[SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a real treat for you today here on Less Parental Purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, this is Jay Holland and I get to bring to you a conversation that I had with Pastor Max Locato today.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you don't know who pastor Max Locato is, welcome to getting out from under a rock.
[SPEAKER_02]: With over a hundred and fifty million different books and products in print, you probably have a couple of maxlicato books in your house.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you don't, the one that we talked about today is a great starter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Max has a new book that came out this month called Tame Your Thoughts.
[SPEAKER_02]: three tools to renew your mind and transform your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love this conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have been really mulling over for the last few years.
[SPEAKER_02]: The cross between Bible, brain science, habit, the story that we choose to entertain in our head and then the power that that story has to control our life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Max has laid out some really helpful practical tools
[SPEAKER_02]: for identifying just the thoughts that are going through your head, identifying truth, identifying lies, the power that those lies have to really, not just negatively affect your spirit, but the fact that they actually affect your physical health, your emotional wellbeing, they can shorten your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for those of you that think negatively, I don't wanna cause you stress, but your negative thinking is literally messing up your DNA and shortening your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I have good news.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you'll just listen, we will help walk you through a toolkit to help take, can, captive your thoughts, identify the lives, replace them with the truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a great conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a great guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are not, apart of my thanks for Thursday email, I want to invite you to jump on board.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do so by texting the word things, TH, I, N, G, S, to six, six, eight, six, six, that's things to six, eight, six, six,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll send you a fun family conversations guide, a marriage snapshot, a bunch of free resources, some scripture memory stuff, and you'll get on my probably every other week email that I send out of things that I have really found encouraging, interesting, funny, or helpful in my parenting marriage and walk with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to listen to me talk no more.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to listen to me interview Max Locado.
[SPEAKER_02]: So here you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for tuning in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please share this with the friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a great one.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a great way for them to be encouraged today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll count on you to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll, here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Max Locado, what an honor to get to meet you and have you on less parental purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for your time today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's my treat.
[SPEAKER_00]: My treat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Jay.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you today?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really excited.
[SPEAKER_02]: I realized the first time that I was introduced to you, it was through your work.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just out of college.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was in the early two thousands and somebody gave me a copy of no wonder they call him Savior.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that was my first book from you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I did a little research.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I see that you've written about forty more books, adult and children's books since then.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I want to thank you for that impact.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've read several of your others.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that one holds a special place in my heart, which is a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It holds a special place in my heart, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was my second book, but the first book I wrote really wasn't very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a compilation of articles.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no wonder they're calling the Savior with my first legitimate idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to write a book about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wrote it back in the days that my wife and I lived in Brazil.
[SPEAKER_00]: We lived in Rio from, in the United States, in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: We lived in Rio from, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States, in the United States.
[SPEAKER_02]: It really was.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was thinking with forty-plus books.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure there's a different kind of story behind every one of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you have a book coming out this month as August on Taming Your Thoughts.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm curious, how did you get started thinking about the Taming Your Thoughts concept?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm still a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was senior pastor at our church forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I am what we call a teaching pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our lead pastor is a guy who's in his forties.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in my seventies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was a necessary and timely transition.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's doing a masterful job.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I say that to say that all of my books still come out of sermons.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in my sermons come out of conversations.
[SPEAKER_00]: that I have some of them are formal counseling sessions, many of them are just hallway, chit chats, and I pick up on where people are.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I began to sense is exactly what the statistics are saying and that is we're really struggling with our mental health.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're really struggling to keep our thoughts on track.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted to tackle that topic in the sense of creating or articulating some tools that we could use as grownups that we could give to our kids to help people manage their thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I created a sermon series.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sermon series was called Think about what you think about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was clever.
[SPEAKER_00]: My publisher really liked Tamier thoughts as a better book title, so the book is called Tamier Thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it does advance three ideas that I think are very helpful in managing our thoughts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, publishers generally win that conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: They know what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I, my primary teaching world is student ministry.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a saying that I have been using this year with our students, which is you get to control the story that's in your head, but the story that's in your head will control you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that idea where were you when I was writing this book?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted to kind of riff off of that for a minute because as I got a copy of your book and I have loved it and it felt like man he is just laying out what I was saying there and so I would just I would love for you to speak into that the fact that you do get some control over that story that that story is going to have power for control over your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's so many ways to restate what you just said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it could be said much better than the way you said it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think that belief leads to behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to change your behavior,
[SPEAKER_00]: You begin with your belief.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why what we believe matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we believe matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I come from a Christian worldview.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe there's a living in loving God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe he cares for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe he's pastors his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: believe he's directing the course of history and that he will return someday and our lives will be intertwined in a heavenly paradise.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really believe that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that belief is my story, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then story drives my behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if I don't believe that, my outcome, my trajectory of my life is going to take an entirely different path.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to be careful what we're thinking because that narrative, that story, that to worldview, that we have, that determines everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I'm with you on this story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned a study that that you came across where I was trying to find the number here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might have it off your head.
