great joy because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.

Yeah, the reason I chose this passage is one of the first times I worst places I did this type of Bible exercise on it because there's such a severe contradiction in here. I didn't understand what was going on. And so we're going to look at it from that perspective. You're up in message translation.

Okay, my turn. From the message translation, same passage says this. All the Levites explained the revelation. While people stood listening respectfully. They translated the book of the Revelation of God so the people could understand it and then explained the reading. Nehemiah the governor, along with Ezra the priest and scholar and the Levites who were teaching the people, said to all the people, this day is holy to God, your God. Don't weep and carry on. They said this because all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the revelation. He continued, go home and prepare a feast, holiday food and drink, and share it with those who don't have anything. This day is holy to God. Don't feel bad. The joy of God is your strength. The Levites calmed the people. Quiet now. This is a holy day. Don't be upset. So the people went off to feast, eating and drinking and including the poor in a great celebration. Now they got it. They understood the reading that had been given to them.

Yeah.

So, Ted, we've been diving in with scripture here, and that's actually the first S of the sword drill is scripture. So as we look at Nehemiah chapter 8, what does that step look like? Is it people just picking a passage? What kind of advice do you want to give along the lines of Scripture?

What this type of Bible study is so powerful are is when you find a Passage of scripture that doesn't make any sense to you? This one didn't make any sense first time I read it. The emotions there don't make any sense. And what we want to do is next w is to wait on the Holy Spirit and meditate on this passage. That's what we want to do, is meditate. So I'm going to lead you in through a meditation exercise, guys. Yeah, we're going to do the lotus position. No, no, no. That's the guys that stole meditation from us. We're doing meditation thousands before Buddha ever discovered it. And it's really important you learn to meditate in scripture. Psalm chapter one is all about meditation in terms of the book of Psalms. You can't understand the Psalms if you don't meditate. So what we want to do is now move from intellectualism. I want you to experience this passage. So I want you to close your eyes. It's going to be now when someone's listening on the radio and you're driving. Don't do this, okay? Just keep driving.

Wait until you're home.

Right to your home. Okay, what I want you to do is begin to close your eyes and find a comfortable position and begin to deep breathe in through your nose, not through your mouth. Meditation is not about emptying your mind. It's about putting scripture into your mind, especially in your limbic system. Okay, Now I want you to picture that passage we just read. And I want to tell. I want you to share with me what your seeing as you meditate in the passage when he's seeing Trevor.

I'm seeing people walking away with their eyes now open where they were closed before.

Nick.

What came to mind for me was the people hearing the word of the Lord and realizing the conviction of all the things they weren't doing and falling on their knees and they're weeping and they're feeling broken. So I was more on the front half of the passage.

All right? Okay, let's go back. Meditation. Now I want you to say what you're hearing. You said what you saw, but what are you hearing?

I'm hearing people sharing between themselves what they now understand. They're sharing that experience. The. I finally got it. Like, do you see this too? Do you see this too? So it's like a community piece to that. That's what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing.

Okay. Why is you, Nick?

I was thinking just kind of the commotion of a crowd. There's weeping, there's gasp, like, oh no. Why didn't we know this A lot of murmuring, you know, and here, Nehemiah and the prophet, they're trying to give God's word in a holy way, but everyone's. They're just kind of distressed and upset.

Yeah. Okay, Now I want you to really meditate on the passage again. Hear it, see it. What are you feeling now as you're part of the crowd? Yeah.

I think thinking about the experience, thinking about being there, I would feel. I would feel small in comparison to God's word. I'd feel like I'm not. Yeah. It doesn't feel like I. It feels like I somehow have not measured up. But now I'm seeing. Now I'm feeling like there's hope. There's hope. Now that I can understand.

Why is there hope?

Because the truth can be revealed to me. Because it's not something that's unattainable. Like, I won't maybe grasp all of it, but it's attainable for me. I can take it. And through God's leading, through the Holy Spirit, I can understand the truth of his word.

Okay. How about you, Nick?

I think the feelings were like. Of enlightenment or being woken up, like, realizing, here's truth and that truth is shining a light on the untruth that's in my life. That kind of exposure in a. But in a. In a good way. Like, wow, I can see things.

