As a Man Thinketh…

When you have a son or daughter who is battling anxiety or depression, Pastor and Biblical Counselor David Murray says one of the things we need to be doing as parents in that situation is to go with our kids into the book of Psalms. I think that's where we can help our kids to put whatever they're feeling, whatever they're thinking, however horrible, however horrendous, out in front of us. And we're not going to walk away, we're not going to disown them, we're not going to be ashamed of them, and then walk with them into the presence of God.

I say, now let's do this before God, because I can help you a little, He can help you massively, and encourage them with how many times repeated over and over in the Psalms, this pattern leads to joy, peace, hope, confidence. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You'll find us online at familylifetoday.com.

If you have a child who is battling depression or anxiety, it's a tough battle, but there can be a good outcome. We'll talk about that today with David Murray. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. Anxiety or depression ever been an issue for either of you? Not that I'm aware of. You're shaking your head like, no, that's, I mean, you have down days, but not depression at a level that has taken you out for any season, right?

I don't think so. No, I honestly, you know, I'm one of those guys that has rarely struggled at all. I remember one time early in the nineties when we were just starting our church, that was back in the day where you'd do drama skits, sketches sometimes, at least we did at our church. We had a really gifted couple from Broadway that could really bring light to, and it'd be a short little skit, and I don't remember what the sermon was that day, but I was sitting with Steve, our co-founder, and the drama had something to do with a person who couldn't get out of bed.

They're just really in a dark place. And Steve turns to me, and Steve has dealt with this, and he turns to me and he goes, hey, Dave, one time in your life have you ever, one day in your life not been able to get out of bed? I go, nope. Never had a moment like that. He goes, yeah, that's why I'm giving the sermon today and not you. It was about the quagmire.

It was about scripture. It was just that I was in my early thirties and had never experienced that, not saying right or wrong. I'm in my sixties and I have experienced it, not to a point I couldn't get out of bed, but I understand when people say they're in the pit, it's real.

The heaviness, the weight that you feel. And it isn't just get off the couch, get out of bed, you'll be okay, God's good. It's like, no, no, no, no.

That's why we need to talk about this, especially as parents with our teens. This is a real deal. Have you struggled, Bob? I haven't, and I've wondered in thinking about it, and David Murray's joining us this week to help us with this. David, welcome back. We need a counselor. David is a pastor. He has taught counseling, taught at the seminary level, Puritan Seminary.

He and his wife are the parents of five kids, live in Western Michigan. And he's just written a couple of very helpful books, one for teens, called Why Am I Feeling This Way, and another for parents, Why Are My Teenagers Feeling This Way, to deal with depression and anxiety. Are some people, David, just temperamentally more inclined, more melancholy, and other people just are going to be optimistic and positive, and that's just how God made them?

Are you talking about Scots versus Americans here? You would say the caricature is that it's melancholy people. It's the eors that get depression, right?

I call that a caricature because actually the majority of people I have helped with depression are more like Dave. Type A, high achiever, hyper energetic, optimistic, but what happens is as they get older, they're still trying to keep up these levels of expectations and performance, but the body and the brain is saying, no, I'm not going there, I'm sorry. And of course, you're also accumulating more and more responsibility as you get older usually.

And eventually, when these limitations are not recognized, even by the most hyper Type A types, they will crash as well. And so I like to try and smash the caricature a wee bit so that the Type As don't think, ah, never going to happen to me. You ought to be cautious.

Now, with teenagers who are still in the early stages of development, and that's where your book is focused, this is not about your body not being able to respond. I mean, you're kind of at the peak. For them, there's a lot of environmental pressure. There's a lot of figuring out who they are. There are spiritual issues they're wrestling with.

There may be biological issues kicking in, and we've talked about those things this week. Help us think through this in terms of what the Bible has to say. The verse that comes to mind for me immediately is David in the Psalms recognizing that his own soul is downcast, and he speaks to his soul and kind of corrects himself. And I think you can read a passage like that from Psalm, what is that, Psalm 42, do you know? A lot of them are like that, aren't they?

Yeah, 42 for sure. He says, why so downcast, O my soul? Put your hope in God. And I think a lot of us think, well, that's what you're supposed to do. If your soul is downcast, you just put your hope in God and move on. Let's get with it.

