To Know Him | Dr. Henry Cloud

What we need is faith to take the first step of not knowing and begin the learning process. Not a straight line, but God is faithful and his word says he will direct our steps. We just have got to get moved. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" .

Today, another New York Times best-selling author joins us, clinical psychologist and author of the book Boundaries. Dr. Henry Cloud unveils how his faith in God has informed his journey through life. Our featured resource today is the book, To Know Him, a 90-day Invitation to Come to God as You Are. You can find out more at our website, buildingrelationships.us.

Gary, you've talked about your own faith and how that has informed your life, your counseling, your writing, speaking. You really can't separate that from what you've done, can you? That's really true, Chris. There's no way. I think if you have a relationship with God, It impacts everything else in your life.

and that certainly has been true for me. Because let's face it, there's a huge difference in God's perspective on things. And the common perspective that other people have on life.

So, yeah, no, it has a tremendous impact. And that's why I think the things that I've shared along the way have been helpful, because they really are reflecting things that God has already declared. And I think that would be true today in our discussion with Dr. Cloud as well.

Well, let's meet him. Dr. Henry Cloud is an acclaimed leadership expert, clinical psychologist, and New York Times best-selling author. His 46 books, including The Iconic Boundaries, have sold nearly 20 million copies around the world. He has an extensive executive coaching background and experience as a leadership consultant, devoting the majority of his time working with CEOs, leadership teams, and executives to improve performance, leadership skills, and culture.

To Know Him is Dr. Cloud's first devotional book. It's our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us. And he has a new book we're going to talk about as well: Your Desired Future. You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us.

Well, Dr. Cloud, welcome to Building Relationships.

Well, it's good to be here. Let me start with your book, Boundaries. Did you have any idea of the impact that that book would have when you wrote it? Not at all. Carrie is actually, it's kind of a funny story.

I had written a book called Changes That Heal.

Okay. And that book is about how spiritual growth, you know, heals our emotional and relational issues and. Four big steps that we have to make to that God uses to repair the stuff inside of us that's causing all this brain damage, right?

So, the second section of that book is about boundaries, and that's part of the image of God. And so we were in an off-site planning day, and we had been out speaking on that book. And the facilitator said, So, when y'all are out speaking on Changes at Hill, what are most of the questions about? We just started laughing. We said, oh, they're all about boundaries.

He said, why don't you write a book on boundaries? And I literally said, You know what, we ought to do that because that would answer all the questions, and we'd never have to talk about this again. And that's really how it happened. And we had no idea. And there's some reasons for this, I think, biblically, the evangelical community.

And in a lot of other Reasons why it hit a nerve because it is hit, it is a nerve that all of us. can identify with. Yeah, that that's for sure. And I'm sure you've received a lot of feedback, letters and comments and all that sort of thing. Is there a comment that jumps to your mind of someone who read that book and then it kind of took your breath away when you heard or read what they said?

You know, it's interesting that you asked that because there's one that always stands out the most, Gary, and I can't talk about it without getting choked up. I was. I was speaking at a Women of Faith event. I did that for a few years. I was the only male speaker on the Women of Faith Tour.

You know, we do a book signing. And this young woman walked up to me. And I don't know, she's probably twenty-two or so. And she said, I want to thank you. And I said, for what?

And she said For giving me a father. I said, how in the world did I do that? Yeah. And she said, My father was very abusive. And he was an alcoholic and I just had no father.

At all. Until I was thirteen. And my mother read boundaries. And she started implementing The book. It forced my father To face himself.

and reach out to God And his life was transformed. And ever since then, I've had the greatest father. And I want to thank you.

Well and you know, obviously I go, Well, it wasn't me. And what I what I said was, and this is what what you said earlier, Gary. What I said was, it was God's ways that gave you a father. And all we did in the book Was highlight a real significant Domain. of teaching that the Bible teaches called boundaries.

And a lot of Christians have been trained very, very well in love. and being forgiving and being patient and long suffering. and giving another chance and all this kind of stuff. Which is all true. The Bible talks about two parallel tracts called Grace, which all that is.

and truth together. And love Has a structure to it in order for it to work and thrive. And that structure. is called truth or righteousness. And that is a structure for how relationships have to work.