Okay. As we meditate on it. As we meditate on we. The passage we. What we saw, what we heard, what we felt. As you're observing in the Holy Spirit, what's the thing that's underlined? What's the truth that comes out of that? Now, there's a severe contrast here in the passage. It looks like it really doesn't come out of left. It comes out of left field. What they respond, that's not typically what you respond. And see, Nehemiah is a great book about leadership. First seven chapters are about excellence of leadership. Then right in the middle, you've got this experience of revival. Then you have the excellence of administration in the backside of it. So chapters 8 through 11 are about a real revival. What's the core observation the Holy Spirit gives you in this? What's the truth you're taking away from here?

I mean, verse 11. Do not grieve. Like, be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve. I'm taking away that I can be. Even in the midst of not fully understanding, I don't have to grieve that I can still rejoice and there is still hope for me. To understand God and what he has.

Okay. Why should you not grieve?

I just didn't know I was going to be tested.

It's nice to turn a table on these guys, isn't it? Yeah. Wow.

Okay, well, this is going to get cut. No, I think then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food, to celebrate with great joy because they now understood the words that have been made known to them. So there's understanding.

What do they understand about God, man?

What I'm getting out of this is that they understand that God does talk to them and he wants them to understand.

Okay. How about you, Nick?

I think the observation that comes to mind, you know, typically we think of, and, you know, more personally, I think of conviction, you know, the exposure of God's truth versus my sin as mournful, guilt ridden. And our evangelical background kind of teaches us, you know, feel bad about what you've done, go in remorse. And Nehemiah and Ezra, they flip it around actually, to celebrate. What I hear or see happening here is celebrating the goodness of God that reveals Himself to us, that makes known to us his ways. And that, that's, that's something to go home and celebrate me, basically, this passage is saying, go home and have a party.

Yes.

It's recent and that's what's really strange for the people. Like we're weeping, but you're telling us to party. So I think that's the observation for me is to think through how does my own sense of not measuring up to God's will or God's ways, instead of only creating guilt or only creating shame, create actually worship and celebration of that? God calls me to himself. God calls me to follow Him. And how could that lead to celebration in my life?

As you notice when you first, what you saw and you heard was kind of that evangelical expression of negativity. What does this tell about the character of God, this passage? He's not obsessed with what?

With my sin.

Yeah.

He's not obsessed with shortcomings.

Bing, bingo. You got it. He's not obsessed with your sin. That's huge. The way I like to put it is God's not an uptight evangelical. He's not obsessed with your sin. Now that is crucial. If you can get that in Scripture, then you have the foundation for you to really start getting free from addiction. Because what you're doing and you're addicted, you're medicating your pain through this activity. If you understand, God's not obsessed with your sin. All of a Sudden you're not hiding, you're not shame. You can be vulnerable, you can share with your wife, share with a group, get open with her. Yeah, that's really foundational to understand that.

So as we're using the sword drill, Ted, what I'm hearing you say is that waiting, and I think for a lot of people, waiting is very uncomfortable because they have, like you joked about, we see meditation as an Eastern thing. Other religions, when, you know, meditating on the word of God is core to faith, and we need to learn to meditate and to wait. And a lot of people are uncomfortable with that silence. But in the waiting, what I hear you encouraging us to do is we're not just trying to empty our mind and think about nothing. No, but we're trying to enter into the passage. We're trying to experience. Experience the emotions, the feelings. And I think that's going to be instrumental for a lot of people listening, that you pick a passage, that's the scripture, you wait, and in the waiting you're. You're imagining and observe. And then that leads us into the O of observing. What am I feeling? How am I reacting to this passage? What is God bringing to the surface for me and interacting with the Word and my own response to it? Is that the observation?

Yes, that's the observation point that you want to come to. That's crucial. But to get there, you have to experience it. In other words, we tend to intellectualize scripture. I spent so much time just studying the context of background, all the hermeneutics, I was absolutely missing the heart of scripture time and again.

Well, I think that's how a lot of people take it, that we're analyzing it. Analyzing it. And then what we observe is kind of the conclusion of our study.

Yeah.

Well, that can have value and that can lead to a good message to preach. But that doesn't necessarily, like you were saying, that doesn't necessarily transform my life.

No, it doesn't.