Stiff upper lip and move on. That scares me about you, Bob. It's not that simple for a lot of people. It's not that simple.

And although you can read the Psalm in a minute, I believe these Psalms are often describing a long-term period in a summary form. It's a battle. It's rarely that easy. Sure, if you've just had a little knock, yeah, you know, push yourself up again with the word. But often it's more than a little knock.

Often it's a series of massive knocks. If you think of teens as well, although they are not, you know, aging in the sense like a 40-year-old is, their body's changing hugely. They have identity issues. They have relational issues, mega, much more than we do. So different ages are different challenges.

And it doesn't matter what age you are. You're right, Bob, the Word of God has got to be a component of our therapy, as it were. I often take people to Psalm 77. And there you've got Asaph, the psalmist, who in the first nine verses, he talks about trouble, terrible trouble he's in.

Doesn't name it. He doesn't specify it, which I think helps because we can all fit in. And then he talks about these terrible feelings. He's cast down, he's anxious, he's crying, he's weeping, he can't sleep, he can't eat.

And then he talks about his thoughts. So terrible trouble, fearful feelings, and his thoughts of God are awful. He's actually putting question marks over God's character. Is God real? Is God going to keep his promises? Is God true?

Is God faithful? No wonder he's in the depths, right? But what's happened here? He's let his feelings control his thoughts.

Yes, that's a terrible event, but his feelings are now dictating his theology. And halfway through that Psalm, he says, Selah, pause, enough of this. Let's, you know, get our act together, as it were. And here are the words he says, I will appeal, I will remember, I will remember, I will ponder, I will meditate. What's he doing here? He's saying, I've got to get my thoughts primary here. I've got to get my thoughts in charge.

No longer are feelings going to be in the driving seat, but my thoughts are. And what is he thinking on? What's he pondering? What's he meditating on? It's God, God's word, God's ways, God's works. And what happens in the rest of the Psalm is, he actually doesn't mention his feelings again, which is interesting.

They've kind of shrunk. But the whole tone of the Psalm communicates feelings of confidence and hope and joy. And I think there's a beautiful therapy here. Actually, a lot of people will call it cognitive behavioral therapy in a way.

But God invented that long before we invented that. Because here he's basically saying, don't let your feelings control your thoughts. Let your thoughts control your feelings.

And the trouble's still there, right? But his thoughts and therefore his feelings are completely different. And this is a wonderful pattern for us that God has given us to follow that can help us in multiple situations. I often speak of emotions as like an elephant. You don't want to let an elephant loose.

It's just going to do a lot of damage. We need to get a rider, we need to get somebody in the saddle of that elephant to keep it under control. And that's what I call biblical reasoning. And that's what the Psalmist does here. He basically puts biblical reasoning on the saddle of his elephant-like emotions.

And it tames them and it controls them and it redirects them into a much more positive and hope-filled way. It is interesting as you go back to that Psalm, it's hard sometimes to get your thinking in the right place. And you can see it in his Psalm. And he starts out saying, I cried out to God for help, I cried out to God to hear me, and I would not be comforted.

And then down in verse seven, I mean, I'm thinking so many of us experience this. Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful?

Has he in anger withheld his compassion? I mean, when you're in that state of anxiety or all the way to depression, you can't answer that yes. You're just like, I'm hopeless. And thinking right now, the world we're living in with the COVID going on and on, people feeling like this was going to be over. It's not over. My marriage is still struggling. My child is still... And so you get to the point where your feelings do dominate and you're like, I don't want them to. I know what's right. I can't get my brain to override my feelings. Is that true?

I mean, how do we get there? Well, I think what's significant here is that it's not in this translation of the Bible, but verse 10 is often translated as this is my infirmity or this is my weakness. And I think that's the first thing to recognize. OK, I'm thinking like this, but it's not the right way to think. OK, this is wrong. This is weakness.

I think the second thing is, Selah, is stop, silence, stillness. And even in the COVID days, we're not really stopping. We're just filling it with activity. I recently had to fly back to Scotland because my dad's very seriously ill. And it was an eight hour flight. I couldn't do anything. And it was actually wonderful. For the first time, I sat still for eight hours. And not just that I was up high and seeing the world in a different way, but something different was happening within me. Just having that stillness and quietness. And I think that's the challenge that we want to get to the second part of Psalm 77 without taking the silence, without taking the time out. I think this stuff is huge because it's really this battle going on in our mind.