And when people love Without the truth of having boundaries and expectations. It will destroy love. And when they have truth and expectations. Without love, it will destroy love. And all the book did was highlight what is.

At that time especially It had been neglected for a lot of Christians that they think, you know, I'm just supposed to be loving and take all this. And we found, in searching the Bible, Gary, we found there's no verse that says. The doormats Well Inherit the kingdom for putting up with all the heels that is just not in there. It actually says the opposite, that we have to structure our relationships in a way that protects love and promotes love. And that's what boundaries do.

Yeah, yep, absolutely. I'm going to ask you this. When you were young, Did you dream about becoming a psychologist and writing books that help people in their relationships? When you were younger, did you think about that sort of thing? No.

Closest I came to that was watching the Bob Newhart show. Remember Dr. Harley? In fact, the first time I met Bob, I walked up to him and said, Hey, I think you're kind of the reason I'm a psychologist. But I was kidding, but no, not at all.

What happened to me was, and I talk about it in my book, Why I Believe, which this devotional came from. I was pursuing a career. Towards professional golf. I was a competitive golfer and I got recruited to play college golf, and that was kind of the next step. I wanted a career in professional golf, either as a teaching pro or a club pro if or if s something weird happened that I could actually play.

And so I go to college and as soon as I got there I had a wrist injury and it affected my play and I struggled hard and I'd play well and then I wouldn't and then long story short, at the end of my sophomore year I had to quit and that was my lifelong dream and so I hit bottom. And this book actually chronicles that whole story. And I reached out to God in the pits of depression. And ask him I need help. And Long story shorty showed up and and the book It's really about that path.

But when he showed up and I got really into into my faith at a deep level for the first time. I I just care. 'Cause I was depressed. I'm I I had to take a semester off school. I was non-functional.

Hmm. And the deeper I got into my faith and the things I was learning. You know, the stuff I was really focusing on was the aspects of faith that help. you know, these are mental health issues, anxiety, depression, etc. And in that, I kind of fell in love with that content, both from the scriptures and also as I was learning about all of that.

I was a business major. I was an accounting, a finance major. And At the beginning of my junior year, God said, change your major, you're going into psychology. I didn't know one thing about it. Not one thing.

That really kind of led you to this devotional that we're talking about to know him. Tell us a little bit more about that process. You know, I had a problem, Gary. I reached out to God and God. I mean, he transformed my life.

He led me into psychology and led me into clinical work. And my mission in life at that time was to understand how the Bible and faith really heals. You know, it's our faith that heals all this stuff we call mental health. problems. And that became my mission.

And so I was continuing down that path and started treatment centers, you know, that were implementing all the stuff I learned and on and on and on and on and on.

Well, I'm a psychologist. I mean that's what I do and I live in that lane. And What happened was, you know, when I started working with businesses and business leaders and all of that, that and kind of just my life, I have so many non-Christian friends. The people that I work with in the marketplace. And they always knew I'm one of those weirdos, one of those Jesus people, but they kind of.

Ignored it because You know, we were good friends too. But it kind of bugged me. I just didn't, a lot of times that conversation is so divisive, and some people just their hair catches on fire if you talk about faith. But it bothered me that there were so many of them. It was so difficult to talk about faith with them.

But I needed to. I wanted to. God calls us to do that.

So I was going to write a little pamphlet. Um about why I believe and and you know, how I came to believe and why I'm one of those weirdos.

Well, I started writing it, and it really was: I had to tell the story. Of how I hit bottom and was non-functional, and God. rescued me and healed me and this is the path and the way that he did it And as I'm writing that, It just was hitting me over and over and over. What I'd known since day one was that. The faith that we have that wholeness and thriving.

That's what it's all about. You know, Moses said this: He said, God has given you these ways so that you walk in them, so that you might always prosper. and be preserved. And the word there, the Hebrew word for prosper is tov. And what it means is a holistic flourishing.

Yeah. And what as I was writing that, it just turned into a book. About how God heals us and how all the things we do in good therapy, which I totally obviously believe in. That when evidence-based therapy works, what it's doing is doing some process that God has told us about in His scriptures. And so that's kind of how it came about.

