Episode Transcript
[00:00:21] Yep, yep, yep. Here we are again.
[00:00:24] This is Shana Strange Williams, and you are listening to Grace and Grit, Mindset Podcast. Podcast.
[00:00:32] Glad you came back. I'm glad you are showing up. Hopefully these episodes are helping you make some mindset shifts. That's the whole point here.
[00:00:42] And don't let mindset shift scare you. Don't think that it's like some kind of, like, new age thing.
[00:00:50] It's really just a different way of saying, hey, we're gonna focus on changing our mind about some things.
[00:00:58] Because if you've been listening to me for any period of time over the last, I don't know, seven or eight years that I've been kind of off and on podcasting, one of the things I always talk about is, you know, really getting freedom in your mind and learning how to think like Christ so that you can have a life of freedom, you can have a life of victory, you can have a life of peace. You can have success in some areas that maybe you feel like you just are never successful in so much of the time.
[00:01:32] It's not that you don't have the ability to maybe do some things that God's put in your heart to do. Maybe it's start a business, maybe it's write a book. Maybe it's. I don't know, you know, your marriage is in shambles. It's not that you don't have some of those ability to do that stuff. It's that your mind is not where it needs to be. You've got to make some changes in the way that you think.
[00:02:00] Because so often the way that we think is what's hindering progress.
[00:02:05] And God can only take you as far as you're willing to surrender and believe and think like Him. We have to think like him in order to do some of these things. He can't take us higher. He can't take us to where he wants to go with us. Whether that be our promised land or that be some kind of platform or ministry or that be a calling, a career, marriage, children, just a person of influence.
[00:02:32] We can't do it unless our mind is where he needs it to be. So I decided a few weeks ago that I was going to kind of launch a series here on Mindset and how to make those shifts from one to the other. Like, if you're trapped in. You know, I started out with, I think, fear, how to. How to take. Make that shift from fear to faith.
[00:02:59] And then, like, I think we talked about trust over suspicion, how to make that shift.
[00:03:06] And then we Talked about another one last week, and it's completely blanking out because, bear with me, I'm working on two podcasts now, so sometimes I'm like, okay, where are we at? Where we at? What are we doing today? You know, which podcast am I talking about? Which, by the way, I told you guys I would let you know as soon as I had another or had the episode out. We finally launched the Marriage Altar podcast, which you can easily find.
[00:03:32] I'll drop the link in the show notes, but if you just look up the Marriage Altar on any podcasting platform, you'll probably find us.
[00:03:42] You can also find it pretty easily if you just are looking, going over the website here, that connected you. And I'll put that in the show notes as well.
[00:03:52] All my podcasts are connected on a platform, so if you find one, you can find the other ones. Try to make it easy like that. But we did release that. We've had pretty good feedback so far, and we've had quite a few streams, a lot more than I thought we would. Have to be honest with you. It is definitely blowing this one out of the water. So that tells me that there's a really true, a true need for it. There's a need for redemptive marriage podcast from a Christian viewpoint for anyone struggling maybe with in your marriage. Maybe there's infidelity, maybe there's addiction, betrayal.
[00:04:31] That podcast is made for people that want to work through that and see God restore their marriage, want to encourage you that he can. He's done it for my husband and I.
[00:04:44] I'll probably be sharing a little bit in this podcast about some of the things I went through, just because they have brought a lot of the teaching that I'm doing now has come from going through that experience with my husband last summer and over the last, like nine or ten months with him, what we've been going through and what God's been teaching me, and all these mindset shifts that God's been teaching me, sharing them with you. And so today, one of my most favorite topics to talk about is peace.
[00:05:20] And we want to talk about the mindset shift of peace over anxiety, which is something that I think probably 99% of Americans right now could probably use a good understanding of what peace is, the peace of God, rather, because it's different. Jesus talks about his peace. He says, my peace I give you, not as the world gives. So he has a different kind of peace. And it means something different than what the world's peace means. I would say the world peace System has to do with having enough, like, okay, I got a bunch of money stockpiled, I got a bunch of, know, resources to take care of myself and my family. So I have peace of mind, right? That's how the world thinks. Or it's, it's all about having plan B, C, D, E, F, just in case plan A falls through. I've got all these other things I can do. Or, you know, it's all based and rooted in independence and you taking care of yourself and what, you know, you being in control of everything.
