151. Change Your Negative Self Talk of Discouragement, Doubt and Fear by Focusing on Biblical Truths with the Author of “Dwell on These Things” John Stange

Dr. Bryan beller here with you on beyond

adversity. This is the podcast where we help you to navigate

adversity in your life, things like death in the family or

disease perhaps or maybe debt, financial issues or perhaps

depression or maybe a divorce relationship issues. And we help

you to have a process and to do that, and we talk to authors and

leaders who can help guide us in these areas. And john stogie is

a guy who can do just that. He has an incredibly accomplished

author, and podcaster. And pastor, he has the

website desire jesus.com. What he brings to us is our guest

today here on beyond adversity. He is a follower of Jesus

Christ. He has full as a wife, Andrea, and four great kids. And

he holds a degrees in Bible education and counseling. He's a

speaker, a trainer works with the john Maxwell organization.

He's the lead pastor of core Community Church in

Pennsylvania. He works as a professor at Karen University.

But he also provides a daily audio Bible podcast, daily

devotional podcast, and a podcast related to some of his

teaching that he his upcoming book called dwell on these

things, quite an accomplished person to be our guest today on

beyond diversity. JOHN, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be

here.

It's great to be here, too. I notice it just says

you're the father for great kids, I was hoping you wouldn't

say your two great kids and two stinkers or something like that,

but but that that's awesome man, that you have a family life and

that you have accomplished some accomplishments in your life,

regarding your reading, or your writing, and your teaching, and

your leadership and your podcasting with thank you for

being with us. And what we're about here today is helping

learn from you about some of the processes that you do in your

life to help transform your life. Because it's my belief

that everyone needs to have a transformed life and some of us

get stuck in various areas in life. And we got to take, you

know, very intentional actions to, to get unstuck and to lead

us to a life of what I to call a life of peace, prosperity and

purpose. And I just wonder, john, you got all these

accomplishments. But Has there ever been a time when you've

been stuck or been a time when you had to have some adversity

to face

completely? And and you would certainly identify

with this. One of the aspects of my ministry as a pastor has been

Pennsylvania. We uprooted our family. I remember I presented

to my to my wife, the idea that I said, hey, look, let's move

down there. Let's start a church. It comes with no

guaranteed salary. I don't know where we will live. And we don't

have a congregation assembled yet. And I said, What do you

think do you want to uproot with four small kids at that point?

And, and, to my amazement, and, and gratefulness, she was very

much on board with that. But as you can well identify, there are

peaks, and there are valleys in your life when you're doing

things like that. And I hit a real Valley, when we got to

went through a season there, where I was dealing with a lot

of discouragement, a lot of self doubt. One of the things that

was also a real struggle was that was a season where the

church wasn't able to pay me a salary for a season because the

finances of the church were not at a healthy point. And it was

really a mental emotional and spiritual struggle for me where

I was certain I was doing what God had called me to do, but I

was being tested in every direction. And I just remember

that being probably one of the most discouraged seasons of my

life. And it's not even that too terribly long ago, it's only six

years ago, but it's fresh in my mind like it was yesterday or

even today. When you can be on board with things like you said

your wife was on board with you and you felt this in the

terminology you and coupled with a calling or leading to do

things for other people that might be kind of a pivot in life

things like this, that you do something you go on faith a

little bit, but reality tends to smack us in the face once in a

while, doesn't it? Sure does. We have have to deal with that with

a reality. And so the choice we have to make them when when the

season of discouragement comes like you said is what do we do

about it? You could stay stuck. You can stay you know kind of in

your misery. I call it the malaise of mediocrity or the

malaise of misery where you can stay stuck, or you can do

something about it. What were some of the things what are some

of the actions or what are some things you did to

deal with that season of that

you mentioned, there, there were probably three

key things, prayer, talking to people that I trust, and taking

some action to diversify my income streams. And so I

remember actually being in the parking lot of an electronic

store, and I don't remember what I was at the electronics store

for, but I was there, it was a nice day I was sitting in my

car, the radio was on and a song came on, just reminding me of

the fact that I can trust the Lord to lead my life. And so I

remember praying and just asking the Lord to show me what I

needed to do to make sure that our family was taken care of

financially so that I can continue doing what I felt like

he had called me to do. And that's really where I got into

the process of writing books, I started writing books, it was,

you know, it's very soon after that, that I felt like, that

idea was given to me and, and I really started to pursue that.