And then the devotional was just a little s you know, we grow in a process over time. And I took all that and put it in a daily devotional where it's a little one snippet at a time that takes people kind of down that road. Yeah. Yeah. And and that's so practical, you know, and that's what that's what we need.

You you write that getting to know God and growing in our spiritual life is hardly ever a straight line. Explain that.

Well, spend forty years in a desert, right? It it You know, there's no such thing as a straight line to getting better in anything. That's just not the way it works. You know, if you're going to become a better golfer or better parent or a better writer or a better coder in technology, what you're going to do is you're going to have to step out into some unknown moment. Of you don't know what you're doing, right?

Abraham left Ur not knowing where he was going. But God had called him. And so the first step of faith Is God, I'm gonna take a step. As best I understand, you're telling me what that step is and what happens when a toddler does that. They fall down.

That's just part of the process. And some people are so perfectionistic that I've had people say to me, Gary, how can I develop more confidence, more self-confidence? And I said, I don't know how to tell you to do that. I mean, you can't do that. Because what they were asking was: how can I become confident before I do something?

Yeah. There's no such thing. When we walk across a room We don't need self-confidence. We already have it because we've learned how to do it. What we need is faith.

To take the first step of not knowing and begin the learning process. And that's not a straight line because we have junk in our heads and our souls, and there's other people that get in the way, and there's circumstances that happen, but God is faithful, and his word says he will direct our steps. We just got to get moving. Yeah, yeah. One step at a time, right?

One step at a time. What's the old thing? You know, two steps forward, one step back. It's not going to be a straight line.

Somebody's going to be working on a marriage and they're doing better after three sessions and then they have a big blow-up. Oh, I thought this was working. It is. Keep taking the steps. Yeah, that's great.

That's great. We start where we are, and you mentioned, you know, come to God as we are. But when we do, God always has in his heart that we. become something we are not down the road, right? There you go.

You got to build the plane while you're flying in it. It's not easy. Yeah, yeah. In this book, To Know Him, You share deeply personal experiences that are part of your faith journey. One was the diagnosis you received as a young child.

Tell us more about that.

Well, you know, it's interesting because my real faith, I mean, I had a faith as a kid, but it wasn't until I hit bottom and actually needed God that I. Took a step to be all in. But I always had this anchor in the back of my head that was sort of the part of the family story. that God was there and God was real. And the way that I learned that was right before my fourth birthday.

I woke up with severe leg pain in my left leg. Long story short, I was in the hospital for about a month. They could not diagnose it. I was screaming in pain, waking up at night, and all of this. They were actually As my mother told it, They're in the appointment.

My mother. Took me to the doctor for an appointment and a friend of hers was with her. Where they were going to discuss amputation of my leg.

Well And so we're waiting in the waiting room and the doctor's delayed and he's not coming in there.

So my mother's sitting in the waiting room and as she tells it, she heard a voice. And the voice said, leave. Take him. To Osher's Clinic in New Orleans, which was two hundred and twenty five miles away. Hmm.

Or the voice said, Take him to New Orleans, which she knew was Osha's. And she looked at her friend and said We have to go. And her friend's like. Why? And she said Just come with me.

'Cause she knew she had heard that voice. Mm. She talks my otherwise reasonable father into doing this. And They go to New Orleans. Check-in ostrich clinic, which was sort of like the mayos of the south at that time.

And I get randomly assigned, because I have no doctor down there, I get randomly assigned a woman orthopedic surgeon. And was actually Sorry, I can't it's I always get choked up when I talk about this, but... randomly assign this woman. And so we go in the exam and she does the you know, the workup in the X-rays. She comes back in.

After the exam. few minutes and she said There will be no amputation. I know exactly what this is and I know how to treat it. Hmm. Mm-hmm.

The truth was. She had just moved there. From Chicago where she had trained under the two doctors. That had developed this particular treatment for this particular disease. Hmm.

And so I was in a wheelchair embraces and crutches for almost a couple of years. And I'm fine. But that was an anchor story. And. my sort of, you know, background somewhere that Yeah, if you get in trouble, God's there.

