Breaking the Cycle: Protecting Kids From Addiction Through Emotional Resilience & Faith
In this episode, Matt and Lyndon Azcuna continue their discussion on how addiction develops, why it’s so hard to break, and what parents need to understand to protect their children. They break down the addiction cycle in simple terms, exploring the triggers that push kids toward unhealthy coping habits and the emotional pain that often sits beneath those patterns.
You’ll hear practical, non-negotiable strategies that every parent can use to help their children build emotional awareness and resilience, so they can face difficult feelings without turning to harmful escapes. Throughout the conversation, Lyndon highlights the power of humility, authentic connection, and cultivating a deeper relationship with God as essential tools for navigating life’s challenges.
Transcript
Welcome back to the Live well podcast.
I'm Matt Wilson, host, financial advisor and business owner, financial coach, business owner of my practice here at Cornerstone Wealth Services in South Bend, Indiana. And I am so glad that you're here. You know, there are a lot of subjects that we could talk about with respect to finance.
My goal with this podcast is to not just talk about money and what's going on in the financial world. Anybody can do that. We do take everybody's portfolio and their purpose, and we are going to tailor a plan to you.
We are going to put together a plan that aligns with your goals and your values, but one that helps you reach your goals and unlocks your purpose. In all of our meetings, we try to make sure that we're on the same page with our purpose.
So we design a purpose statement, we draft a purpose statement, because money is not the issue, it is a tool. And what we do with it is really the story.
And so we want to make sure that we're not just focusing on the absolute return, the absolute value that it is, but what is, what's really underneath is kind of like my conversation with, with Lyndon in the prior episode here, where we talk about, you know, obviously the. The hard things and how people change. If I.
If you haven't heard that, I encourage you to go back and listen to the how, you know, but it's the same thing in what we do.
You know, we're going to unpack why we were talking about, you know, my kids and gaming and just the epidemic that our culture has now with respect to just the highs that you get, the dopamine highs. There's a great book that Lyndon mentioned to me. It's called Scrolling Ourselves to Death. And I think a lot of people know exactly what that means.
And that might not be a great thing, but long and short of it is we're going to continue our conversation with respect to addiction and crisis. And we unpacked a little bit of the why, but now what we want to do is talk about the addiction cycle.
We're going to talk about some real, practical, non negotiable tools.
And then obviously we're going to zoom in a little bit on addiction and then apply it to parenting and protecting our kids from the cycle or falling into addiction and hopefully give some real practical pieces here. Again, I am no counselor. I'm not a therapist. I am trying to live as well as I can, and I see this as a huge issue.
And I couldn't think of somebody, you know, better off the top of My head than Lyndon Escuna, which is joining me again. He's joining me again here today. And so thank you very much, Lyndon, for joining us again.
You've given us so much of your time, but I do appreciate the fact that you're real and I want you to be real.
Lyndon:Yes.
Matt:You know, I'm trying to figure out from your perspective, you've been through this. You mentioned that you did prison ministry for eight years.
Lyndon:Eight years you were in inner city.
Matt:Inner city ministry.
Lyndon:Yeah. Working with decades broken. Yes, decades.
Matt:You were in the Philippines.
Lyndon:Yes. Poor area of the Philippines. Yeah.
Matt:You've seen at every level.
Lyndon:I have seen some challenging situations. Yes. Even in my own life. Yes.
Matt:Well, that's the, that's the thing. You know, I, we talked about church a little bit and. You know, why you should maybe give it a second chance.
And I, I've heard the phrase and I. Forgive me, you know, if people want to tell me who these quotes are from, then that's great. I'm not saying that I came up with it, but I heard once, faith, if you find the perfect church, don't join because you're going to ruin it.
So if you think it exists and I think giving people grace, absolutely huge. We've been given, again, my faith is very important to me and we've been given tremendous grace. I've been given tremendous grace.
And how can I not give that to my, to my wife, to my family, to other people. But at the same time, there are some non negotiables. So let's begin there. And from your perspective, I want to ask you two questions.
The first is what are your non negotiable tools, principles that you counsel people with? And then I want to follow up with that.
Lyndon:Okay. Very simple. And this is really important.
When my wife and I, and when I work with anyone, just as an analogy, my wife and I do counseling at our church and it's called One Hope Biblical counseling. The point is we will communicate biblical truth to you. And the reason for that is I know, my wife knows.