Well, one of the things. So we're in the new year now and the thing is, is that, you know, we just talked about Christmas and this is what I love, is that oftentimes we think like, oh, there was this, you know, 12, 13, 14 year old girl who the Holy Spirit impregnated and she was just like, awesome, let's do it. I'm so pumped. The idea of entering into thinking when you were 12, 13, 14 years old and an angel comes to you and says, hey, by the way, you're gonna birth a child while being a virgin, that's Gonna be the son of God. You might freak out a little bit. So that's what I like about this, about this idea of waiting and trying to entering into the experience. Because I feel like almost you're allowing. And I loved what you did. You're allowing multiple senses. You're trying to actually, like, tangibly hold on to that situation.

Exactly.

And you have more to observe just then. Well, this is what go. And this is who he was talking to. It's like, no, no, no. Think about where that person was at. So I like that you're almost entering into the narrative of scripture. In that sense, it can take away a lot more.

Great preachers will always do that. They'll have you engage the scripture intellectually. No, they'll have engaged in scripture emotionally. If it touches your emotions, it'll change you. If it touches your brain, you can walk away and not be changed.

But there has to be both, right?

We both. Yeah, but we both. And it's absolutely crucial. But we drop out the whole emotional part of it. And the New Testament is particularly great at doing that. Some of Paul's stories, Christ's parables, are just powerful experiences to get involved in. So it's really important you do that. And then how does it apply to your life? And then it comes to the request. That's the R. Yeah. So the R. My request is, God, could you help me to understand who I am from your perspective? And can I start seeing other people from your perspective? Because one of the things about clinical counseling, I realize 80% of the time I misread. People come into a clinical evaluation, I'm going, this guy's a jerk. He's never going to change. I never say that. You know, but that's what you think.

Yeah.

And then fall in love with a guy.

We're sorry for all the clients right now that are meeting with Ted.

No, no, don't do that to me. But it was the only one. It was Nick. That's the only one I ever thought.

Really tall.

Yeah.

Really messed up.

Yeah. So it's really important to. Out of that observation about the character. It's always about the character of God you're dealing with. Then God, what's my request? Prophetic promises. If I can get a guy to grasp on the prophetic promises, he'll make it. They're the most powerful thing we do. I think understanding the trauma profile, understand the arousal template and the prophetic promises are so crucial. And this process of doing scripture, this will give you many more prophetic promises. Because I'm talking with guys, trying to get them to get a handle on prophetic promises. They just don't see God in a positive way. All we see is perform, perform soccer. And they're always losing all the time.

Well, at our church was listening to, you know, the Christmas message and the idea was that God selects people who aren't the All Stars, they aren't the people who are the best. And I walked away with another personal promise. I don't have to be significant for God to use me. Because I was entered into the experience of what this 12 year old girl was going through. I resonated with that and that taught me even more. Like another depth of maybe what God is teaching is that it's not just, it's not just the story of how he came into the world as a man. It's also the story of who he chooses and how he uses people.

Yeah.

And do you think maybe that in some level women are better at this than men? That men have been taught to see God more intellectually where women. And I'm stereotyping a little bit, so I think that they tend to have more of an emotional side. Connect with story, engage with people where men can be more just analytical. Because I work with a lot of the men in my groups that I don't think they've ever really experienced God. So when I say like, you know, a personal promise, when have you experienced God? And they give you that blank look like, well I, I've read a lot of verses or quoted that like, no, being with God and how does he feel about? Like how does God feel about? They don't even know how to speak that language. And so I think there is some training that goes on of learning to engage our whole self, our whole mind, even our emotions in that relationship with God. And it truly is. There's just so much potential there to encounter God in a different way.

Well, really it's interesting, in scripture you're never asked to invite Jesus in your brain. Ask, invite him into what? In your heart. There's your heart right here. It's your limbic system. Yeah, it's your limbic system. And that's the thing that controls most of our action, most of our choices, our limbic system. That's why we got a focus here. Help guys to change there. I do most of my time training guys how to feel. I'll say, what are you feeling now? What are you feeling? I don't know. I don't know. You have to work at it. It's a learned behavior Learn behavior well.