And that's sort of... How that all was in the background.

Well I can see that. Oh, and hearing your parents tell the story of all of that, you know. Yeah. Another major step in your spiritual journey was you alluded to earlier was your battle with depression when you were in college. How did God meet you in the midst of all of that during that season of your life?

Well, I was just, I mean, I was trying, I didn't have a word for it. I just couldn't. I'd wake up in the morning and I couldn't move and this heaviness and blackness. And I started, I was doing everything I knew to do. Yeah.

I just wasn't getting better. And this is the first intervention. of God. I'm sitting in my dorm room. And I remember it was a cold Sunday afternoon there on the SMU campus.

And I'm sitting there and I'm really thinking about my life and how I did not know what to do. And I'm obsessing about A bunch of stuff. My girlfriend and I had just broken up. I was depressed about that. I had lost my dream of playing golf.

I had no idea what I was going to major in. I hated. The reason I was an accounting finance major, I came from a business family and everybody said, well, that would be a great background. But I didn't like accounting. I did well at it because I was good at math.

I didn't know what I wanted to do. How am I ever going to make a living? How do you find a job? How do you make a relationship work? How do I get undepressed?

And I'm seeing they're obsessing about all this stuff. I mean I'm two years away from graduation, I got to start paying my bills in a couple of years. And so I'm sitting there obsessing about all this, Gary. I look uh And On my bookshelf. was this little New Testament.

And I hadn't read it since I'd been in college. It just, I don't know how to say it, except it sort of stood out on the bookshelf, and I felt this kind of. Prompting, like, well, maybe I can find something in there. I don't know why it wasn't something I did every day or had even done. And I went over and I picked up that little New Testament and I sat down on my bed and opened it up and randomly opened up to Matthew chapter 6.

And this verse just you know, you've heard of a verse leaped off the f leapt off the page. And it said, Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you as well. Mm-hmm. And when I read that, I said, all these things, you mean the stuff I'm... Worrying about it?

how a relationship would work and And a career and Feeling better, all that, you look for God, and then you know, it's the math started to make sense, but it made no sense because I didn't know how that worked.

So I said, all right, I'm gonna do that.

So I walked across the campus. I figure you can't do this in a dorm room. Which you can, but I didn't know that. I walked across campus and went in this dark little chapel. Have you ever been to SMU campus?

It's at the. you know, the seminary there. And Walked in this chapel. And I went down to the front and I knelt down. I said, God, I don't even know if you're there, but if you are, I need help.

Mm-hmm. And Gary, I was kind of expecting to get zapped like they do on TV. You know, I'd seen these shows. People walk down to the front and get slain in the spirit, or something big happens. And nothing happened.

I mean, I don't know how to describe nothing like the way I felt it. I had reached out to God and he was not there in any way that I could see. And I think it was the loneliest moment of my life. And so I sat there for a little bit and I got up and muttered something like Okay Then call me. And I give up.

I go back to my dorm room. A little while later the phone rings and it's a fraternity brother of mine. And he said, I don't know why I'm thinking of you right now. You'd be the last person I would think of to invite to a Bible study, but we're starting a Bible study at the fraternity house and I want to invite you. And that's how he first reached out.

Well Well God has a way. It's normally not our way, right? Yeah. What's the old saying? We make our plans, and God laughs, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, there are a lot of people who go through times of suffering, like you described. And in the middle of it, they blame God. Why did you let this happen to me? Why is this, you know, that sort of thing?

How did you avoid falling into that trap?

Well I don't know if I avoided it. I probably, if I had the video, I'd probably. was going, why aren't you doing something? In fact, Gary, that actually happened when I went to this Bible study and it became a little small group. A guy was leading it.

He was in seminary there in Dallas. And I had gone there because I'm depressed, right? And but I'm Beginning to learn about God. And I'm in this group. You know, after about a month, to your question, God wasn't helping me with my depression.

I'm learning about God and I'm finding out, gosh, I'm learning all this stuff, and He really is real. But he's not helping my depression. And at that point, I get, it was like, where are you? Why aren't you? If you're real, aren't you doing anything?