And scripture points that our real problem is our broken relationship with God ultimately. And that leads to other brokenness, horizontal brokenness. It messes up all our relationships in life.
And so we want to address that and we want to communicate that to whoever we're counseling.
Outro:It has to be biblical and things that we use practically. And naturally we listen to people. We listen, we let them talk about where they're at.
So meeting people where they're at, not saying, jumping here all of a sudden, but Meeting people where they're at, Biblical worldview. Meeting people where they're at, addressing their felt need because they, hey, I need something to eat, so feed them first kind of, kind of idea.
Lyndon:Well, the point is meet them where.
Outro:They'Re at, listen to them, present a biblical worldview.
Matt:Yeah. And you've been all over, like you said, and you know, you've seen people try to get satisfied in other ways and I guess speak to that a little bit.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Outro:We are all. Addicts to something or another. All of us are addict to something or another, whether we are conscious about it or not. I'm reading a book right now.
Lyndon:It's called the Last Addiction. My pastor recommended it to me and he says the last addiction is in this book. Says the last addiction is I can fix myself.
Isn't that true about all of us? We think we can fix ourselves, but.
Outro:The point is we all are addicted to something.
Lyndon:Like I said in the previous, we.
Outro:Our desires, we have a sense of brokenness. We have anxiety, something, and we want it to be satisfied and we go to the wrong things to satisfy it.
Matt:Yeah, you mentioned that earlier. You know, you see pictures of my kids behind me and.
Lyndon:Yeah, I was saying earlier, Matt, that I wish I have. My youngest kid now is 15, and I wish. And I have six kids. I wish I had a chance to.
Outro:Teach them at an early on how to respond to anxiety or challenges in their life instead of, I should have shown them more how to go to God at an early age. Instead, we go to other things to help us.
And that's where we think that other addictions or other form of addictions or video gaming or when we're bored, we.
Lyndon:We do something else.
Outro:In other words, we, we replace our cravings or our anxiety with the wrong things. And I wish I taught my kids.
Lyndon:Better when they, they were younger.
Matt:You know, I read a study and I'll. If I can find this, I'll try to put it in the show notes.
But there was a study that said that reading a book which is so boring to so many kids now is because of the dopamine that they get from gaming and video games and all the, like, reading, reading a book is so low.
Lyndon:Yeah, it.
Matt:And it gets lower the more that they do that. And I don't remember the exact stats, but it was like a one on the scale of one to ten.
Lyndon:Yes.
Matt:Compared to like the gaming, which you have to kind of ratchet up over time. Right. With addiction, you just, you like alcohol and so you end up getting this negative Correlation with, like, regular life.
Lyndon:Right.
Matt:You get disconnect. Anyway, again, I'm not rewire.
Lyndon:Yeah. It rewires your brain. And that book that you recommended just now, scrolling ourselves up.
Matt:Yes.
Lyndon:It communicates that very clearly.
Matt:Okay.
Lyndon:I think every parent should read that. Well, especially for our culture today.
Matt:Yeah. I'll put that in the notes as well. And if I can find the study that talked about that, then I will put that in there as well. But no, this is great.
I want to come back to what you said. We find other things instead of really going to the source or our connection with our creator, with God.
And I'm reminded again what Scotty Scheffler said. And if people don't know Scotty Scheffler at the British Open, who I think is, I mean. Otherworldly when it comes to talent, but he gets it.
And he was having an interview and they. And he very clearly said, look, I don't. I don't, you know, I don't know why I want to do this so bad. And it. It's not going to change me or my family.
And you got to go watch the interview. But basically, what I gathered from it, because he was like, look, this isn't. This isn't what I'm chasing. I'd rather be a husband and a father.
And that's most important to me.
And people, Some people didn't really understand it, but what I took away from it was not only was he, like, preparing himself for all the bad bounces he was going to get at the British Open, but he was also saying, I don't worship this. Yeah. And we're all made to worship something. Something were made to worship. And it depends on what you have that in front of you that you choose.
Lyndon:Yes.
Matt:To Is. Is that.
Lyndon:That is exactly right.
Matt:Okay.
Lyndon:That's the point.
Matt:And you mentioned in an earlier episode that the red carpet to change and the red carpet to worship is humility.
Lyndon:Humility.