And in Scripture, it talks about taking our thoughts captive. And I remember I was in my 20s the first time. I can't remember the book I was reading. But it basically asked, what do you think about yourself in your mind?

What is your self-talk? And it was the first time I thought, oh, I've never thought about that. And when I replayed in my mind what was going on and on, all negative. You're ugly. You ate too much.

You're not doing a good job at this. And it was all negative. And as a type A, I thought, well, that's motivating. But what it is, it was destroying me. And when you think about taking a thought captive, I always picture captivity as being a cage. I think of a zoo and animals in a zoo.

And I thought, I didn't have any cage. My thoughts were running wild in my head and I didn't take control at all. But even to ask that question to our teens, what are you thinking about yourself in your head?

What is your self-talk about yourself? That question alone can bring a lot of insight into what's going on into our kids' heads. Have you asked that question? Have you seen it? Oh, yes.

Yeah, definitely. What's your story? What story are you telling yourself? What story are you writing? What chapter is in your story today?

You write out your day. I actually used to do that with my wife. So I would come home. This was when I was in my more sensitive, sympathetic mode.

And she'd be in tears and crying. And I feel useless. I'm a terrible mother.

And OK, let's sit down. How many washes did you put on today? Well, 25. How many diapers did you change today?

Well, maybe 100. Did you phone in? Well, I phoned this widow and I phoned this sick person. And so we're kind of just bringing not just truth from God's word, but truth from God's world. Objective facts that eventually, when the evidence mounts up, will change the feelings. OK, well, maybe I'm not so useless.

Maybe I'm not so bad. And so we're trying to really rub out, erase a false story and rewrite it with truth and facts. We're not sort of doing self-hypnosis, deluding ourselves. We're bringing truth from God's word and God's world. You talk about taking thoughts captive.

I had a friend ask me a number of years ago. They said, do you have a favorite quote to something you've read or that has marked you? Of course, I started running through all of the great quotes I'd heard over the years.

But one just popped out at me as kind of a favorite from Martin Lloyd-Jones, the famous British pastor from Wales, actually. He is quoted as having said, have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you're listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? He says, take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You've not originated them, but they're actually talking to you.

They bring back the problems of yesterday. Somebody is talking. Who's talking to you? Yourself is talking to you. Lloyd-Jones goes on to say, now this man's treatment, and he's talking about Psalm 42, instead of allowing self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. Why are you cast down, O my soul? His soul has been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, self, listen for a moment.

I will speak to you. The idea that we do take thoughts captive and we do, instead of letting our emotions dictate what our day is going to be, what our approach is going to be, we counsel our own soul and remind ourselves what the Psalmist does in Psalm 77. Remind myself of what is true about God after that selah, what is true about God, start believing that again and see how that begins to reprioritize things. How do we help counsel our kids' souls? Yeah, so, you know, say your daughter comes home from school and she's crying and she's weeping and something terrible has happened. Somebody's posted something or she's received something by text.

So, a terrible event has happened, just like in Psalm 77. So, what's the next step? Ask, how are you feeling? How did that make you feel? Did you feel this? If they're not answering, put some words out to latch onto so they can name their feelings. It's very important to actually just name the feeling and get it out of themselves into a more external form.

And then, okay, you're feeling it. What did that make you think? Well, it made me think I was worthless. It made me think nobody likes me.

It made me think this. And what we're doing there with our kids is we're saying, okay, terrible events happen all the time and we're going to feel terrible and it's okay. We mustn't squash these feelings. We've got to let them out. We've got to let them be expressed. And we've got to identify how that affects the way we think.

So, even in that, you've given your kids a really helpful tool of self-understanding. A terrible event, terrible feelings, terrible thoughts. Now, how do we put that right? Is there something else that we can look at here?

What else happened in the day? Anything good actually can come out of this. And so, you begin to try to get facts and truths and add some evidence to this life that will help them, again, move their feelings. You're not denying the event. You're not denying the feelings. You're not denying the thoughts.