And I called the leader and I said, Can we have lunch? And went to lunch. And I said, You know, I'm doing all the spiritual stuff and I'm still depressed. And I'll never forget this. He said to me, well, keep coming because God uses people too.

Hmm. And I thought, well, what a cop-out. I'm looking for the zapping. Hey, God, you did people too. I mean, that just seemed like the cheap seats in the stadium, right?

But I didn't have any other choice. And so. You know, as I go into in the book, I as I kept walking and seeking God, I did experience And I have a whole section on this on the miracles. But I did experience some undeniable miracles that God was. There, he was with me.

And he was very real, and I talk about him in there. And at the same time, he was not healing my depression. And I mean, it threw me into this whole world. Of I don't understand you. What's your problem?

Don't you see I'm suffering? And at the same time, dadgum and I know you're real. And I learned something that served me for the rest of my life. God is with us. And at the same time, he's not doing what we want.

At that moment.

Well I can't go into the whole story, we don't have enough time. But long story short is he did a lot of things and He took me through a process. It healed me. And About a year a little over a year later I woke up one morning And it dawned on me. I'm not depressed anymore.

And I started looking at this new life that I had, and I had a new purpose and different community. And all of this stuff, and it was so great. And then I said. To God. I'm not depressing anymore.

And I literally said this like an idiot. I said, but God, I wish you had done it. Hmm. Meaning my way. Yeah, yeah.

And then He led me to the scripture. I opened up my Bible. And here's what I read in Ephesians 4. That from the head Christ. The whole body.

Meaning Nice. the believers. joined and held together by every supporting ligament, and send you heals itself as each part does its work. And then I realized, God, you have put people with the specific gifts. doing their part of the work in my life, And that's How you've healed me, you did do it.

Well You did do it. And that's what put the fire in my belly about this mission. Yeah. God will supernaturally do things And he will do things he has chosen to use a body. the believers that he's gifted.

With supernatural gifts and what look like natural gifts. And as we know, like from 1 Peter, they add to that knowledge and perseverance and all of this stuff. And God is at work. In healing us, as Philippians says, to will and to do of his good pleasure is, you know, as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

So it's his process. I don't like it. You know, I want the 1-800. Make me better today. I just preached a sermon on suffering.

And it was Palm Sunday. And, you know, we all want the resurrection and we want it right now. But on Palm Sunday, what you're looking at is there's a Friday before there's a Sunday. And here's what I learned, Gary. He could have healed me of my depression.

And I would have been an undepressed. emotionally detached Self-centered. impulsive, I could go down the list, who's not depressed. That's the last thing you want in your life is somebody like that.

So he was he was healing the aspects of my soul that I would need To have back to the Hebrew word tov to be able to thrive. Yeah. It'd be like if you've got a disease and you go to the doctor 'cause I got this high fever and the doctor just healed the fever without touching the underlying disease. And that's what he did. And so that's one of the ways I learned about that.

Well And I think a lot of our listeners can identify with what you're saying, and I hope that some who are struggling. Will also hear what you're saying. Because a lot of times I think we are like you were, and you know, we want to see God do something super, super natural. And God wants to use his family, among other things. And he can do anything to be sure.

Well, he's just, I mean, you, Gary, look at how many people's relationships have been changed. Not because God zapped them, but... You used your gifts. And you tell them, hey, you may be speaking love to somebody, but you're Verizon and they're AT and T, and y'all's networks aren't connected. Yeah, yeah, right.

And they used that, but then they had to work out their salvation, they had to go love differently. based on what God was teaching them through you. Yeah. Thanks for joining us today for the Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast.

He's the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Another New York Times bestselling author is joining us, Dr. Henry Cloud. His latest is our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us. The title is To Know Him, a 90-day invitation to come to God as you are.

Find out more at buildingrelationships.us or go to fivelovelanguages.com. Tuscla, let's go back to the family. In the beginning of the book, you describe growing up in a family where faith was quiet but meaningful. How did your parents' example of living out their faith through service to others shape your own spirituality?

Well, you know, I grew up in Mississippi. And in a Methodist church. And My parents were Very devoted. Christians. My mother.