[00:06:27] Well, I don't know if you've been living under a rock, but here's the thing. We have very little control over our lives anymore. Have you noticed that? Have you, have you had that revelation yet? Like, control in a lot of areas is an illusion.
[00:06:43] You can control some things, right? There are some things you can control. Are you going to eat healthy? Are you going to get enough sleep? Are you going to exercise? Are you going to, you know, are you going to go to work?
[00:06:57] Are you going to be a good mother, father, spouse, whatever? You can control some of that.
[00:07:02] But a lot of the things that are going on right now in our world, we cannot control.
[00:07:07] And so for us to think that we can create our own sense of peace just by being in control or having enough in case something breaks or just just hoarding up resources, that's a lie. And it's never, it's elusive. You can never have enough. Because even if you get what you think you need, you're still going to feel like, I need more. I need more, right? Because what if this happens? What if this happens? So you're constantly on this hamster wheel trying to take care of yourself, trying to be independent, trying to figure out what do you need to make sure you have peace of mind. So what does.
[00:07:44] I guess the million dollar question is, what is real peace?
[00:07:48] Because if it's not, if it's not rooted in this belief system that the world has, that peace is having more than enough and being at rest, maybe, which I would say being at rest is a part of the biblical definition of peace, but it's so much more than that. And I'm so excited because when I was getting ready for today to talk to you, I gotta be honest, I didn't even really want to do this podcast today. I woke up feeling funky. My husband was feeling funky. We've had an off day for sure.
[00:08:18] And I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna do it tomorrow. But I said, no, I've committed To this, I'm gonna. I'm gonna study scriptures about peace over anxiety. Hopefully God will show me something new. And guess what? He did? And I'm so excited about it because it really, honestly blessed me. And I know if it blessed me, it's going to bless you.
[00:08:39] So when you look at Philippians 4, 7, which is. This is the. The quintessential text that everyone reads, one of them about the peace of God, where Paul's talking to the Philippian Church, church, and he's saying, you know, he says in verse right before. Right before six, the Lord is near. Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. You can recite this with me because you know it will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
[00:09:18] So I started thinking about, like, first of all, this word he uses in the beginning of this. A lot of translations say don't be anxious about. Be anxious for nothing. Right? So when you look at this word anxious, I've talked about this before, so you may have heard me, but I'm going somewhere with it that's a little more in depth than I normally have gone before. And so, because God showed it to me, how exciting is that?
[00:09:45] So when you look at this word anxious, I'm going to pull up what that actually means in the Greek, because it actually is not probably what you think.
[00:09:55] Okay. So we.
[00:09:57] We know that anxiety often means, I would say, to be distracted, to be afraid, to be fearful, to be worried. Right. But there's actually a.
[00:10:13] A word picture for this that I don't think we realize it. So it comes from this Greek word, marine remna, marim nao. Yeah.
[00:10:28] And it does mean worry, concerned, anxious, you know, to be worrying, to have a care about it. But the word picture, it actually can. It's like distracted, but it also means properly drawn in opposite direction. So it's almost like being pulled apart in different directions.
[00:10:48] So that's what happens when you have anxiety.
[00:10:53] You feel like. It almost feels like you're being fractured. You know, you're being pulled in so many different directions, and your mind is not whole.
[00:11:02] So it's to. It's like a. To go to pieces because it's being pulled apart is the word picture. So just, Just keep that in your mind. Like, he's saying, do not be. Do not let your mind be pulled apart and fractured into pieces.
[00:11:17] Right. But let the peace of God, he's saying, don't worry about all this lay, all these prayer requests before God. And then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds. That's wonderful. Our mind can be guarded by the peace of God. So what is the peace of God? So if anxious or marina means to be pulled and divided into many parts, into pieces because of a force that's exerted, you know, it's being pulled because of all the worry and distractions.
[00:11:51] But listen to what peace means. Because it's. It's not exactly what you thought. It's not what I thought anyway. Of course, I thought it meant rest.
[00:12:01] Yeah, I was thinking just being in a place of rest and safety almost, which it does.
[00:12:07] But the Greek word here is.
[00:12:12] And it actually means one O, N E, quietness, rest, or to be set at one again.
[00:12:21] So with this word picture that you have here is to join tied together into a whole.
[00:12:31] It means wholeness.
[00:12:33] Or when all the essential parts are joined together, it becomes whole again. It can also mean prosperity.
[00:12:42] So you have this picture of wholeness contrasting the picture of being separated and pulled apart by anxiety.