But you're now using it to say, okay, let's move forward. Let's change these feelings by changing our thoughts about what happened. You know, I found it interesting. As I was reading your book, I thought we've all done the wrong thinking, wrong feeling thing. And it made me think of another psalm that I've always related to. Probably a bad thing because it's Psalm 73. I don't know if you're familiar with that one, but that's where Asaph is basically jealous. You know, he's sort of mad at God for letting the wicked prosper.

And it's really interesting because I've felt that many times in my life. I mean, he says, Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. So you're thinking, oh, boy, this is going to be a good psalm. He's going to talk about the goodness of God. And then in verse 2, But as for me, my feet had almost slipped.

I had nearly lost my foothold, for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles. Their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from common human burdens.

They are not plagued by human ills. And I got to be honest, you know, and this is sort of funny, but it's an interesting anecdote. When I became the chaplain of the Detroit Lions, my buddy became the chaplain of the San Francisco 49ers. This is 1985.

And I laughed at him. Dude, you're going to the losing his team in the NFL. I can't believe it. I get to go to Detroit. He has five Super Bowl rings now. Five. And I have zero.

I have one playoff win in 33 seasons. So anyway, it's funny, but there's that sense of, look how God prospered him and not me. And this is what Asaph is in. It's a lot worse than that. He says, like, these wicked people are prospering. He cannot get out of that darkness. I think our kids feel that, too.

You live there. You just, like, God, why? And there's that question. And the thing that's really interesting, and I think you've been saying this over and over, is when his thinking and his feelings change are all the way down to verse 17. So for 16 verses, he is complaining and sort of in a dark place.

I cannot see why God would let this happen. I'm actually mad at God. I'm mad at the world. And then he said, when I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply.

And I think that's, like, an understatement. It's almost like I'm in depression. I'm sleepless at night.

I'm anxious. This is deep in my soul. And then verse 17. It troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God.

Then I understood. And it's that moment where you said before, pause. Take a breath. Selah. You know, it's like Sabbath. You better step back.

And you might need somebody to help you do this. It's getting God's heart, God's perspective to say, okay, these feelings are legitimate. There's nothing wrong.

This is okay to feel this way. That's not sin. But if I don't do something with that, it can lead to darkness and sin. But if I can get God's heart, whether you're walking in a church or not, that isn't what he's trying to say. He's saying, I entered God's space and said, God, enter and help me see this. And clarity comes. It might not come in an instant, but it can come, right? And that's where light starts to enter. Yeah, I love that, Dave.

It's a great example, isn't it, again, of the same pattern. And it's almost as if God's saying, you're going to miss this. So, let me put this in lots of Psalms to make sure you don't miss it. And I think just the light that comes from this incredible transformation, but there has to be stillness.

Be still and know that I am God. Is the book of Psalms the place for depressed people and anxious people to go and live? Yeah, partly. I mean, I love Philippians as well. I think Philippians has got some great truths there. You know, what sort of things are good and pure and lovely of good report, thinking these things in the peace of God, which passes all understanding and will fill your heart and mind. But what the Psalms do is it gives us permission to take the most ugly, horrible feelings and thoughts and put them on the table and say, that's me and this is OK.

In fact, it's worship. As long as we go forward with them. It's not just like we're just going to dump this out and walk away. No, God help.

You know who I am anyway, so I might as well be honest. And I think that's where we can help our kids to put whatever they're feeling, whatever they're thinking, however horrible, however horrendous out in front of us. And we're not going to walk away. We're not going to disown them.

We're not going to be ashamed of them. And then walk with them into the presence of God. I say, now let's do this before God, because I can help you a little.

He can help you massively. Encourage them with how many times repeated over and over in the Psalms this pattern leads to joy, peace, hope, confidence. What about Matthew 6?

Is that a place for us to turn? I love Matthew 6. It's one of my favorite passages.

And what I love about it is its imagery. Now, we know teens, words, they have some impact. Images have massive impact.

And it's interesting here that Jesus, when he addresses anxiety, that's where he goes. He goes to images. Images as a problem and images as a solution. What are the image problems? Well, he says, don't be anxious about your life, what you'll eat, what you'll drink, your body, what you'll put on.

And he's really saying, what's the movie? What are the images that are going on in your mind? Now, today it's not food, drink, and clothing as a matter of survival, as it was in these days. It's food, drink, and clothing as a matter of approval. It's about performance. It's a kind of difference, but it's the same end result, anxiety. And it's true.