And that started to take off. And then that led to podcasting.

And that led to blogging, and that led to speaking and, and

then that led to a book deal with a traditional publisher.

And it's interesting, as I watch over the course of the past six

years, I'm amazed at how the Lord allowed me to experience

that crisis season, but how that was really a, a launchpad for

things that very much are part of my life right now. And I look

at it very differently from how I did in the moment, because in

the moment, I was feeling crushed, I was feeling

emotionally low. And, and now I look back at it, and I'm so

grateful that I was put in that kind of spot, because it forced

me to think differently about how I was approaching a variety

of things.

I love what you just said there, john, but

crisis as a launchpad. Rather than crisis as a, you know,

crash into the ditch somewhere, you know, where so many folks

just stay stuck, or just crash and burn. And you use it as a

launch pad. And I heard you say at least three things that you

did prayer connections with people in the actions. And so we

actually use it for writing and blogging and podcasting. Right.

And I think it's important for people to know, do you ever see

people in your ministry or in your encounters in your writing,

who have been a little bit stuck and need a little encouragement

in order to get unstuck

all the time. And it's interesting, because some

people are ready for the help to get unstuck. And there are other

people who choose to remain stuck. And I have to say that in

my role, that's one of the most frustrating things to deal with.

Because I don't know how to change somebody's mind. You

know, I don't know, I can offer my help. I can offer

encouragement, I can, I can try and point somebody in the right

direction. But I've learned that ultimately, if somebody doesn't

own it themself, if they don't ultimately value it, or or

desire it, or get to that spot, where they there, their mind is

open to it. There's not much you can do more than just be a

faithful friend and commit them to prayer, and continue to be

there for them and say, Hey, when you're ready, I'll still be

here. But at times, I see people stay stuck. And, and, and

sometimes I almost wonder if some people I've interacted with

kind of want to stay stuck? Oh,

yeah. It just I believe that's the case, I

believe. Wait about Yeah, I believe a lot of people are just

kind of, like I said, just kind of comfortable in their misery,

so to speak, and choose to stay there because the pain for

whatever reason is not great enough, you know, to have worn

change, or sometimes the pain come or the the the

manifestations of the pain do turn up so late in the process

that they have gone, you know, the woman was taken to a deep

dark place, they have a hard time getting getting out of and,

and the pain of getting out, as we know, you know, is it's not

always pleasant, either to get out of the please place it when

you are stuck. But tell me about you mentioned prayer, and you

mentioned some of the spiritual resources that you draw upon. I

believe change can take place without drawing on a power

greater than yourself. So tell me a little bit about how that

came into play in your life of your personal transformation,

once you teach others, drawing on a power greater than

yourself.

I know for me, it can be very easy for somebody in

my role as a pastor to start wrapping your sense of identity

and well being around that role, and what people think of your

performance in that role and things of that nature. And I

think at one point, I was starting to wrap my identity

around that role, instead of thinking about the things that

are eternally true of me because of my walk. with Christ and so,

you know, scripture tells me that, that in my relationship

with him, I am loved, I am adopted into his family, I am

viewed blamelessly. And as holy in the eyes of God, the Father.

And I look at that, and I think I need to start wrapping my

sense of identity around things that will be eternally true of

me, not things that are only temporarily true of me. So in

eternity, I'm not going to be a pastor in eternity, I'm just a

child of God. And so I can't wrap my sense of well being or

my identity around a temporary role or a temporary stewardship,

or even how someone thinks I navigate that temporary role.