Matt:And I can't. I mean, Scotty to me seems. I don't know him, but he seems it's coming. Like it's coming from a place of humility.
Lyndon:Yes.
Matt:And. And I look at that and I go, well, no wonder he's successful. He gets it and he's talented. Yes.
But, you know, and I think if we can apply that and put things in perspective and have the humility, that if I can have it, then things go well. It just doesn't go well when I don't. And anyway, I'm just trying to help people live well.
And And I'm trying to get Lyndon's perspective from what he's seen and, and this is what he's sharing. My follow up question to you is, do you have to sometimes recommend a licensed therapist counselor? You work with them. How do you.
Lyndon:Yes, absolutely. There are things that are deeper broken in people's history, trauma history. Of course there are things that.
My wife and I are not licensed therapists. Yeah. But we have people that we recommend or organization that we recommend.
Outro:Deeper issues, deeper hurts.
Matt:Yeah. The core four know when to ask for help.
Lyndon:Exactly.
Matt:Right.
Lyndon:So absolutely.
Matt:Yeah. And I think that some, sometimes therapy.
Lyndon:There's nothing wrong with therapy. Right.
Matt:You can manipulate that. If somebody doesn't really want to change, I think they can manipulate a therapist.
I think, you know, you got to find somebody who has tools and, and whatnot. So let's zoom in on addiction. What does that cycle look like?
Lyndon:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very simple. There's a trigger that happens. Okay. Trigger. And then we either go to the we, we, we sue that trigger or something happens in our life.
There's a trigger that happens.
Outro:I need this, I need a, I.
Lyndon:Need to feel good about myself.
Outro:Whether you go to alcohol, whether you go to pornography, whatever, you use a stimulus to support that outside of God.
Lyndon:And some of those things that you use will cause you to even deeper cycle of addiction.
Matt:Yeah. Like you become your own worst enemy.
You become your mad, you get upset about something and from what I'm gathering, you get upset and then you get upset about being upset.
Lyndon:Yes.
Matt:And then you go deeper and then you get mad that you can't break it. And then it just gets worse and worse.
Lyndon:In pornography, the trigger, they go to.
Outro:Pornography, they feel guilty about it, repent.
Lyndon:Then the dopamine is still there. And instead of going to something else, they go back into the cycle and you're in an infinite cycle and it.
Outro:Gets worse and worse. Same thing with alcohol, same thing with drugs. Now there are other ways when you have a trigger. You can take a walk, you can meditate and relax.
And so there are ways to do practical things instead of going to the addictions. But you just go to a lot of the stores today and look at alcohol consumption in our world.
Lyndon:It is.
Outro:It'S.
Matt:I'm sorry, I'm. I have two questions, but.
Outro:Yeah.
Matt:Or one big question on that. But I'm just thinking because.
I think there's great fear, especially in marriage, that one's going to appear to be weaker or they're going to show weakness. And if a spouse is using that against the spouse, then that can create an even deeper infinite cycle. And if you're doing that, you need to stop.
Outro:Yes.
Matt:And then also. There'S fear of. I don't have anybody. And I'm sorry, I choke up, because when I get anxious, I run to my wife, I pray, I pray for her, I reach out.
But I. I have a spouse that I can. I can talk to and just be with. And I. For years, I probably didn't know that that existed.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Matt:And if you can be that for each other, I mean, again, I'm not no therapist, but I'm just telling you that if you get to that place, you are in a rare spot.
Lyndon:Yes.
Matt:And you're in a spot where I think that can be used in so many ways and protect that. As much as you can. We're going to keep it a family show. But let me ask you this question before we move to the family dynamics and things like that.
When somebody has overcome, whether it's alcohol, pornography or whatever, gambling, what is it that. What was the catalyst? What was the thing that they had to grasp? And I think we've touched on it.
But let's just try to boil it down to this one statement because people need to hear this.
Lyndon:Yeah. There's a couple of statements here.
Outro:People.
Lyndon:That I've seen bring about the change. Okay. They realize this is probably not in any order.
Outro:One is they realize how it's affecting them or their loved ones. They're realizing the impact of their behavior. That's called self awareness.
You're realizing it's affecting you or you're realizing it's affecting someone else that you really love?
Matt:Well, they have to be effects that it's causing on other people. So would you say then that it's like, hey, once they realize what's happening to them, is that the point that.