[00:12:52] So the peace of God is supposed to bring a wholeness to our mind that we don't have because of the sinfulness of this world, because of the fall of man. Because now we live under.
[00:13:07] Well, we choose.
[00:13:10] We can get out from underneath the law of sin and death when we decide that we want to follow after Christ, he saved us. Now we've surrendered our life to God. Then now we have this peace available to us that where there was brokenness, where there was division of the mind, now we have wholeness of the mind if we want that.
[00:13:34] And I was thinking about this scripture, and I think this is why I love it, because now I'm putting it all together right now.
[00:13:40] There's a scripture in Psalms that says, unite my heart to fear your name, or something like that. And I think that's why I love it is because it's like this whole. It's this picture of God bringing wholeness to a person, which is what he does with us. He takes what the world and what our thoughts and what the flesh has done.
[00:14:02] And I'm even talking about, like, people, those of us who've been diagnosed with anxiety, depression disorders, ptsd, even beyond that, even. Even some of the personality disorders that have to do with extreme trauma.
[00:14:18] If I'm looking at this scripture, right, it's saying that God can put your mind back together and give you wholeness.
[00:14:27] And that is so beautiful to me, because you're not Gonna get that with medication.
[00:14:33] You're not gonna get that even with some counseling, probably with a really great counselor. Not knocking it, because I do some counseling myself.
[00:14:41] But nothing can top God's ability in his peace to bring wholeness to you, to bring rest.
[00:14:50] So I don't know if that excites you, but it really excites me. And then there is another scripture that I was reading earlier that has this same word in it, so for peace.
[00:15:06] So this is what Romans 8 says. And he's talking about all the things that God has done for us through His Son.
[00:15:14] And, you know, it's. It's just, you know, Romans 8, because that's where you have.
[00:15:19] God will.
[00:15:22] Sorry, I just went blank because I'm reading so many things at the same time. But he's talking about how God will work everything for the good of those who love Him. So this is that scripture. But if you go up a little bit higher, further back into that scripture, he's talking about the peace of God.
[00:15:42] And it's so good. And I want to read this a little bit too. He's talking about the mindset of the flesh versus the mindset of the Spirit.
[00:15:52] So here we go. We are looking at verse 5, Romans 8, verse 5. Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves.
[00:16:03] But those who live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities.
[00:16:11] For the sense and reason of the flesh is death.
[00:16:15] But the mindset controlled by the Spirit finds life and peace.
[00:16:20] And this word peace is the same word that we see in Philippians 4, 7, 8, the peace of God, which is the piece that brings wholeness and brings the pieces together of what's been pulled apart by wrong thinking, what's been pulled apart by trauma, what's been pulled apart by life.
[00:16:45] Just living on this planet and having to go through some of the things that we all have to go through.
[00:16:53] His peace has the ability to bring hope, wholeness back to us.
[00:16:58] Isn't that just amazing? So just. Just think about that for a minute. Just sit in that for a minute. Thank you, Lord, that you have this peace. And it's part of us. It's our inheritance.
[00:17:13] As. As being a child of God.
[00:17:17] We now have the peace of God.
[00:17:21] We now have wholeness. Where there has been.
[00:17:25] Where there's been division and even I would say, like, fractured, you know, fractured, pulled apart mind.
[00:17:33] You can go through so much in your life, so much trauma, you know, whether that be childhood things, whether that be abuse, whether that be marital problems, that that led to divorce. Whether that be infidelity, whether that be just relational conflict or whatever it is, it doesn't matter.
[00:17:58] If you can get to this place where you will let the Spirit control your mind, you'll find that you will have a life of peace and. And you'll be alive. You'll have this. So this word for life is that Zoe word, that Zoe word where it's like true life, like only the life that God has. This is not like life the way that the world sees it, where it's, you know, riches and fame and whatever, you know, just. Just the high life here on earth. This is actually life from God himself.
[00:18:34] So when we allow the Holy Spirit to rule, that's what we get is peace. But we get this true life that he wants us to have. What a gift.
[00:18:46] And then he goes on to say in verse seven, in fact, the mindset focus on the flesh fights God's plan and refuses to submit to his direction because it cannot.
[00:18:58] For no matter how hard they try, God finds no pleasure with those who are controlled by the flesh.
[00:19:04] But when the spirit of Christ empowers your life, you are not dominated by the flesh, but by the Spirit.