[SPEAKER_02]: The amount of thoughts that go through a normal person's brain in one day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you can you speak to that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm just kind of my brain's on fire rapid cycle thinking and I'm hoping
[SPEAKER_02]: that I'm some alien as far as that goes.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I read that, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm really normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the study, seventy thousand thoughts cycle through our brains on a given day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a lot of thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these thoughts impact us, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't
[SPEAKER_00]: overestimate the impact that these thoughts have.
[SPEAKER_00]: I came across some fascinating studies.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was one in particular that talked about those people with those, it was a study of people who battled the HIV virus and those who have a belief in a living and loving God who say affirmatively, God knows me and cares for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: that their odds of recovery are three hundred thousand times greater than those who do not believe in a living in loving God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's stunning.
[SPEAKER_00]: That just shows how our thoughts impact the way our body works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another study said that according to the Cleveland Clinic that four out of five thoughts that we have are unhealthy, unhealthy meaning self-critical, judgmental, anxious,
[SPEAKER_00]: regrets those kind of unhealthy thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know really a four out of my five of my thoughts or
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's an overstatement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do know I have more than my share or more than I want of unhealthy thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since we can by the power of the Holy Spirit, manage our thoughts and take thoughts captive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since our thoughts do impact our behavior and our well-being, then we're talking about the head waters of what it means to be a human being to have thoughts that manage our thoughts in a way that leads us to a happier life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you mind if I read because you were mentioning that HIV quote and I actually copied and texted that to my wife because it was so powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'd love to just read it for a second.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's at least one study found that fear, anger and frustration caused the DNA to tighten up become shorter, switching off genetic codes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Conversely, the health of those whose codes were improved by feelings of love, gratitude, and joy were much better.
[SPEAKER_02]: HIV patients who had positive thoughts and feelings are three hundred thousand times more resistant to the disease than those whose thoughts were negative.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is just absolutely mind-boggling, but one of the things that just strikes me as I read things like that
[SPEAKER_02]: is how I feel like brain science is catching up with what scripture told us thousands of years ago and you mentioned Proverbs chapter twenty four twenty three be careful how you think for your life is shaped by your thoughts and that's one of those I love all of the different translations of Proverbs fourth twenty three because sometimes it's you know guard your heart because out of it all is the wellspring of life but it did you find it fascinating how much brain science actually aligns with scripture as you got into your your studies
[SPEAKER_00]: I found it fascinating and thrilling because there were some things I had never thought of.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, Ephesians six talks about the putting on the full armor of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had read this scripture many times, Jay, but it just hadn't dawned on me, that the helmet of salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: is a gift from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now where does a helmet go?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it goes on our head.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, at least, from my way of thinking, Jesus, when He saves us, says, okay, I'm going to protect your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to put the helmet of salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I save you, I want to save your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to change your thought pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans twelve and verse two, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by a new way, be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so these passages all work together to help us realize that what neuroscience is teaching us today about the power of thought is inscripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the big word that neuroscientists use right now is neuroplasticity.
[SPEAKER_00]: You read it all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the idea that our brains are not chunks of concrete that can never be changed, but they are malleable, they're sculptable, sculptable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that a word?
[SPEAKER_00]: They can be changed now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And scripture was saying this, take every thought captive, is the idea that we can control our thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think you're making a great point that maybe neuroscience is catching up to the Bible.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Philippians for eight or nine.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is true?
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things I love about that is it's not just think happy thoughts, but he starts out whatever is true.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so one of the things that I think we need to realize in this timing of our thoughts
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not scripture calling us into some false reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not ignoring all of the bad things.
[SPEAKER_02]: The thoughts that you're supposed to hold onto are true thoughts, but there are infinite true thoughts to hold onto.
[SPEAKER_02]: And some of those are honorable and noble and just and worthy of praise.
[SPEAKER_02]: And these are the things that God calls us to think about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: I talk about in the book these three tools.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of them is, what are them is identify UFOs?
[SPEAKER_00]: UFO is just a word trick that I use to help me remember untruthfully to false narratives that lead to overreactions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so overreactions have their root in untruth.
[SPEAKER_00]: and untruth might be a blatant lie might be a misconception.
[SPEAKER_00]: But beginning with truth is where we begin to manage our thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we want to have our thoughts create the right reaction, we have to start with truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's one of our tools.