And I think that it's important. I mean, this isn't just. As you're saying, this isn't just a male issue though, too. This is a person problem where it's understanding the experiences of my life, whether they were good or bad, necessarily shape my identity. How God sees me. It may shape how I see me, but this is, again, this is why I love. This is because this allows me to see how God sees me, regardless of gender, regardless of temperament or personality or issues. It allows me to see who God says I am.

I think for me, in this passage, the request then would be to give another illustration for people listening. I would request to say, God, help me, to see when I'm busy beating myself up for my sin and my shortcomings, where you're inviting me to go and celebrate and be in community with other people and to share my life and to give it away. And I mean, that's powerful to think about because I do think, especially when you've walked through a pure desire group and a counseling process, a danger is we can become almost too introspective that we're always thinking about ourselves and where am I missing the mark and how can I grow? And we need to be called to say, look around and have a party with the people around you and share with those in need and give the goodness of God away. And to see that in this passage, it's like, man, that's a great story. And if I just read it to analyze it, I'm going to miss that request to say, God help me to live this out.

And that's why it's so important for a guy, after he's finished seven pillars, to go back as a co leader or a leader and to pay it forward. Absolutely foundational. And the enemy will always attack us at a point of our feelings. I chose that word very carefully. Not our emotions, because we make feelings and emotionally the same emotions, the same thing. But from a neuroscience perspective, emotions are just simply a reaction to external stimulus. Your feelings are the interpretation you give to those emotions.

Wow. Mind blown. Okay, never heard that before. If you're driving, pull over. Now write that down and then get back on the road once again.

Our basic limbic beliefs are driving our whole life. And the way we feel is how we interpret the emotions that are occurring. In other words, how we're reacting to our circumstances.

So, Ted, as we've talked about, request and going to God, then with, you know, help me to live out what I'm seeing and experiencing here. What does it look like the D of dedicate yourself. What are you talking about here? As we dedicate ourselves.

Well, for me, I'll put it personally because this type of Bible solid, always bringing down to personal observations. For me, I'm always waiting for the next shoe to drop because my family origin, I'm always singing, it's good now, but it's going to go bad around the corner. And so I'm saying, God, would you please help me to understand. You're constantly finding ways to bless me. You're constantly prayers or ways of open doors and helping me to understand how deeply in love you are with me. Because I'm always thinking I'm doing something stupid. I'm gonna get whacked. That's my approach to life. Perform soccer. And it just drives me crazy. For me, I'm gonna dedicate my life to being someone who anticipates the glory of God, the blessing of God coming your way, and to give it to other people as much as I can possibly. It's really important. You know, we tend to think of ourselves as rational, objective human beings. I love what Dr. Casalino said. So 90% of brain activity is dedicated to internal processing. When you're making decisions, you're primarily getting input. Not from the outside world, you're getting input from the inside world.

Yeah. Using the data you've already got.

Yeah, that's right. Which you already have identified. Conclusion. And therefore only 10% is focused on figuring out what is going on in the external world. The way the brain and mind construct consciousness is dedicated to adaption, not accuracy. So I'm not seeing my world correctly most of the time. And I'm constantly seeing God as my opponent. He's not my opponent, he's my lover. He's constantly seeking to bless me. It's really important.

So dedicating is like dedicating myself to a new way of thinking, dedicating myself to a new way of seeing myself or the world around me, a new way of feeling. Yeah.

Well, in my mind, it's putting handlebars on. What you've just experienced, you've gone through this. The D is where, okay, now what am I going to do with it? Like, now, where does this plug into my life? How do I do that?

Yeah, what we do is we analyze scripture and then we apply it to our life. It should come right. It should come right out of scripture. Scripture should be constantly provoking us to say, oh, I see. Yeah, God, I got it. The people at the end of the passage, they got it.

You Know, it's funny because just listening, I feel like sometimes I'm more prepared in these episodes and sometimes I'm just responding. This is just an emotional response for me as I'm listening. I think that what's interesting to me is as I look at what we just did with Nehemiah, Nehemiah 8 the Bible ends up seeming so much bigger now than it was before, where now it's not just something that I go through and mark off my chapters that I read each day. It's not about, have I read the Bible, the whole Bible this year? Have I, you know, read these certain passages? Like it's now every single passage, every single verse I can approach. And this almost creates a microscope for me to hone in on what's being taught underneath it. And now what used to maybe seem like. Because I've been in the church for a long time, you know, my entire life. So sometimes this seems just like a stagnant pool when all reality now this is a giant ocean that I haven't even tapped the surface of, you know.