Kept get this Gary my mother kept the nursery in the Sunday school hour for 25 years every Sunday Wow. She always had a couple of widows that she was taking care of and was power of attorney for. And manage their lives in addition to working in the family business. She and my dad worked on with meals on wheels. He was Chairman of the Board of the Salvation Army locally, and he used his business.

to take future laborers off the streets and train them in a trade, in a contracting business, and teach them how to read blueprints. And some of those were with him for 40 years. And they were very, this is a Mississippian, and he was very involved in the black church at that time in the 60s. You know, that he didn't. He was uh a business person prominent in the community and very involved with bringing businesses into that community and a bunch of stuff.

And that's just what they did. I mean, And You know, we said prayers before meals and nighttime prayers and And All of that, but it wouldn't. I didn't grow up in, you know, we talked about did you grow up in a Christian home? Yeah, but not what we would think of as you got verses all over the, you know, the kitchen and we have a daily devotional time and you're memorizing scripture and all this kind of stuff. It wasn't like that.

It was just, it was quiet, but it was real. Yeah. That's kinda how I grew up and I just Saw that faith was about loving and serving people and they used their business to do that and they use their lives to do that and God was very important to them. But and they made me go to Sunday school and all of that stuff. But but Gary, I I had a problem.

I I I I liked God when I was a kid and growing up. And a teenager. I liked God, but I didn't like his friends. You know, I knew these like religious kids at school, and I thought they were just weird. You know, they didn't they didn't go to the prom and dance, and they didn't I mean, and they wouldn't go play golf and water ski on Sunday and And I just couldn't be one of those.

And I much more identify with my other group of friends, but they didn't really have any interest in God. And so I was kind of caught in this netherland in between and had a kind of a private faith. But it wasn't until I hit bottom that I learned, you know, you kind of got to put all that together. Yeah. So that's how it was.

Yeah. Yeah, of course, g moving on beyond college and so forth, your background in science and psychology. How did all of that interface with your walk with God?

Well, when I first came to faith, I experienced some miracles and I knew God was real, but all my professors were telling me that the Bible. You know, all this stuff is. Is myth and it's been disproven and all that.

So I went into a pretty significant time there of. Asking God to answer all those objections.

So I had to learn kind of the basic you know, the basics of Apologetics and the sciences and all that, and all that stuff got resolved for me.

So and I I talk about in the book how that happened, but What really happened to me Gary that Really took my entire world to a different level was. When I went into my training Yeah, so clinical psychologists, I was very versed In all of the evangelical Christian models of how you deal with emotional problems. And they kind of fell into. Three or four categories, you know You got to get in the word. You got the truth model.

Get the sin out of your life, sort of the, you know, I don't know if you remember, sort of the Confrontational model. You got the deliverance model, there's a demon behind everything. You got the experiential model where you have inner healing and take Jesus into the pain and all that stuff.

Well, I'm working in a Christian psychiatric unit. During that time, before I went into my training. I'm seeing people that have done all that stuff forever and they're still struggling with depression or bulimia or an addiction or... uh panic attacks or whatever. And I go, I can't give my life to this.

This is what being a Christian psychologist is about. These are like popularized books that everybody does. And they were good and there's truth in them, but they weren't doing what I would It didn't seem like it was a life calling. And I went to God and said, I don't know if I want to do this. And he said, keep going.

And so then I go into training. Long story short, after a few years, I was seeing what I went into the field to see. I was seeing people with eating disorders that weren't learning to cope with those. They were being people who got transformed into having a normal relationship with food. I was seeing depressed people who weren't coping with depression better.

They were becoming people who don't get depressed and panic disorders and all that stuff. And I was seeing things that actually. Worked. But it wasn't what I had learned. As the quote Christian biblical models of helping people.

Now, certainly those components are part of it, but it wasn't what I'd learned. And now I'm in this dilemma. What am I going to do now? You know, I want to be a Christian psychologist. And so this would have been in my sort of mid-20s.

And the only way I know I describe it here was I dropped out of life. for a couple of years. Hmm. Meaning You know, still working. But The rest of life.