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree with the hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to start with truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for Christians, we agree that truth is found in Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Truth is not in the latest podcast, not in the latest movie, not my locker room buddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: but truth is found in Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: So identifying your source of authority is essential in having healthy thinking.
[SPEAKER_02]: As Christian parents, we all want to be praying for our kids, but knowing what to pray can be hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why Christian parenting created a great cloud of witnesses prayer journal to help busy parents like you intentionally pray for their child and faith all year long.
[SPEAKER_02]: This weekly journal walks through the lives of faithful men and women like Abraham, Sarah, Moses and Rayhab who trusted an extraordinary God.
[SPEAKER_02]: It helps you pray boldly for your kids to follow in their footsteps, grow in character, deepen their faith and trust in God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And every Monday on the part in the Mass podcast, Courtney Defeo will be praying through this journal with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Visit cpgive.org and use the code cloud to get your special podcast listener discount that cpgive.org code cloud and is a listener to less panel and purpose and guided by faith, you'll get that special discount.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's talk about this toolkit as a whole.
[SPEAKER_02]: You identify three different practices for people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in one of those, I was thinking how helpful this toolkit is back to our early conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: The number of thoughts that you have.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have seventy thousand thoughts a day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have belief, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is a difference between just the passing thoughts that go through my head and my belief, like my model of how the world's working.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the thoughts that I entertain are absolutely going to shape and sway my belief.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think your toolkit really speaks to this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So would you briefly explain just kind of the overview of the whole toolkit, and then we can dive into them?
[SPEAKER_00]: So over the decades that have ministered, I've developed these three tools and they help me when I'm in counseling sessions, whether it be a formal or just a hallway conversation, they help me help people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they help me help myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, there are three tools.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first is practice, picky thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a, that's a new idea for some people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tell people, just because you have a thought, you don't have to think it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to let it take root.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can, you can guard the entryway to your mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: So practice, picky thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: John, thirteen, two is an interesting verse on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says that Satan or Satan planted an idea in the mind of Judas to betray Christ planted an idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satan does this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He plants ideas in our minds.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to practice, picky thinking, just because you have a thought, you don't have to think it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, I referred to it just a second ago, UFO.
[SPEAKER_00]: understand the thought development in your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And untruth will lead to a false narrative that will lead to an overreaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And untruth might be, I can never be forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's a lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: God does forgive us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's say that untruth leads to a false narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that false narrative is
[SPEAKER_00]: God has ignored me.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will punish me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to lead a miserable life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a guilty person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I live life in shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that shame is the overreaction that overreaction says not only I did bad, but I am bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when somebody's dealing with shame, I've learned what do we trace that back somewhere, somewhere in the beginning, somewhere upriver,
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an untruth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's take that untruth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's uproot and replant.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's method tool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pull it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take a shovel to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This pull it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to get specific.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to be determined.
[SPEAKER_00]: You say, I'm not going to think that anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you've got to replant it with, I don't know, Romans eight one.
[SPEAKER_00]: For there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we replant.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are the three tools.
[SPEAKER_00]: Practice picky thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Identify the UFOs untruthfully to false narrative leads to an overreaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
[SPEAKER_00]: uproot and replant.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not enough just to uproot.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to replant.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to put truth in where the lie was.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: As you were talking especially about the UFOs, untruth leads, creates a false narrative which leads to an overreaction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Excuse me, I was thinking honestly about growing up in youth group in the nineteen nineties.