You have to go to a deeper place. Yeah, that's,

that's what that's what you chose to do, by some of your,

some of your processes that you have your, as you mentioned

about prayer and people in action. And there's also I

believe, you know, this emotional element to

transformation that that takes place, and the emotions are

almost always wrapped up in one way or another with our

relationship with other people. You know, I believe that the the

spiritual aspect is when we draw power from that place beyond

ourselves, but interpersonally with people in our lives, is a

place to draw some strength in. And some encouragement and

accountability. Tell me a lot about relationships, especially

loving relationships, be they interpersonal, or perhaps

sometimes, Metro ships, you know, books, tapes, those type

of thing tiblet about the emotional element and

transformation for you.

Yeah, I know, for me, one of the things that I

have learned is that I deal with much more anxiety or worry in my

life, when I try and do things alone. When I share the burden

with others, people that I can trust, I feel so much better

about almost everything I'm doing. And I remember in the

midst of that season, which I really felt was kind of a pretty

low season for me, I reached out to a few friends and I was

actually talking to one of those friends just yesterday. And I

thanked him for the conversation at that time. Because I remember

he and I, we just met at a at a restaurant, we just sat down and

we talked. And one of the things that he did for me was he just

listened and allowed me to just share some of the things that

were on my mind and on my heart. And he comes from a position of

leadership. So he could understand many of those things.

And to have someone who can identify with just the the

nature's of some of those peaks and valleys that that I would

deal with in my role was immensely helpful. And it was

also helpful for me not to keep it tucked away. I think so many

times we suffer in silence, because we're unwilling to bear

our soul to other people. And so we just try and carry a burden

that we really are not designed to carry alone. And I remember

thanking him that day, and just saying, you know, essentially

Thank you for helping me to carry this burden today. And

since that time, it's become more and more obvious to me that

I need to keep people like that close by in my life, there are a

series of people like that, that I have realized that I really

need their help. If I'm if I'm ultimately going to do what I

think I'm supposed to do, they really need to be part of this

process with me because I'm going to need to lean on them

for the strength that they can provide. And I believe that

they're a gift from God to me, people in my life that I can

trust people that I can share very transparently with, and

then just listen to is they have helpful feedback. I think that

that's an important part of of growth for all of us. But I know

that that's certainly been an immensely helpful thing for me.

Yes, you mentioned, I think two aspects of this

particular relationship you've mentioned here that I think are

important and, and, and, and are loving and carrying, that is

accountability and encouragement. And it I believe

that a dynamic relationship that helps us grow helps us transform

has at least those two elements and probably others as well. And

we could draw upon that from I have a covenant group of a

couple of other pastors Swami with on a regular basis. And

that's a part of the process for me, we try to share in a little

bit deeper level, and hold each other, encourage one another and

call up hopefully to hold each other accountable. And then we

have in family relationships and mentorships and that type of

thing. If you had any mentors in your life or job that have

helped you in this whole process,

yeah, I really have when there's, there's a variety

of people I could list on that I could I could list my dad,

certainly as a mentor, somebody that he owned a grocery store

when I was growing up. And he taught me the value of hard work

and entrepreneurship and dealing with adversity in a variety of

ways because he didn't really have much of a safety net there.

He ran the business and it either succeeded or it didn't

succeed. And so even though my, my vocation is different from

his there are a lot of things that I learned from working side

by side with my father in the family grocery store. And so I

would definitely list my father as a mentor, in many respects.

And then also, during the, the early years of my ministry, I

leaned pretty heavily on another pastor that had first hired me

to be the youth director at his church. And, and then over time,

you know, gave me more and more opportunity to speak and lead

and do different things. And, and so I've had the opportunity

to reach out to him and, you know, really just lean on his

wisdom is he's basically one generation older than I am. And

then as far as books go, I mean, I read so much. And I see, you

know, I know we're on a podcast, so people can't see what's

behind you, I see that you probably read. There's a whole

series of books there. And yes, and I I'm one of those people

that's guilty of buying more books than I think I will ever

be able to read, you know, I have good intentions to read

everything I've I've purchased. But yeah, I mean, there's

there's a variety of authors that write in the leadership

space, and the spiritual growth space in it even in things like

personal finance, and things like that. Those are some of the

things that I that I really have appreciated reading and the list

is pretty long.