[00:19:12] So how do you get to this place where the Spirit is leading you?
[00:19:18] And I would like to just say that you just go, okay, step one, do this. Step two, do this. Step three, do this. But more than likely, it's gonna be your own individual walk. And the Holy Spirit is gonna tell you, he's gonna show you this. If this is your desire. I mean, this is what he wants for all of us. He wants us to walk in the Spirit. This is not like, hey, if you Christians get to experience what it really means to have life and peace, a life free of anxiety, I mean, you can be in the worst situation ever, which I have been several times in the last five years of my life, 10 years, whatever, and still have peace.
[00:20:00] See, that's what a Christian should have. A Christian should have peace no matter what chaos is going around them. Like right now, y' all, what has been going on in the world with Israel, Iran, the fiascos there.
[00:20:18] Thank God our president was being led by the Spirit and did get involved as far as, you know, supporting Israel. And of course, we all know, you know, I'm not going to get into biblical prophecy about that kind of stuff because that's not really my focus on. On these type of episodes. But there's so much turmoil. That's what I'm trying to say. There's so much chaos out There that if you turn the news on, you're going to go into panic mode. I've been finding myself doing that, to be honest with you. We are so drawn to darkness, are we not? We're just so drawn to darkness.
[00:20:57] Don't know why. I guess it's our flesh, but we were not made to live in the dark. That is not how God made us. And if we continually, you know, have this steady diet of darkness and sadness and grief and tragedy, why. Why would we think that we wouldn't have, like, a destroyed mind, like a fragmented, fractured mind? If all I ever do all day long is look at how terrible the world is, is it terrible? Yes. But is there also redemption?
[00:21:33] Is there also light in the midst of the darkness? Is God not also doing things so it's so easy to get caught up in it? And that's where so much of our anxiety is coming from, is because we're choosing to not look at God. We're choosing to not see what is he doing? What does he say? Because the last time I read the Bible, like, he wins everything. He's already won it.
[00:22:00] This thing is going to turn and it's going to look bad sometimes.
[00:22:05] But if we don't get our eyes and our mindset focused on the spirit, walking in step with the spirit, then we'll find ourselves torn up with a mindset of the flesh, which has all kinds of awful, evil things. You guys know this. I mean, you can read Galatians and some of the other letters of Paul where he talks about what it looks like to be controlled by the flesh. It's. It's really ugly. But being controlled by the spirit is beautiful, and it brings so much life in it, not just to you, but the people in your life that get to be around you. Your circle of. Circle of influence that might be just be your children and your spouse. That's beautiful. Be a beautiful witness to your children about what it is like to have peace, the true peace of God and to have true life, to have that. Zoe, life.
[00:22:56] Let them see that so that when they grow up, they don't have anxiety problems. They don't have to go get counseling because their mom was a basket case when they were little. Right? I mean, it's huge. Like, and maybe your platform is bigger. Maybe your circle of influence, it's stretching out further because God has said, hey, you, you. I feel like, you know, you have a bigger calling to. To just a circle that's bigger than just your family.
[00:23:26] Doesn't mean you're better. Doesn't mean you're worse. It just means this is just what God made you for. And, and the thing is you, you want to be a person who, walking in step with the spirit who, when people look at you, they don't, they don't have a reason to discount God. They don't, that's not the right word I'm looking for. They don't have a reason to bring dishonor because you're not dishonoring God with the way you live your life. They're looking at you and they're just like, wow, did you see her? She went through like the most horrific thing I've ever seen in my life. But she never wants wavered in her faith in God. She didn't turn her back on God. She didn't like lose her mind and go, I don't know, go on a drunken binging, awful, you know, time in her life where she just walked away from God and was like, I mean, I know that stuff happens and I'm not condemning people who do that. We all respond differently. But wouldn't it be so nice if we didn't bring dishonor to the ministry or dishonor to God because we wanted to live in our flesh for a while? You know, because you, you can say this again. You can go through anything and still have the peace of God, but it's your choice.
[00:24:42] So how do you get there? It's not going to be by striving.
[00:24:47] It's not going to be by you following some formula.
[00:24:52] It's going to be by you surrendering.
[00:24:55] Surrendering. That's, that's like a four letter word to so many Christians. I mean, we love to arm wrestle God, don't we? We love to just be like, I know best, I know better than you. We don't ever say that. But we live our life in such a way that we are constantly fighting him for, for creative control of our life and where it's going to go. And we think it needs to go a certain way and when it doesn't, then we start living in the flesh. We start behaving in such a way we lose all our peace, we lose our joy.