I was, I said, I'm just going to read the Bible. I'm not going to read the Christian books about the Bible. I'm just going to read the Bible, but now I've got. I'm probably four or five years into some experience as a clinician. And I'm looking at it through those.

lenses that experience And Gary, all I'm going to tell you is I was born again again because everything that I was seeing that was healing people. was right there in the scriptures. All along. And God wasn't getting credit for it. And it drove me crazy because people say, I went to the church and did all this, but then I went to therapy and I started to get better.

And it was therapy that helped me. No, it wasn't. It was God's ways that were being done in therapy that helped you. Hmm. And Carrie I'm telling you, it just...

Bugged me that God wasn't getting the credit for what he had said we ought to be doing. And so that's when it became my mission to I just want to talk about God's ways and how the you talk. This question was about science. It was The science of psychology, and there's some bad science in there too, but there's some good science that actually. Research, I mean some of this stuff works.

But it was a science. that proved the Bible to be true for me. And it's really interesting. If you look at one of the most Often used phrases out there. Yeah is For you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

Right.

So what gets prescribed to people? Is you got to know the truth. You got to memorize scripture. And that's certainly important. How are you going to know the truth without getting into the scriptures?

And they say, you just, you know, you get this stuff in your head and you repeat it, and certainly we ought to do that. But that's not what the passage says. If you ask the normal Christian, what does the entire passage say? You won't hear it. They just say, You'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

What the passage says is: Jesus said, if you. Hold to my teachings. Then you shall know. And the word know there is not an intellectual knowing. It's a deep experiential knowing.

Then you're going to realize the truth, and the truth shall set you free. And so what became my mission was what What parts of the Bible are we not putting into practice? Hmm. Because they will heal you. And Jesus said, it's like the man who built his house on a rock.

The same thing. And everybody says, well, you know, the rock is him and his word. Yeah, but what does the passage say? It says that he who hears my words and puts them into practice. We'll be like the person who built.

So I just became devoted to What does the Bible teach us about the process? And these are prescriptions, Gary. I mean, there are books written on knowing your position in Christ to heal emotional problems.

Well, certainly we have to know our position. Paul talks about that in several times. But it's never prescribed. as a commandment To heal us, but there are forty-six thousand other things, direct commandments that are prescribed. Those are the prescriptions.

Yeah. That are his ways.

So I'm going to memorize scripture, okay, to go to James 5:16. Confess your faults to one another. Why, so you can be forgiven? No, that's not what it says.

So that you may be healed.

Now, what happens in a good process when people begin to open up and talk about what's going on inside? There are neurological changes that happen. And I could go on and on, I'm writing a book on this actually right now. It's God's ways that will heal us. We just aren't doing them when we go to church once a week and all sit and hear his words, which then we need to go put into practice.

And so that's kind of the. The science proved this to me. Yeah. Yep.

Now Dr. Cloud also has a new book coming out actually next week. It's titled Your Desired Future and I want to hear about it before we end the conversation today because the subtitle has the number five in it and Gary likes that number. Here is the subtitle, The Five Essential Steps That Take You Where You Want to Go. And to me, Dr.

Cloud, this looks like an outgrowth of everything that we have talked about here today, especially what you just talked about, the truth setting you free. You want to help people get rid of the limiting patterns of thinking that are holding them back. Am I getting what you're trying to say? Yeah, that phrase is a little limiting. It's not just our thinking, but it's our thinking about how we're going to get better.

And you know, my life is about joining people in their lives to move from here where they are today, from here. to there. wherever they want to get to. Undepressed, solve a marriage problem, build more sales in a company, lose weight, whatever it is, we're somewhere and we want to get where we from where we are here today to a there.

So That's been my life's work for a long time. And what I did was one day, I kind of woke up. This is probably 15 years ago. I said, wouldn't it be nice to give people a little model? That they can wake up every day where they're running a company or getting the kids in the van by 8 o'clock.

and ask themselves the question Am I doing everything that's got to be done to make this happen?

So I went to the performance literature and I and All of leadership literature, clinical literature, and all of that, kind of did a factor analysis of that. And As I'm doing that. I ask the question I always ask: what was God's design? To move something from here to there. What if he started a business?

And it occurred to me, he did. He's got a founder, he scaled it. What did he call his business? He called it the church. And then it dawned on me: what did he call the church?