[SPEAKER_02]: and a lot of well-meaning kind of purity culture talk back then, and trying to keep us to save ourselves for marriage.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was sometimes this narrative that, like, if you compromise your damaged goods and that, you know, you're never going to enjoy, like a healthy marriage, if you've already, you know, if you physically fall.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I noticed, it was kind of the same thing with alcohol back at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you do this, you're a reprobate center and they are sent.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are sent absolutely, but the lie is that like I'm an unredeemable damage to good and when somebody believes that what I found is, you know, somebody would take one moral compromise and once they feel like damage goods, I might as well just stay in this path or
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody gets into drinking and they've already violated their conscious so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, well, you know, God doesn't want me anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: I might as well go to the extreme.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen that overreaction happen over and over in people's lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sure Max, that you've had to practice what you preach in here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm curious, where are you tempted
[SPEAKER_02]: with the false thinking getting into your life that you've had to really notice and begin to replace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, my whole story comes out of, you know, my years as a heavy drinker, a partier, and this, the belief that God could never forgive a jerk like me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the untruth right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that untruth led to the false narrative that said, God has a place for other people, but I've gone too far.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been too bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the false narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: The overreaction was, then I might as well just, you know, give up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I might as well have all the fun I can because it's just a matter of time and I'll go off the deep end.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a literal mindset I lived with until I was about twenty years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, right now I look back and say, well, that was just a short time, but it was, it could have been devastating for me in sixteen to about twenty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't believe God could forgive a jerk like me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why grace means so much to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why a treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, that's fifty, March, eleven, nineteen seventy five is when I just trusted God's grace and that untruth became a truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I began to say, okay, I'm just going to believe the God who who sin his son to die for him in it revolutionized my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was fifty years ago, and to commemorate that, you may get a kick out of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: On March twelve, I couldn't do it on March eleven, but on March twelve, twenty twenty-five, fifty years later, I went to a tattoo parlor.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got a tattoo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seventy years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a tattoo in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see it here.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says to tell us I, which is the Greek word for it is finished.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is paid what Jesus said on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's that's my life story that Christ paid for my sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now not everybody likes it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd give a seven year old pastor tattoo, but you know, I really don't care at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just so grateful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that was the thought pattern I had to undo, Jay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know it back then, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody used words practice picky thinking when I was three years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's what I was doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had to let the Holy Spirit, you know, renew my mind and change my way of thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think that, um, well, first of all, I just want to say I saw that tattoo picture on on the cover and I was like, as kind of a strange random picture for this book, you know, I was like, you know, be really funny if like, if that was Max Locados tattoo on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So here it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was thinking, parentally, how many of these false narratives lead us to overreact as moms and dads?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd be curious in your years of shepherding and counseling.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are some of the ones that you see that parents are quick to latch on to and quick to overreact with?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think if I understand your question correctly, as parents, we tend to react to our children's overreaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say that the untruth is, I'm sorry, I'm kind of stumbling here, but let's say a seventeen-year-old buys into the lie that they are only as good as they look, that their self-worth is based on appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that's a lie, but that would lead to a false narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember a narrative is what we say to ourselves and how we see ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that seventeen year old would say, I'm not as good looking as other people in school.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that leads to
[SPEAKER_00]: an overreaction of some sort that overreaction is I'll never be accepted or I'll never have a boyfriend or I'll never be loved well that's a lot that's an overreaction now as a dad I'm not here my seventeen year old daughter saying stuff like that
[SPEAKER_00]: And I might only deal with the overreaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I might say, no, honey, overreacting.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I need to do, what would be wise or I think is apparent is to sit down with that child and say, no, honey, tell me where that came from.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think that?
[SPEAKER_00]: From where do you get these ideas and help them begin to process it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they don't know that they are allowing an untruth
[SPEAKER_00]: to turn into an overreaction that could really mess up their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so as parents, we can help our kids trace back that UFO, you know, try to get it back to the untruth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we as parents say, I see where you're coming from, honey.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let me tell you the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you the fact, look at this scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let this truth uproot that untruth and replace it with this truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, you'll be a better person as a result.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe as parents, that's our job is to help identify those UFOs and replace them with truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's funny because I am pretty quick at picking those out in my children's life and I'm pretty quick at, you know, helping to identify, I think we're really overreacting to this.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, I'm blind to my own often.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm blind to the
[SPEAKER_02]: to the even in my parenting, the lies that I will buy into the false narrative that I'll create and then the overreaction that I have.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so many times with parents I think it's with grades, with school, with comparison to particular traits of other children.
[SPEAKER_02]: to the job that I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I just really, you go from, I'm the greatest parent on earth to like, I'm the worst parent that ever lived.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why did God give me kids?
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things I think that can be really helpful for my children,
[SPEAKER_02]: is if I can be honest about those and I can repent in front of them when I've done that and I think there's so much power in that I think that kids really are not looking for perfection but their hypocrisy radars when when I'm critiquing them for buying into a lie and overreacting but at the same time I'm never humbling myself then that can create a real challenge in the
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, in the relationship and in my hope that they'll ever get it under control.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said that I'm blind to them and you might notice that as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as a parent, blind to my own, what are some of the best ways to help me see them?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are there things that you would recommend?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we're all blind our own junk sometimes.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we get to the point where we recognize the lies?
[SPEAKER_00]: Great question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if we could assess
[SPEAKER_00]: our own struggles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And look for that common thread.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do believe that
[SPEAKER_00]: every person has a proclivity to a certain negative thought pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what may be yours is not necessarily mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people battle with guilt, others battle with anxiety, others battle with insecurity.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all have something
[SPEAKER_00]: that will pull us under and we have those, you know, the great word is trigger, but that's a legitimate word because we can get easily triggered.
