The intersection of faith and emotions can be a tricky one. How do theology and psychology, doctrine and practice, belief and behavior relate? These are the questions that matter addressed in the next podcast. Ed Welch’s insights take center stage.

Resources:

• The Christian Counseling and Education Foundation
• All of Ed Welch's Books
• Two Books About Shame (A Review)
• Ed's Little Books on Anxiety | Anger | Shame

Transcript

Welcome to Questions That Matter, a podcast of the C.S. Lewis Institute. I'm your host, Randy Newman, and today my conversation partner is Ed Welch of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation. Ed is a counselor. He’s a faculty member at CCEF. He is the author of many fine books, including Shame Interrupted, Running Scared, Depression: Looking Up from a Stubborn Darkness, and perhaps the book that I guess got him famous at first or put him on the scene of the intersection of Christian faith and counseling was his book from 1997, When People are Big and God is Small.

Unfortunately, Ed Welch is not here with me. He's my conversation partner through his books. We tried to work that out, to have Ed be a guest on Questions That Matter, and it just didn't work out with his schedule, but I have benefited so greatly from the ministry of CCEF and of Ed Welch’s writings and his videos and audio recordings so very, very much that I wanted our C.S. Lewis Institute friends and listeners and viewers of this podcast to know of his resources, because it would be a shame if you were pursuing spiritual growth, discipleship, as I'm sure you are if you're a person who’s listening to these podcasts…. It would be a shame if you were pursuing that without the help of the kind of resources that Ed Welch and CCEF produce. Let me just give you a little flavor on their website, CCEF, Christian Counseling and Education Foundation. Their mission statement or tagline is, “Restoring Christ to counseling and counseling to the church.” Isn't that great?

I think that there's been a problem, or there has been a problem throughout the whole history of the Christian church, of just understanding where do our emotions fit? How does the emotional side of our lives fit with our spiritual lives? Or how does doctrine relate to emotions? And there’s been a great deal of debate, as I'm sure you're aware, or you would be aware if you start looking into this. And for a while, you would read so-called Christian counseling books, and you'd think, “This might be good advice. I’m not quite sure. It sounds good,” but on some occasions, it sounded more like Sigmund Freud than it sounded like Jesus Christ. Or it sounded more—I don't know—secular, worldly wisdom rather than biblical insight. Or if Christian counselors and Christian writers were writing about the topic, they would quote scripture, and sometimes you'd read it and go, “Is that really what that verse is saying?” or I don't know, and it would be like you were getting two very different perspectives.

And so a group of counselors who were also deeply trained in theology, David Powlison, Ed Welch, Paul David Tripp, and some others said, “No, there's some really, really great things we can understand from the scriptures about our emotions and really dig in deeply about why are we anxious? Why are we angry? Why are some people depressed? Why do some people experience terrible shame, and it's debilitating?” and rather than looking elsewhere first, they looked to the scriptures first and then augmented their study with: What do we learn through common grace, or God’s general revelation, that people can discover by studying human beings and emotions and psychology?

So CCEF, I think, in my opinion, has found a balance that is just so deeply helpful for me. And like I said, I wanted you to know about their resources. In particular, Ed Welch has written these books that I've mentioned, and they're pretty substantial books. They're 250 to more than 300 pages. And they're really engaging and rich. Perhaps one of the most helpful for me is his book on shame called, Shame Interrupted. It’s over 300 pages, and it walks all the way through the Bible storyline, from Genesis to Revelation, about what God says, about Who He is and who we are and how to live in connection with Him. And I remember the first time I read the book, thinking, “Does this book really need to be this long? Could this have been 180 pages?” And then it hit me. “Actually, yes. It does need to be this long, because this book isn't just conveying information. It's actually working on me. It's like going to some counseling sessions with Ed Welch.” And so each chapter would sort of take another angle at what the Bible teaches about God and about us and massage it in, so to speak. And I don't read a whole lot of books more than once. That doesn't count C.S. Lewis books. I read them a lot more than once. But there aren't a whole lot of books that I read more than once, but Ed Welch's book on shame, I've read three times and will probably read another three or more times. Every couple of years. I just need a tune up and reconnect. His book, Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness, has helped me tremendously. I've read that one twice.

So it’s just a delight that lately, recently, he's been writing a series of very small books. I'll show you. You can't see this if you're doing this by audio, but he came out with a book that he calls A Small Book for the Anxious Heart. And then he has A Small Book about a Big Problem, and it's about anger. And then he has A Small Book about Why We Hide, which is really about shame. And I have a feeling that people who read his longer works said, “This is great stuff! And I wonder if you could put together short daily devotionals.” That’s what these are. They're short, three or four pages. There are fifty of them in each of these books. And they're bite-sized pieces. And he just takes a look at one aspect of the problem and digs in and then asks a few application questions. And I think that they're just a great resource. And they're great resources even if you haven't read his longer books. And in fact, I think, for some people, the short ones may be sufficient. I happen to like the longer ones and the shorter ones. Anyway, I think they work together beautifully.