He called it a body.

So I went to neuroscience and neuroanatomy and psychology and physiology and asked the question: how does a human body move? from here to there. And when I looked at God's design, Gary, It was It would blow you away. Because what the actual human body does to move us from where we are to where we need to be.

Okay. is exactly the process That we need to engage, whether we're parenting or in marriage or building a business. It's very simple. But when we get it and understand those elements, That's how everything that eventually works gets done.

So it makes it very simple. And that's what the book's about.

So so what are some of those? Movements or steps.

Well, real quickly. You know, if I'm here, I'm sitting in my study right now, and I'm here, and I go, you know, this podcast would work a lot better if it were over there. If we did it over there, well You're the only species. I mean, my dog doesn't do that. She runs to the door and barks, but she never stops and says, I wonder if that'll get me closer to where I want to be on Thursday.

Only the human species. Can Think of a future reality that doesn't exist today because you're creating the image of God. We call that a vision. All right, I'm going to go fast. But when your brain creates a vision, you would not believe the neurological processes that immediately get to work.

This is why people tell people, write your goals down. There's a lot of science behind that. Or, you know, when Martin Luther King said, I see a day when men are judged by the quality of their character. And not the color of their skin.

So, first thing is got to know where we're going.

Well, then, okay, brain, walk over there. It can't. The second thing is It's got to engage the talent that's going to get you there.

So it says, I'm going to need a couple legs. I'm going to need an inner ear to balance me. I'm going to need some eyes. It wakes up the talent. This is building your community and the team around you, besides your own talent, that you're going to need to get there.

Okay, we have a producer today because you have a vision for a radio show. We're never going to do this alone. They may be paid, they may be friends, but you have got to figure out who do I need to help me get there.

Okay, so now I've got my body, my legs, all that.

Okay, let's go.

Well, wait a minute, how am I going to get there? Number three. I can call a Uber. No, that's stupid. I'm right a scooter.

No, I think the best way to get there. Number three, the strategy. I'm going to walk. And as soon as your brain decides on the strategy, it develops a plan. to support that strategy with What activities are you going to have to do?

Who's going to do what, when? And your brain does all this automatically.

So the third thing is developing a strategy and a very specific plan with specific activities that are going to move the needle.

Now, while you're doing that, here's what your brain does. Number four: it's constructed a measurement and accountability system to ask the question: Are you doing what you said you were going to do? Because once I get up and start walking, if I wander off and get distracted by a bird or something and I stop. My brain would say, hey, get back on track and get moving. And we have to have measurement and accountability of the activities.

Most people measure a goal, that'll never get you there. You got to measure the specific activities that are going to move the needle. And then the fifth one is. When do your measurement and accountability system tell you that you've gotten off track or you're not doing it or you're doing it too slowly or whatever? The fifth one is it quickly fixes that.

You don't let it become a pattern because patterns will ruin you. That's how everything gets changed. And everybody knows all this, but we tend to be good at one or two of them, and we kind of. Not so good at the others. If you're good at vision and strategy, but you're conflict avoidant, you're not good at accountability and holding people accountable.

And so it gives specific ways of why those fail and here's the things you need to do to make them work.

Well, Dutch Cloud, that book is one that I think a lot of people who are listening are going to want to read because all of us have some plans out there. And so it's going to be very, very helpful in addition to the other book that we've been talking about today.

So let me just thank you for being with us today and thank you for the time you've invested in the number of books that you've written, all of which give practical guidance to those who really want to grow.

So thanks for being with us today. Gary, appreciate it. And thank you for all your work, too. You know, there's probably not a, you've got to live under a rock to not know about love languages now. That's Dr.

Henry Cloud. We've been talking about To Know Him, a 90-day invitation to come to God as you are. Find out more at buildingrelationships.us and then that new book that we just mentioned, Your Desired Future, the five essential steps that take you where you want to go, that comes out early next week. Just go to buildingrelationships.us. And next week, his signature song in the 1980s was, I Will Be Here.

And after more than 40 years, he and his wife are still loving each other well. Here, Mary Beth and Stephen Curtis Chapman in one week. A big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.

Thanks for listening.