Outro:Is a big percentage of white people change. They realize also some point maybe to this, they realize the lie that they bought into.
Matt:I. Bingo.
Lyndon:So one of the things that I do when helping men with their issue.
Outro:Let's look at what this really does to you. Do you know that pornography destroys you, destroys your marriage, your children, your view of society and your relationship with God?
Do you really understand that? So I'd make a clear picture of that. Not that knowledge is the only thing that changes, but God uses that knowledge. Oh, this is really affecting me.
And it comes deeper to their heart. Now we go into why. What are the things in their lifestyle that brings about those triggers? Now, what's really the root issue of that okay.
So understanding the effects in others, understanding the lie, and there is. You can change. There is a better life. Why are you going living? I love C.S.
Lyndon:Lewis. We said, I love this beach picture here.
Outro:We settle for bug pies instead of. We have the opportunity to live in the beach.
Matt:And I think that with. With a spouse. When they look up and they see their spouse in front of them. And they really see who they are, what they are.
That'S got to be a moment where they say, you know, what? What have I done?
Lyndon:Yes.
Matt:And you see that.
Outro:Yes.
Matt:You see that happen?
Outro:Yes.
Lyndon:I also have seen some that even.
Outro:In spite of that, because of their.
Lyndon:Deep brokenness, it's not enough. God has to do deeper transformation process. I will say that generally they would change because of that. Many do change of that. Yeah.
Outro:Some are deeper hurts that.
Matt:Well, maybe they're not allow. They're not able to because of their trauma, because of their isolation, because. And that's where I would say, get help.
Outro:Yeah.
Matt:Find somebody who can help you unpack that. But, but it's. It goes back to the awareness.
You, you know, it's like with what I was saying earlier about budgeting, you know, 70% of people don't even know what they're spending.
Lyndon:Yeah. Right.
Matt:And it's like the knowledge. They just hope it works out.
It's just like, okay, let's be aware of the issues or that you do have issues, and then you can, you can kind of work on them. So I'm going to ask you this question because some people are out there and they're dealing with somebody, or maybe they know they.
They're dealing with it themselves. The road can be hard and long can be very long. So, number one. There'S two questions here, and you can decide which one you want to ask.
How long does it usually take? I mean, obviously there's a lot of variables, but how long is long? And then. And I think I know what you're going to say.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Matt:You know, how long is long? How long does it usually take? And how do you help people stay the course when it's so hard?
Lyndon:Yes. How long is long? You're right, Matt. It varies with every individual, every case.
And maybe I even premise that this is why in our One Hope biblical counseling, we pray Lord, change them, because we can't. We can show them, we can manifest. We can show them and hopefully they'll change. But it's up to you, really, to bring about change.
Okay, so back to your question. It's a long time, but here is the key. If you look at biblically and you.
Outro:Look at human nature, science or the Bible, there needs to be a person that will walk alongside of them in their journey. That's why the church is supposed to do that. The church is the place where compassion is supposed to be shown, not government.
Lyndon:I don't believe in government, does not.
Outro:Know how to show compassion. The church is the compassion arm of God. And this is where church people supposed to come alongside hurting people. It's all about relationship.
Matt:Not just beating him with truth.
Lyndon:Yes.
Outro:Maybe I'll read this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Maybe because the importance of a person.
Lyndon:Talk to your clients, people for a second while I find this.
Matt:No, that's fine. And I think that just understanding that it is a process and who maybe needs to be that person. And can your spouse be that person.
Lyndon:To walk alongside you?
Outro:Yeah, absolutely.
Lyndon:Yes.
Outro:Sometimes depending on what they should not. Not pornography.
Matt:Yeah.
Outro:Because that affects the wife a little bit more.
Lyndon:You don't, you don't tell your wife, oh, this is where I'm struggling. But other things in your life.
Outro:Yes, absolutely. That's what our spouse is supposed to be. But relationship, relationship, relationship is key to helping people walk out of their brokenness.
Matt:Yeah.
Outro:There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Matt:Yeah. Having a friend, having somebody who will not judge you.
Outro:Right.
Matt:Somebody who will be there when you need to call them at all hours of the night.
Lyndon:That is correct.
Matt:If you don't have that person. You know, here's one thing I found too.
Lyndon:I found it too.
Matt:One thing I would say though is there's a lot of people who are incapable of having empathy. They, they just don't have that ability. And I, I would love to figure out a good test to figure out who those people are.