Not too long ago, secular and religious news agencies alike reported something that some were calling a revival at Asbury University in Wilmore Kentucky, and students there were spontaneously spending longer and longer times in worship, confessing sin, committing their lives to the Lord, and this prompted a whole lot of people to wonder, “Is this revival? Is this what revival looks like?” It continued actually for several days, and people traveled there and sort of examined it, if you would. We have a program coming up Friday, October 20^th, with Dr. Thomas Kidd about revival. It's a pre-recorded interview, but you can log on to it virtually from 8 to 9:15 p.m. on that Friday. That's 8 to 9:15 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, October 20th. Tommy Kidd has studied and written on revivals in American history. He's written a great textbook for home schoolers and Christian high schools about American history, and he will help us better understand and define the subject of revival, both from a biblical and also a historical perspective. He’ll also help us understand our role and the role of the Holy Spirit when true revival or spiritual awakening occurs. If you long to see this kind of movement of the Spirit in your life and in our world today—and I sure hope you do—you won’t want to miss this conversation, this interview with Dr. Kidd.

But let me just give you a few flavors. So from his book on anxiety, A Small Book for the Anxious Heart, here’s how he begins this: “Could there be a more important topic? Our lives are full of uncertainties. We never know what the day will bring. Worries, fears, and stress are part of daily life. We shouldn't be surprised, then, that scripture says so much about it and that what it says is both accurate and helpful.” So he points out in this book, and in his book on fear, Running Scared, which I think that that's the pair for this topic, that the commandment, “Fear not,” is perhaps the most frequent commandment in all of scripture. He says, “Over 300 times, God says to us, ‘Fear not.’” And in the vast, vast majority of those cases, the comfort that comes next, or right before, is that the Lord is near. So for years, I memorized and meditated that passage in Philippians 4, verse 6, “Be anxious for nothing, but by everything through prayer and supplication,” and I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I should have started just one verse before. I just connected that verse before with the previous paragraph, as if there was this hard break, and, “Okay, we're done with that topic. Now, be anxious for nothing,” but no, the verse before says, “The Lord is near. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything. And Ed Welch points out, whenever God speaks to you about your fears, you can be sure He will say something about being close. Isn't that great?

There's a tenderness to his writing, and again, if you hear him speak on YouTube or audio, there's a gentleness. And that is so very, very helpful for me, for a whole host of reasons which I'd rather not go into unless you're a licensed therapist, and then I'd have to pay you money. But the voice I hear in my head, of myself talking to myself, can pretty harsh. And so I am listening to the book Running Scared on audio, and I came to this part where Ed Welch is digging into the passage in Matthew 6, where Jesus says to us, “Why are you anxious about your life, about food, and about clothing?” And he said there are a couple of ways you can hear that or you can interpret that, and one is, “Why are you anxious about your life?” Implication: “What's your problem? Why are you doing that? Stop that!” And that’s the tone of the voice in my head, I’m sorry to say. But he said there's another way to hear that, and that is a legitimate question: “Why are you anxious?” And what he's saying is Jesus is inviting us in to examine our fears and anxieties. “Why are you anxious?” Well, sometimes I'm anxious because I don't really believe that God is powerful enough to take care of me or that God is loving enough to take care of me or I have forgotten all these times in my life that God has provided and met me in powerful ways. Why am I anxious? I need to examine that and then hold that up in light of the gospel, the fact that God sent His Son for me and that He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? And so there's this gentle invitation into examine and look and to take every thought captive.

So these are some of the ways his writings have helped me. His book on anger, A Small Book about a Big Problem—by the way, in all of his writings, he freely, vulnerably admits he still has some of these struggles, and I find that to be tremendously refreshing and helpful. This is not advice from a guy who solved this problem decades ago and now has no struggles. Instead, it’s, “When I have these moments of anger or angst or anxiety or shame, here’s what has helped me overcome that. Here's what I am saying to myself right now as I'm writing this paragraph.” And that's so very helpful.

This is a podcast of the C.S. Lewis Institute, and so—I'm not required, but I just want to keep quoting C.S. Lewis. You may recall from his introduction of his book, Reflections on the Psalms, he says that he's not a Hebrew scholar. He's a fellow student. And he says, “Sometimes the fellow student can help more because he knows less.” Ed Welch can help us more because he's still in the process. And that's a very, very important word with CCEF. It’s not an instant quick fix. It's not this magic formula. It's not just, “Oh, remember this Bible verse,” or, “Ask for this experience, a zap of the Holy Spirit.” No, it's this ongoing process where God gradually sanctifies us and helps us live out our calling as sanctified, justified, redeemed, saved people.