Yes, I have regular conversations with my wife about

my Amazon and other bookstore budgets that get a little out of

hand, sometimes Lee does, I'm right there with you. Yeah,

because I, I'm not one of those, I get lots of books. And

sometimes I have those glean maybe one chapter, sometimes

even a few pages, and I find it a value, at times I consume, not

the whole book and, you know, voracious reader. And that helps

us to be a contributor to others, you know, we can't share

with others unless we've been fed ourselves and Exactly, so.

But you do do a lot of sharing with others. I don't know how

many books you've written. But several, you got a new book

coming out, soon called dwell on these things. And then you put

out to daily podcast and another podcast as well. These are all

indicators that you're producing great content. But I'd like to

just speak for a minute about disciplines in your life, about

self disciplines, habits, rituals, maybe morning routines,

I want to hear some practical things that might be helpful to,

to our audience here on beyond adversity, to help them to

implement some of the other things you've talked about here.

So tell us a bit about yourself disciplines?

Well, two of the self disciplines that I think

really contribute to some of the things that you're listing there

that I get done. One is accountability. And, and so you

know, I like to surround myself with, with people that will keep

me accountable and are waiting for me to actually produce some

of the things that that you're that you reference there, I feel

like, if it's not just in my head, if I know that there are

actually people that are going to ask me about it, things tend

to get done. And then the other discipline that I think really

helps me out, is to be very selective, with how much time I

spend in front of a TV. And I've gotten to the point, I made a

goal A few years ago, I thought, I want this year to be a year

that I watch less TV than ever. And that has been for the past

few years, a pattern that I've kept. And what has happened is,

in that time, I've replaced that time with more productive

activity. So I'll use that time to write or record or build

relationships. And I have been really, really grateful for the

fact that I decided to make that that transition and and for me,

you know, you know, it's, it used to be that I would watch

news constantly. And it dawned on me, I thought, you know, all

this does is just make me feel bad. You know what I was like

this, just if there's any ever anything that can just sour your

mood, it's watching too much news. And I would watch too much

news. And I thought I got to, I got to cut that out. And, and

then a variety of other things. And the more I cut out the the

more productive I felt. And so the combination of of having

people that genuinely check in on me and are genuinely, you

know, looking for me to do the things that I've committed to

do. And then and then using the time that I used to waste just

sitting there staring at a TV screen, using it to write record

or build relationships has been a huge help. And those are two,

those are probably the two most productive habits that I could

list for you right off the top of my head. But a third one is

this. I'll even mention this. I've noticed that what gets on

my calendar happens and what stays in my mind and and like

the world of good intentions doesn't tend to happen. And so I

made a decision with my wife A few years ago, that once a

quarter, we would do something where we as a family just went

away. And usually what happens is once a quarter, so every

three months will take time, sometimes just a few days, or

sometimes it's a week, and we'll rent a cabin somewhere

different. And we'll just disappear from the world. And I

feel like that helps me recharge, and then come back,

ready to go. And so we do that every three months. And that's,

that's another thing i'd list in those disciplines. It's been a

huge help.

I'm kind of like a mini Sabbath or sabbatical type

of thing. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think that's so

important. You mentioned a couple of things there, john, I

think are so important, the screen time, and the distraction

culture that we live in, you know, tell you television alone,

you know, I am guilty of the of the news thing, for instance,

you know, news junkie, and all that kind of thing. Yeah. And

especially, you know, events of the world, Cosby at times to get

really consumed by that. Also, with the world of social media,

and so on, it's so easy to fall into that rabbit hole. Of

course, as you know, a lot of those things are just designed

psychologically, and, and even hooked even, or even

neurologically, and other things like that, to go you down that

rabbit hole and keep it going. Well, just one quick example.

For me, I'm on a rock and roll disc jockey. And so, you know, I

can get stuck in on just YouTube videos about old concerts and

things like this, and music videos from the 70s, especially

in a way I go, look up, and it's been three hours or whatever.