But I can tell you this, that most people who don't have that compass that you do and with the gospel and whatnot, oftentimes they just, they just don't have that empathy, that empathetic. Stick by you. Yeah, I, I read yesterday there was a study, I read that.
I keep saying this is what I read, but I'm just going to share it with you that if you have somebody who will correct you right away, who will just get it off, get it off their chest, they won't be afraid to tell you when you're being stupid and then they'll correct you and they just clear it up immediately. That's the kind of person that you can probably trust.
But if they're just going to kind of go along with you and they're not going to say right then, then that's probably not the person anyway. There's just some things that I came up with, but go ahead.
Lyndon:This is one of my favorite quotes with regards to convincing others to help others. Okay, this is fine. Dietuk Bonhoeffer Listen to this.
Outro:It is impossible that a person may by God's grace break through to certainty, new life, the cross and fellowship without the benefits of confessing to a brother or sister. It is possible that a person may never know what it is to doubt his own forgiveness in Christ. Most of us cannot make that assertion.
When the confession of a sin, when opening up the heart is made in the presence of a Christian brother or sister, that last stronghold of self justification is abandoned. The sinner surrenders, he gives his heart to God and finds the forgiveness of all his sins in the fellowship of Jesus, Jesus and his brother.
The point is this, if we want to find true healing and forgiveness in Christ, in God, it is manifested to a brother face to face. This is what brings about change in people's lives. So that's why we need people to come alongside with us, to journey with us.
Matt:Right.
Outro:Because look at all the poverty issue in our culture. It's isolation.
Matt:Yeah. And you know, it's like with what I do for a living and I want to get back to the kids part, I think that's extremely important.
I want to talk about that.
But it's like with what I do for a living, even some of the organizations and fund companies who tout that you can do it yourself, that you can do it on your own, they Vanguard has one study and Fidelity just has another piece.
They're both companies that most people know and they did a study and they said, look, you make more money with an advisor than if you do it on yourself. The average investor actually doesn't do very well. So it's just part of human behavior that we're not designed to operate, operate in a vacuum.
Outro:Right.
Matt:We're not designed to operate in isolation.
Outro:Right.
Matt:And so it's the behavior, it's the, the thoughts that come up. It's a different perspective. It's, it's being able to help, you know, steer the course when things get really difficult.
And it's kind of like, you know, flying with instruments. You gotta trust them, but you gotta know how to read them. And you know, if you don't, then don't fly when you can't see.
But even though, even if people can see, they still get disoriented. So anyway, I just, I just would come back to that and you know, and I can put a reference to that study in the show notes.
But I would say that if you are trying to do it on your own.
I had somebody just last week who came up and said look, I tired of this, I tired of trying to figure it all out and I need somebody to help me organize it and put it together and, and help form a plan. And he was all over the place and, and I said look, I'm happy to help. So with my 3D process, we discover what we can. We design a plan for you.
I get feedback on that. What do you like, what do you not like? And then we deploy the pieces to. Help you achieve your goals.
And, and I think that's what you're really talking about. You know, I would just put that in there is, look, that's why I do what I do and that's what you, why you do what you do.
And sometimes what you're talking about kind of bleeds over into, into my world because it uncovers some things that boy people necessarily don't want to look at. Yeah. So let's go back to, let's talk about the kids.
Outro:Yeah.
Matt:How can parents. This is a million dollar question.
Lyndon:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt:How can parents protect their children from falling into addiction?
Lyndon:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness. General addiction. I would say help your kids deal with their emotions. Yeah, that's just if we're just talking about general right now.
And I can go to pornography too. Help them deal with their emotions. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that emotion is king. Well, biblical truth is king supposedly.
But help your kid deal with emotions. So if they're feeling anxious, as a good parent, help them identify what it is. Especially boys.
I just talked to my son in law yesterday and he's a therapist and we talked about just mentioning men in general do not in our culture know our emotions or deal with our emotions. Anger, all that we have. We're not, we're not emotionally in touch.
Outro:Generally as a man and as a.
Lyndon:Culture, it's not. Encouraged. It's not common.
Outro:Women at an early age have relationships.
Lyndon:Men, boys tend to not. So as a culture and as a.
Outro:Society, as a, as a general characteristic.