So he has a book on anger. The short one, a small little book. I don't think he has a longer book about anger. My guess is that he feels that he could not possibly have improved upon his friend and colleague David Powlison’s book, Good and Angry. David is now with the Lord, but what a great teacher he was, and I have benefited from his teachings as well. We're going to put show notes, links for all sorts of resources.

But let me give you a little flavor from his short book about anger. He has so many exhortations to bring these concerns to the Lord and to pray and to talk to the Lord about this, but in a sentence that I need to remember so very often, he says, “If it's important to you, it is important to Him.” It's important to God. And so we bring these things that are causing us to be angry, and we can look at it and say, “There’s obviously something going on here,” bring this to the Lord. But then, painfully but so very helpfully, he also reminds us that we live out our lives, and we struggle with anger or depression or whatever, in a spiritual battle where there's a devil who hates us, and he says, “Anger looks a lot like Satan, and it summons him.” So anger looks like the devil, and when we are angry, it's inviting him in to have much more control or say or influence on us than we should. He said, “So anger is not just about our desires that have gotten out of control.” It’s certainly about that, in previous statements have presented that. He says, “Anger is also a partnership with Satan, who is a murderer. Watch him with Job. His intent is to crush. He is the ancient dragon who was enraged by the coming of Jesus and set off to destroy his people. Jesus brings life. Satan promises life but delivers death.”

Let me just look also quickly at his book on shame, why we hide, A Small Book about Why We Hide, and I'll just give you a few flavors from that. Again, I find all of his resources so helpful. But he doesn't just examine the problem. By the way, there are quite a few books that are really good at examining the problem. I'll try to remember to put a link in the show notes of a blog I wrote years ago comparing Ed Welch's book on shame to another Christian book on shame. And they're both good, but I think Welch’s is better, because the other book—they both do a very good job of examining the problem, but then when it comes time for a solution, Welch just keeps pushing it in a more helpful direction of: Okay, here's the problem. Now, let's examine it in light of the cross, in light of the finished, atoning, saving, forgiving, restoring, cleansing work of the gospel. So he reminds us regularly of how overwhelming, how overwhelmingly good God's love is, and how we need to always be praying the prayer at the end of Ephesians 3, that we would be able to grasp the height and length and breadth and depth of God's love, that we would know it, even though it is beyond knowledge.

So he keeps reminding us of that, and in this book on shame, he says, “When Someone knows what is in your heart,” and he's talking about God, “and that Person loves you all the more, rather than turns away from you, you are more inclined to stop hiding and start talking.” Sometimes it's just his tiny little word choices. Where he's talking about creation, the story in Genesis one through three, he said, “These chapters remind us of some basics.” And he says things like: God created all things. Everything belongs to Him. We are His royal children. He has a statement where he says—and part of what this teaching is—“He created us people to be near Him.” Now maybe that doesn't strike you as significant, but I think I'm more often here: God created us to know Him, to worship Him, to love Him. Yes, yes, all of that. And it's great. But just that little turn of choice of vocabulary, “He created us to be near Him.” That feels…. I'm not saying that the other things are not true. I'm saying that this is the most, or one of the more, helpful things for me to remember. God created me to know Him and be near Him and to enjoy Him forever and to sense and be transformed by His love.

One last quote, and then I'll say goodbye to Ed for this podcast, but not for my reading. He says…. He even highlights this statement with, “Remember this important rule.” It’s a rule. “Many difficulties you find in your relationships with human beings, you can typically find in your relationship with the Lord. So hiding, being ashamed, feeling condemned, when you're feeling that from other people, that may be a reflection of a deeper theological issue or a deeper issue connecting on the vertical level that's harming the horizontal level.

So that's all I want to say for this podcast. Like I said, check out some of the links that I put in the show notes. I really hope that you'll take advantage of some of these resources that are available to us today. And again, I find tremendous help from Ed Welch. I hope that he can be a connection for you as well in your spiritual growth. And of course, that's an invitation for you to check out a whole ton of other resources we have on our website, cslewisinstitute.org. And please know that we at the institute, we pray for the people who listen to and watch these podcasts, we pray for the people who download our material, and we pray that God will use these resources, so that you will grow more and more to become more and more like Jesus. And it is in His Name that we pray those prayers. May God use all of these things to help you love Him with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

Brought to you by the C.S. Lewis Institute and the Questions That Matter Podcast with Randy Newman