But I think that's so important that you get control of that and

wondered if you have put any kind of I know framework or any

accountability on that, or just been able to be able to mentally

to, to do this for yourself, have you I know there are even

some technological tools that some people use, I'm not totally

familiar with them, they help you limit your screen time and

so on

it, for me, it's just as far as limiting the

screen time, it's be it's setting up workspace in a

different room from where I have the TV. So I do a lot of work at

home, I set up a separate office, and I don't have a TV

here in this office space. So that that's one thing. That's

been immensely helpful. But as far as the social media, one of

the things that I did a few months ago, and I do this from

time to time, I'll go back and forth on this. But when I feel

like the social media time is increasing too much, I one of

the easiest things for me to do is to just take that off that

app off the front page of my, my, my smartphone, if I take it

off the front page and put it in a folder and make it so that I

have to dig a little bit for it, that definitely limits the time

because it becomes less intuitive. And it almost becomes

like a muscle memory thing where we're checking Facebook or

checking Twitter, or whatever it may be. And, and if you just

kind of interrupt that muscle memory, I

know for me that that's been a big help, when I

feel like I need to take a break from it. Yeah. And what we're

really talking about here is you take control of that then helps

you get by your focus, then and then helps you get into a flow

of in a better place, much more productive place to be and, you

know, you're you're drawing on some of those things that make

you feel better, you know, at least for me, please for me,

I'll speak for myself, when I get out of my own head, get out

of sprint, certainly get out the the dopamine hits of, you know,

for me know all that news and music videos would be kind of a

dopamine hit as well. And to break out of that pattern into

be productive, minus myself. And so you certainly have done that

in terms of how that's manifested. That makes you to

speak for a minute about what you one of the external or

outwardly focused outwardly facing, just what you have is

you do have a couple of daily podcast, biblical related and

devotional related to a little bit about how that has been a

part of your process. You said others keep you accountable as

well, I'm assuming some of that's your audience that's out

there who have to keep you accountable. And absolutely,

tell me about a how that has manifested itself and keep in

being productive, you know, in an outward facing way, how that

been a part of the transformation for you as well.

Well, it's interesting when I started

writing books, and when I started when I started the

podcast, and then when I started blogging, you don't do so with

any true knowledge of who's going to use what you produce,

you hope that what you're producing is valuable to people.

But you don't truly know if people are going to make use of

it. But I was amazed when I first started writing the books.

And I could see the metrics because most of them were being

sold on Amazon. And I would see people using it and I would get

feedback from it and people writing to me and people

messaging me, and I would egged me on to do more. Well soon

after that. I got into podcasting and I got into

kind of unfamiliar with it. When I would mention it to people, it

seemed like most people weren't super familiar with it. And the

first year so you know, the show started to grow. I started with

the chapter a day audio Bible, and then eventually added dwell

on these things. And then daily devotions with with Pastor john.

But when it went from 10, downloads to 100, to several 100

individual day. And then now at this point, there, it's just

about at 5 million downloads. And I get feedback very, very

regularly from listeners to those podcasts because there's

it hit an exponential growth curve. And at this point, now,

you know, what I'm here where I record, I think of those faces

that some I've had the opportunity to see or interact

with, but most I haven't, but I think, alright, there are people

that wait for this every day. And I can't skip a day, you

know, I can't skip a day, I don't want to skip a day.