Lyndon:Of men, we don't know our emotions, we don't handle our emotions or we are not self aware of our emotions. So generally I would say as a parent, help you help your kids understand their emotions and how to deal with them.
Matt:Would you recommend, would you recommend like, like just some sort of a log like what? Some sort of a log or diary to say, hey, what, what was going on when I felt that way? Just awareness. Awareness.
Lyndon:Awareness that sometimes there's this emotion circle that you can buy. Where are you at today? Yeah, you can so help boys especially. I would have done this sooner if I would, if I knew this because.
Outro:And then after that, help them deal with things properly.
Lyndon:Anger. We can't let our boys run amok with their anger. Yeah, okay, we, we can't then. If we don't teach them, they'll grow up that way.
Matt:Yeah.
Lyndon:And they think they can just express their anger anyway.
Outro:No, teach them how to deal with their emotions.
Matt:But to your point earlier, it's like, okay, we can teach people to behave well. We can say you better behave or, or there's going to be strict consequences. But it really goes back to what's the root?
Lyndon:Yeah, what's the what?
Matt:What are they really after?
Outro:Yes.
Matt:Right.
Outro:Yes.
Lyndon:What are, where are those emotions coming.
Outro:From and why do they happen? Know your kid that way? Know their bets? Yeah, we don't want a kid. You know, we had a kid.
Lyndon:We raised six kids in our home. One of them struggled with. Depression, but we didn't know it. And she had to go through some therapy and all that, but we didn't know it. And that's.
We weren't self aware of those deeper things. So this is one way as parents to help your kids just know their emotion. Help them to deal with their emotion.
There's a lot of tools out there, but being self aware of why they're.
Outro:Behaving or acting the way they act.
Lyndon:Or the emotions behind it is rich for the kid.
Matt:I have something I do with my daughter and she's preteen, so pray for us.
Lyndon:Yes, yes.
Matt:But I have developed this little code language and so she will asked me, daddy, can we, can we go get a coffee?
Lyndon:That's great.
Matt:And we'll go get a coffee and I'll just listen. And I've told her this is a place where you can tell me anything. Yes, you can say anything and I will not judge you. You are not in trouble.
Yes, you can tell me anything you want or need. And you know, she's only done it a couple of times, a few times, but I've told her that it's always open.
And sometimes I'll just say, hey, do you need a, do you need a Starbucks? Do you need a, do you need a coffee? And you know, we'll just go. And sometimes she just needs to sit with me and be Present. And I just need to listen.
Lyndon:So this is perfect. This is not because I'm a better person, but I knew the importance of this. I have a ritual with my boys.
I did this with my girls, too, but my boys, who are only 15 and 18, so I meet with them. So this is an investment. We go out the first week, one, one son. The second week, another son. The third week, another back. There's only two of them.
So two times a month, I go out to eat or get a drink, and all we do is talk about what's happening in your life. And.
Outro:And I will tell you 90% of the time.
Lyndon:And this is every week.
Matt:Wow.
Lyndon:90% of time, we don't talk about anything important, but I'm creating a system.
Outro:Of keeping that relationship intact and that there's. I'm there in their life. So when the time. The junk does come, there's already a time and a place for it.
Lyndon:So I recommend that to your parents who have young kids.
Matt:Yeah.
Outro:What's one hour or 30 minutes?
Lyndon:One week for every child that you have?
Matt:I talked to a counselor one time who I just would stop by. I was in his office, we were talking, and very accomplished gentleman, and he made a point to me. He said. When you're younger, it's like a box.
So if you draw a rectangle and. The bottom, I guess it would be the bottom left is your influence, and the top left is your control.
So as your kids are younger, you have absolute control. And as they get older, the control goes down. But theoretically, what should happen is you should have influence in their lives. And I always tell.
Tell Ashley, I tell my wife, like, I want to have influence in their life. I want to be part of their lives. I want to have that. And that's exactly what you're creating is influence.
And, you know, without that bonding and without that time and making them feel seen and heard, I don't know that it can be created. So I'm trying to get there. I'm not. I'm not the guy. I'm not saying I'm better. I just.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Matt:I just found this little thing with my. My daughter and, you know, my boys. It might be a milkshake.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Matt:But, you know, at the same time, it's like, that's. That's all I want.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Matt:Is okay. I know control is going down. I. I can't control them like I used to. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't when they're younger.
Lyndon:Right.