This is going on in our kids' minds. What is Instagram? But what shall I eat? What shall I drink?

What shall I put on? And what does he do? He doesn't just say stop. Stop that.

You can't stop a film without replacing it. So what does he do? Well, he first of all gives us natural images, images from nature. He says, look at the birds.

And the word look is study, examine, gaze upon, linger. And then he says, now look at the flowers of the field. And he's not limiting us to birds and flowers. He's saying, get outside, you know, take in my beauty through your eyes, through your ears, through your nose, through touch, just let new images come in. And let these natural images lead you to supernatural images, because he goes from these natural images to images of God as Father and as King.

Two beautiful images, very graphic. So we want to take really bad images out of our minds, out of our kids' minds. Let's get them outside. Or if it's Michigan winters, Dave and Ann, what do we do?

Well, I mean, I'll tell you what I do on a Friday night, pretty regularly through the winter, I'll watch Discovery Channel or National Geographic or BBC Blue Planet. I can't see beauty outside, but I can bring it in high definition still into my mind. And that may sound really like silly and stupid, but it's very effective. God's beauty is incredibly therapeutic. And it brings you to worship. It brings you to trust. It makes you think, if God's looking after these animals and these landscapes in the midst of so many challenges, is he not going to look after me, his child, and care for me, his child?

And so, yeah, I've got Friday night at the movies, but it's maybe a wee bit different to most people's. I'd love for you to talk to the parent who has been struggling for years with their child, with their teen. They're on years now. So I'd love for you to talk to them, to encourage them, and then I'd love for you to pray for these parents that are really struggling.

Sure, Ann. Well, I think the first thing I would say to the parents is have hope. There are 18 little stories in my book of teens, all of whom, to one degree or another, are either managing their anxiety and depression better or being healed from it.

And they are using the means God has provided. So there is hope. There is hope, and don't rule out anything. Like, read the book.

See all the remedies. Don't limit yourself. Get your teen to read it, to give them hope, because this is one of the great challenges, isn't it? Depression especially is a disease that disintegrates hope. And so if we can give hope, again, that's a huge step forward. We use the means 99.9% of the time God will bring us to a level of healing. I'm not saying full healing.

That may not be God's plan. But certainly a degree of healing that will allow functioning and living and loving again. And I would also say to them, have hope that this won't just heal your child. It will make your child better than he would have been, she would have been, apart from this.

I've seen just again and again and again. I've seen, yeah, I would say in every case, teens maturing beyond their years. Ultimately becoming the most useful members of God's kingdom and of human society because they've been given a dimension of self-understanding and of sympathy with others and of God's word that few people have. This creates deep people who can help people with deep problems. Pray for parents, will you? Great God of hope, great God of joy, we know that when we look to you, we look to the God who can give joy and can give peace. And you know, Lord, the listeners who are listening to this today who have little joy and little peace or whose loved ones are in the darkness, we pray that you would encourage and that you'd lift them up, that you'd help them to find their hope in you and your provision physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, relationally, you have provided abundantly. Help, Lord, bring resources, bring people, bring professionals, bring Christians into this situation and put together a healing team that will address this problem in a holistic way and ultimately bring the child and the parents through this, not just back to where they were, but gold. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. David, you've given a lot of parents a lot of fresh hope by pointing us to the God of hope. Thank you for the books. Thanks for being here and for the conversation. Thanks, Bob, Dave, and Anne. Thank you so much.

Thank you. One of the books David has written, one for teenagers, called Why Am I Feeling Like This? A Teen's Guide to Freedom from Anxiety and Depression, and then a book for parents called Why Is My Teenager Feeling Like This?

A Guide for Helping Teens Through Anxiety and Depression. Both books are available in our Family Life Today resource center. You can order them from us online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call to order. 1-800-FL-TODAY is the number. Again, for either or both of David Murray's books on anxiety and depression, go to familylifetoday.com to place an order, or call us at 1-800-358-6329.

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Go to familylifetoday.com to donate, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. And thanks for the encouragement, thanks for connecting with us, and we always enjoy hearing from you. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to gather together in one form or another with your local church this weekend for worship, and I hope you can be with us on Monday when we're going to talk about how families can proactively encourage and equip one another in our faith. How can we disciple one another?

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