Because I'm thinking them,

Well, here's what I'm, here's what I want to

reflect with you on that one, just the extrapolation of what

happened there, you had some personal transformation

yourself, then you made the commitment to go forward, even

though you weren't 100% sure, about any feedback, or whatever

it would be. And then a built build built and all of a sudden

your personal transformation has led to tremendous impact 5

million downloads is unreal, and from my perspective, but Yay,

God for that, but I just want to say share with you know, that's

the impact that can happen when you choose a life of personal

transformation. It can only be for you it can be how God's word

Jude up to impact the world. So that's awesome. So tell us a

little bit more. I want us to speak very pragmatically right

now, to someone who is out there who is stuck to who maybe feels

like, okay, maybe there's got to be more to life than this. But

I'm still kind of stuck here. So that can be people any walk of

life, it can be, you know, you and I are pastors, it could be

people in our walk of life or could see somebody in any walk

of life that can find themselves stuck. But tell me a little bit

about what you might say to that person who has found there's

brass certainty regarding their COVID crisis around something

else that's happened, that they feel a little stuck, what kind

of advice or encouragement would you give to that person who's in

that position right now,

I think one of the best things they could do for

starters, is just admitted, start calling it what it is, you

know, don't give it a fancy name, don't decorate it. Just

admit that you're feeling stuck, or that you're feeling down or

that you're feeling depressed, whatever word you want to give

to it. But don't, don't try and make it seem like it's not a big

deal. Treat it like it's actually a big deal. And, and

purpose in your heart that there's more to life than that

stuff that valley that you seem stuck in. And I think it helps

you know, right away to just call it into the light. Because

I think a lot it's a lot of times these things take hold in

our life. Because we either try to pretend like they're not

happening, or we give it a friendly sounding name, or we

start wrapping our identity around our struggle. Instead of

realizing we've been designed to step out of this sort of thing,

this isn't something that we need to stay in forever, we can

learn from our trials, but we don't have to stay in those

valleys. For protracted periods of time, unnecessarily, you

know, we learn we grow. But let's not pretend it's something

nicer than it really is. Sometimes let's call it out for

what it is, and then start to take some positive steps to to

move beyond it. And then you know, from there, I mean, the

best I can advise somebody is to do what I feel has worked for me

prayer, and accountability, you know, prayer and accountability.

And then and then kind of acting on the things that you know, as

the the Lord speaks to your heart and his other people you

trust, speak to your heart, take action to actually do the things

that you're being encouraged and advise to do, let somebody else

lift you up, let somebody else give you counsel, let somebody

else lend you their strength when you feel sapped of your

strength, but get in motion because they always say motion

improves emotion. So if we can get in motion, I think that that

certainly has a very positive effect on how we end up feeling

overall.

And one of those persons and one of the one of

those ways of doing that is finding great resources to help

us we have to go from our earlier conversation. Every out

every person has to come to their point of their aha moment

or their I've had enough moment where they have to choose to

make a decision. But they can, as you mentioned, can call on

other people and other resources and certainly your website

desire Jesus calm has lots of resources on it as you do with

the upcoming several books as you publish an upcoming book

dwell on these things. Maybe people, somebody wants to reach

out to your website and your resources, what are they going

to find there, john, that might be helpful to that person who's

looking to make some changes themselves.

If they stopped by desire Jesus calm, they're going

to see a variety of things, they're going to see, obviously,

the resources that you mentioned, as far as books and

things like that, but they're also going to see several years

very consistent blog content, that they can search by topic.

So if somebody is dealing with anxiety, all they have to do is

just put the word anxiety in the search area, and they'll be able

to see various things that have been written, related to that

particular topic, or parenting, or finances, or discouragement,

or accountability, or any of those things, we'll just be able

to put that in now. And there's enough of a bank of resources

there that there'll be something for them to read. But they'll

also be things for them to listen to, because all the

different training events, all the different podcasts, we have

it all on the in the podcast section there where where

they'll be able to listen to that content. So maybe that'll

be something that's useful to them, maybe, you know, if I'm

going through a season where where, you know, I'm sharing

something from a position of strength, maybe that can help

somebody else if they're going through a season where they feel

like they're at a spot of weakness. And so there's a lot

of content there, both audio and, and just being able to, you

know, content to read, that I truly hope will help people find

joy and encouragement in the midst of their daily

circumstances, it's certainly meant to and so we try and make

that that website as robust as we can. There isn't a week that

goes by that more content isn't being added to it, there's

something being added to it constantly. And it just

continues to grow and grow and grow with resources that I truly

hope will be a help to people.

What a great, a great resource that you've

offered to folks out there. And as course people can even go to

your website to see all that and they can also you know, it

actually comes out to them if they decide to connect up with

your, your daily podcast as well. And so, lots of

opportunities are is out there and just want to thank you for

what you've shared here today. JOHN, some great stuff. helpful

to our audience. I know and just want to thank john stodgy for

being our guest today on the beyond adversity podcast.