Matt:You should put safeguards in. You should do things Try to protect them. But anyway, I just. That's really, really helpful. So, you know, we've talked through quite a bit today.
We've talked through, you know, helping, helping people stay the course when it gets really hard. And you had mentioned that healing isn't just about feeling better.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Matt:It's often painful.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Matt:Why is that?
Lyndon:You sometimes have to go backwards before you go forward. Absolutely.
Matt:Expose the, Expose the skin.
Lyndon:The skin first. Yes. And there's effort on it because. There was one guy that he was addicted to pornography over 20 years.
And I said to him early on, we're not going to solve this overnight.
Matt:Yeah.
Lyndon:Or not.
Outro:We're not.
Lyndon:It took you 20 years to get here. And it took. Takes us 20, 40 years to address certain issues that we'd never address.
But if we're courageous and we have all the resource of heaven at our disposal because God wants to make us more holy.
Matt:Yeah. And I think that once you kind of uncover not just the issue, but then the underlying things, then you start to see, oh, man, I need to work.
Work on all this other stuff.
Lyndon:Yeah.
Matt:And then it's like your eyes get opened. Right?
Outro:Right.
Matt:Yeah. Well, it is painful. And. But I can tell you this, that, you know, this conversation has not been painful at all. It's been amazing.
And I hope that, that people out there will include some helpful links and resources in the show notes.
Lyndon:Can I maybe share a closing illustration for your listeners?
Matt:Yeah.
Lyndon:It's like a house. Okay. We buy a house. And Jesus.
Outro:This house is like our life.
Lyndon:And when we allow Jesus to come.
Outro:In, he comes into our house, but.
Lyndon:We let him only stay in the front door. He's only inside the building. And then slowly, as we begin to trust him, we start to open up different areas of our house. And as we.
Outro:And then those houses start to be open. And we have received wholeness and peace in those rooms in our house.
Lyndon:And we showed the living room, but there's still some of those dark closets that we don't want to bring him into our lives. But then he wakes us up and allows us to reveals. Hey, I want to go in there too. And as we open up and then I realized that my life, that sometimes.
Outro:There'S a part of the house that is built that I didn't even know.
Lyndon:The builder built there, that it was. It wasn't.
Outro:I didn't even know about it.
Lyndon:It's an area of brokenness that I didn't know.
Matt:Yep.
Outro:And then as we grow in Christ and in God, he opens up and Heals us. So he wants to be in all the rooms in our lives.
Lyndon:And I just want to encourage your listeners.
Matt:Well, I appreciate that and I was going to ask you, you know, and I appreciate all the wisdom today. I am trying to figure this out. I've got young kids myself, some teenagers.
But, you know, is that the final encouragement that you'd offer to someone who feels hopeless right now, or is there anything else you would share?
Lyndon:I use three words to help me walk with God and to find hope. Number one, turn, turn, let's repent and come to God. It's that episode where I'm at the end myself. Lord, I need help. Turn to God. Repent, turn to God.
2. Second is trust. Trust God in all things.
Outro:He will work.
Lyndon:And when we say, lord, I need.
Outro:Help and God will show up.
Matt:Yeah, be careful what you pray for.
Lyndon:Be careful with your. So turn, trust. And last but not least, treasure. Treasure Christ. Treasure God above all things. And all these things according to the Bible.
And all these things will be added unto you. So turn, trust, treasure.
Matt:Well, I can't think of a better way to end it today. And.
Like I said, we're going to include some helpful links and resources in the show notes, including ways to connect with you, Lyndon, and access support. You know, as always, this, this podcast is about living well, even in the hard places. And you are not alone.
If you feel confused, frustrated, or you're at the end of yourself. You know, please seek help. If you're in crisis, don't be afraid to reach out for help.
I would encourage you to do so before it gets to the place where you can't.
And, you know, I'd also say that as we talk through this and, you know, Lyndon shared his perspective and his worldview and what he believes is the answer.
And if you have questions about that, you're like, you know, I don't really know what that's all about and you want to talk further, then, you know, contact lindenifeplan.org the email address, I think, is infoifeplan.org you can reach out to myself and I can connect you with resources, but I would just share with you that. I believe he's coming from a place of humility and openness, and I believe he's right. So with that, we'll conclude.
And I would tell you that, again, this is about living well, even in hard places. Again, you are not alone. Take care. Till next time, live well.