[SPEAKER_00]: So evaluate yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look back over here's an idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: For about a week, keep a diary of your thoughts, evaluate your thoughts, try to assess and identify your thought patterns.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over seven days,
[SPEAKER_00]: What was the most common thought quag buyer that you found yourself fighting?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the quick saying that seemed to suck you under the most?
[SPEAKER_00]: What was it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And put a word on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe the judgmentalism, you know, maybe you didn't pay attention to yourself until you
[SPEAKER_00]: You took Locados Council and kept it diary.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now I look back over these seven days and you know, I am critical of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm quick to judge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do I do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I catch myself doing that quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, Lord, I confess that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confess that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree with you, Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not the way I should
[SPEAKER_00]: think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't allow so many thoughts to be wasted in being critical of others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help me to understand the untruth that creates that overreaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a healthy exercise that actually might be something in your youth.
[SPEAKER_00]: in which a religious leader, a pastor, said, you know, watch out for bad people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all this, how your life, you've been watching out for bad people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe you feel like you're supposed to be the policeman of the world, police woman of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that came out of your influence as a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I like that idea of a diary for about seven days to try to identify your own negative thought pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can deal with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a friend who one time counseled me right down everything that you did during a day and then go back through and then notice your emotions that you had while going through that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And while doing that for a few days, I noticed, you know what, my emotions are not matching my experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: My experiences were largely good, but what would happen is
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't present.
[SPEAKER_02]: My head was in a different place and I was carrying something very negative that wasn't even to deal with my experience and it was tanking my days and so that whole going through and noticing was the first step and we have a couple minutes left and I think we really need to talk about
[SPEAKER_02]: The last step that uproot and replant.
[SPEAKER_02]: So once you've identified the false narratives, you've identified the lies, it's not just a matter of don't think about that anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to replace it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what do you mean by uproot and replant?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that was twelve years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad put me in charge of the lawn and our lawn had a whole bunch of grass birds and he told me to get rid of the grass birds.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got the lawn more out and I cut them down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were back within a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he needed to tell me how to get the weeds out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gave me a garden spade.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took a garden spade and we spit a Saturday pulling the weeds up.
[SPEAKER_00]: The point is we had to get deliberate with each one.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had to get deliberate with each one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our mind is like that yard and our
[SPEAKER_00]: yard has weeds, weeds of anxiety, fear, guilt, insecurity, and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can get after those.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can get deliberate.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can say, okay, I'm not going to think that thought anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's a great first step.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pull that thought out, but you've got to replace it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to be quick to reach over and take a seed of truth and deposit it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why a database of scripture is extremely helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe your toxic thought pattern is anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you create a database?
[SPEAKER_00]: I say databases a big word, but
[SPEAKER_00]: write four verses on a index card stick them in your pocket so that when you feel anxious you pull that thought out you say no no no I'm taking that thought captive I'm going to retrain my brain with God's help and I'm going to plant the seed of
[SPEAKER_00]: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I'm going to meditate on that verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: So out with the negative contemplation in with the spiritual meditation, and you do that over and over and over, Jay, and you literally will
[SPEAKER_00]: have a new mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will change your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will literally end the things that you're struggling with today.
[SPEAKER_00]: You won't be struggling within a few weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will find a change because the Holy Spirit wants to help you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we cooperate with Him, we can anticipate that we will think like Jesus thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: And back to that Bible on Brain Science, you literally can transform your mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can renew your mind just like Paul said, two thousand years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: So amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Max, I really appreciate this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I encourage everybody to pick up a copy of Tamier Thoughts.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure it is literally everywhere that books are sold.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And is there a website you'd like to point anybody to as far as if they're interested in more of your stuff or where you'd prefer them to get the book?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, maxlocato.com is kind of our go-to place for everything we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a YouTube channel called Fresh Hope that we're really excited about.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have some radio messages.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a daily email we send out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anything, if you want to check it out, go to maxlocato.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fantastic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, sir.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, Jay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish you the very best.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the best to you as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: As always, I want to thank you so much for listening to Let's Parent on Purpose this week for sharing it with friends and for subscribing, like, buttoning, and all of the things that people do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's Parent on Purpose is a ministry of the one-two-seven project.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a listener supported.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to be a part of producing this podcast and then more than that, taking care of the orphan and at risk around the world, you can do so by going to Let's Parent on Purpose.com slash support.
[SPEAKER_02]: or clicking the give button at the bottom of my things for Thursday email that I send out, and we can be a part of transforming not just our families, but the uttermost part of the world with the gospel of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I want to thank you for listening.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to remind you that parenting is a marathon, not a sprint, and we'll talk to you soon.