Well, in the reality that every story, God can continue to reveal new things to us because even as Trevor and I walked through this, you know, we were observing and waiting and hearing different parts of the story. And I think that can be true even for us. As we come to a passage again for the first time in a year or two, there's a whole new experience that God brings into our lives.

And.

And that does keep reminding us that the word of God is living and active. It's not just something to be studied and figured out, but to be entered into and then lived out.

Yeah. It's not something that contemn us all the time. It brings us freedom. The joy of the Lord is your strength. The joy.

So Ted, a follow up question to this. I feel like I have a short. I have a very short memory. You know, I can dedicate myself to this new way of thinking, but by tomorrow I might have forgotten about it. I like to blame it on the concussions I had playing college football, but you know, that's another episode.

Yeah.

Encouragement or recommendations would you give to someone about how do we remember when we have an observation or something, we feel like God gives us that experience of how do we keep it in front of us?

It's very important to journal when you're writing scripture, because when you journal something, you retain about 60% more of it. When you write it down, it increases significantly. So it's very important to journal your observations and they should be Emotional, not. I discovered this new thing about mulberry bushes or some crazy, you know, some. You know, what's the Greek word for tapioca? Who cares? You give the rip, you know, I mean, what did God say to you, man? That's what he really wanted to nail down.

It's interesting. Just recently was going through a discipleship thing at church, and we had. We was listening to a guy talk about prayer and the idea of actually praying scripture over what you're praying about. So being focused on what you're praying about, but then implementing scripture in your prayer so that you're actually praying God's word over your situation or someone else's life or. And I think that that is exactly what you're talking about. And I've started to implement that in my prayer life where, like, I'll still do popcorn prayers throughout the day, but I'm praying more as I'm writing down. I'm actually writing down my prayers. And that's got its own, you know, side benefits to that. But what I'm seeing is I'm retaining more of what scripture like, I'm interacting more with the passage. It's not just something that's on the page. I'm taking it and using it as I think and as I write and as I pray.

As it comes alive. You don't have to worry about how am I ever going to get time for Bible study. You'll make time for it. Always make time for what's important. Meditation for me is a matter of life or death. Because I started meditating after I came back from Vietnam. After I came to Christ, I had nightmares that would drive me nuts. And I live out what I tell my clients. 30 minutes before you go to bed, no electronic media at all. You're going to meditate. Deep breathing, at least for five minutes. Meditate on Scripture. And the joy of the Lord is my strength. And one of my favorite ones. Intake. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Exhale. Nehemiah 810. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Nehemiah 810. And it starts moving down to your limbic system, becomes part of your subconscious, starts governing your way you act. And then once I had Parkinson's, it destroys your sleep rhythm. So I have to have to meditate or I can't sleep. It's life or death to me anymore. Meditation is absolutely invaluable to me.

Yeah, this is just so good. I mean, I think that even because I've been in group now for about three years, And I still have never done quite what you just explained. So I'm excited to like jump back in. I'm gonna go grab my journal when we're done. But for anybody that's listening out there, I'm pretty sure that they can see the benefit of what we're talking about. They can understand how this is gonna benefit their walk with the Lord and man. It's gonna benefit your self talk, your prayer life, your relationships, all of that. So how do we effectively implement this? Is this every time we sit down to read the Bible, this is what we do? Or is it. Do we do it once a day, twice a day? How do you effectively implement this to be a part of now everyone's got a different rhythm for sure. But in your opinion, what would be the best way to implement this into your life?

Well, if you have a passage of scripture that strikes you as being emotionally loaded or it has a real severe I don't understand this and I do this with it. I'd save it for really deep scripture readings where you really want to go deep in something and connect emotionally and you'll get powerful anchor points in your life out of this approach to scripture. You can't do it this way all the time. You go crazy doing it when it's all, you know, he failed.

I don't know what I Today I'm on Genesis 1, verse 7:7.