[00:25:32] And what the heck is love? I mean, are you not even thinking about that? You're just at that point, you're living in the flesh, you're just surviving. You're not having a mindset controlled by the spirit.
[00:25:43] So I hope that this is like resonating with you and it's not bringing condemnation, which is never my goal. But there's so much peace available. There's so much wholeness available to your mind.
[00:26:00] So if you've been living in a place where you have felt like your mind is fractured and fragmented, it's because you. You haven't surrendered all the way.
[00:26:12] So it starts with just like an awareness. I think the Holy Spirit has to bring awareness, and maybe he'll do that through this, this podcast. Maybe he'll do it through. He just speaks to your heart or maybe it's, you know, scriptures or whatever. But often times it's a situation that will, I have found, keep happening over and over, and I will get so mad about it. Like, why does this keep happening to me? You know, for me, it's. It's like the financial disasters that seem to follow me around everywhere I go. And I used to get so mad, I used to just be like, am I cursed? Is there something wrong with me? But what it was, I wasn't learning the lesson God was trying to teach me, which had to do with trust.
[00:27:02] And it hasn't been until the last, I don't know, six months, maybe five months that I've really, I think, started to turn a corner and start to trust him and start to live my life in such a way that I don't look at my bank account to see if I'm gonna have peace or not.
[00:27:21] Like, I don't look at my situation and go, okay, my situation is really bad. So today I'm gonna feel sorry for myself and I'm gonna have anxiety all day, right? So oftentimes what I'm trying to say is God will use a situation to teach you something.
[00:27:38] So the question is, what is he using in your life right now that he wants to try to teach you about peace?
[00:27:47] He wants to bring wholeness to your thinking.
[00:27:51] He wants to move you out of this fractured way of thinking, this pulled apart mind that's never resting, that never trust, that can never just lean back.
[00:28:07] Yeah. There's a song I've been listening to the last couple weeks. It's Amanda Cook and it's called Lean Back. And that's what she's talking about.
[00:28:15] She says, I will lean back in the loving arms of my beautiful father.
[00:28:21] And that's like complete trust to me. Like, that is place where no one can take it away from you. No situation, the enemy, no one in your life, Nothing. And that's the place I think he wants to get us to so that we can enjoy the peace he wants to give us. He didn't just save you and then say okay, good luck with your life. He saved you. And then he said, now, here are all the gifts that go along with being my child. And one of them is peace.
[00:28:51] Oh, I love that. I love it so much. I hope that you do, too. And I just. I just want to pray us out before we go. I do want to tell you, of course, about the individualized coaching that I'm doing now. You can definitely reach out to me on that.
[00:29:14] I will put my contact information here. I'll put the website you can go and make.
[00:29:20] You can schedule time with me if you want to buy package. It's cheaper that way. I mean, if you're just tired of struggling and you're like, man, I just. I'm so tired of this. I want to overcome.
[00:29:32] So what I do is I take you through some of these mindset shifts that we're talking about, but I go into detail with you and I actually walk you through it in such a way that you'll get breakthrough in your life, because that's really what this is about, is you getting breakthrough so that you could do the. That things. Things that you're called to do. We all have a part to play, right? And I'm called to equip you so that you can do the things that God has put in your heart to do. So I'm going to pray and then.
[00:30:00] And then I will let you go for the day. But, Lord, we just thank you. We thank you for the fact that your peace is so amazing and beautiful and it's such a gift to us. And I just want to say thank you for that, Lord. And I just pray for everyone listening right now who does not have peace.
[00:30:18] Father, I pray that, Holy Spirit, you take them by the hand and lead them into a place of peace. Teach them how to stop living with this mindset of the flesh that's full of death and destruction and fractured thinking.
[00:30:32] But teach them by your spirit, Lord.
[00:30:36] Take us all by the hand. Teach all of us, Lord, how to live in step with the Holy Spirit, Spirit, and not be anxious about anything.
[00:30:44] But let that peace of God, when we learn how to live like this, it rules our hearts and it guards our minds. I thank you for that. In Jesus, name and friend, I will. I will see you next week. Until then, God bless you. Have a great week.
[00:31:13] Handle. Hey, here he comes again Riding on the cloud he shifted, he breaks.