I do think there are times and places where we are more able to enter into that. And that'd be some encouragement I'd give to listeners. I've just found in my life that when my time with the Lord is the most, I guess I'd say rich or fulfilling is when there's been some consistency to the time and place. Because I think mentally my brain is saying, oh, it's this time of day, this place, and when we're here, we are here to meditate on God and I'm less distracted and. And I've just had to find that time and place in my life. And so I would encourage that. While this exercise for a lot of people may feel, you know, just experiential, there are some logistical things we can do to help that experience along, to create a time and a space in our life to say, this is where I come. And not every time I think that's another encouragement I'd give. Sometimes we'll do an exercise like this and because we're human beings, we walk away going, I don't know if I got a whole lot out of that. And that's just Being human and other times we encounter God in a powerful way we did not expect. And we can't predict when or how that will be. But I mean, you're not consistent. Yeah, we're not in control. But when we're just consistent to have that time and have that place and ask God to meet us there, he will. And those experiences really do become foundational to our journey.

It's really crucial from a neurochemistry perspective to get a fixed time and a fixed place. Because when you're there, your brain automatically starts leaning forward to start the Bible study. It'll set you up to do that and become much more open to it. Yeah, it's really important to do that.

I mean, it's foolish to think that you will just naturally want to read the Bible every day. And so I think that that's really important about being intentional. And we talk about that too. It's not just trying to stop what I don't want to do, but it's starting to do what I want to do and then make that a part of my life.

So.

Well, and we see this a lot in groups where in their commitment to change, people will say, you know, I want to read God's Word more or the Bible more. You say, well, when? Like during the day.

Yeah, when?

When during the day? Well, probably while I'm at work. Okay, well, when? And getting them to. And I know I've done that too, where I just kind of make this very general plan about more. Well, when? Because if I don't have a plan, it's not going to happen. And I think that's where we just want to say, where am I most available? Yeah, to encounter God. And for some people it's early morning. For other people it's that nighttime routine. For other people, it might be a lunch break or a time in their day when they can make this regular. So just being specific does help us. And that's, I think, what a group is there for to provide that accountability, to say, well, when is your time and how can we encourage you to keep it?

For addicts, it's really important for nighttime because addicts always stay up late and.

Then they medicate their pain doing the wrong thing.

So you've got to get, you got to get to bed by at least 11 o' clock max. And there has to be at least half an hour recycle time because when you fall asleep, the last thing you thought of, you repeat it through the night and you'll wake up thinking about it. So if you Do Scripture. That's really a powerful way to get it down your limbic system.

Yeah, that's good.

Okay, so this. You know, it's funny, I wrote down to say this tool is very simple. Like, it's simple in, you know, the steps, but in application, not so much. But I think that. And oftentimes just in our walk, we tend to dismiss things like this processes or tips or tools or things like that that oversimplify something that's spiritual. But that's what I love about it, is that it's just a filter we can use to process God's word through effectively into our life. So we'd suggest that you are a part of this, that you do this drill. And if you're in group, you're already doing it. But just know that this is helpful as we even experience in this, that it's deciphering what God is actually saying to you. Not. Not necessarily just what the words are, what the story is, but what God's trying to communicate through it to us. So.

Well, I want to take back what I said at the beginning when I said I don't use the sword drill. As we walk through it, I realize I am using the sword drill. I just didn't know that's what it was. But I really believe that from my. The time I went through counseling at Pure Desire and being in groups and the encouragement, Dr. Ted, that you've put in the workbooks, it really has trained me in my thinking, to really enter into the story and experience God in my emotions in a new way.

Yeah.

And I've been doing that for a lot of years. And not knowing that is the sword drill. So I'm just glad to know today that I've been. I just didn't know the five steps.

Ted, thanks so much, man. That was amazing.

Thank you.

Love you guys.

Yeah, I love you too. And thank you for listening to the Pure Desire podcast. If you like what you're hearing and want to keep up with the podcast, please subscribe. You can also rate and review our podcast and let us know how we're doing. For more information, check out our website. You can follow us on social mediauredesirepdmi. Once again, that's earedesirepdmi. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Pure Desire Podcast. For more information, check out our website, www.puredesire.org. check in each week for new content on the podcast, and we pray that it will help you find hope and freedom on your journey to purity.