Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of the afternoon, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. And we know that in a world where we are obsessed with doom scrolling and looking at all the bad news coming to us on our phone, we also live in a world that is obsessed with self help. Now you may have caught yourself wondering how you measure up in a world full of comparison. When we're on that social media thinking oh they're taking this vacation or they have this kind of relationship with their family or oh, they seem so happy, you just think, am I good enough? Am I successful enough? Or maybe even something that seems well intentioned, am I spending spiritual enough? You see someone else posting their spiritual journey and you think am I that enough? But the truth is, according to Dr. Sharon Hodde Miller, my guest today, she said something that made me really think. She said we're never more fragile than when we make ourselves the center of our own story. So what if the solution is not just to try harder or just shift your focus or help yourself? Because let me tell you something, I know myself really well and I don't need any more help from myself self. You instead may embark on a journey of self forgetfulness. Now I know that sounds really countercultural because we're always talking about mindfulness. But we're going to talk about a little different paradigm today of self forgetfulness that leads to freedom in Christ. So today, as I said, we're joined by Dr. Sharon Hodde Miller. She is a best selling author, co founder of Bright City Church and she's going to talk about her new 40 day devotional gazing at God. She's here to help, guide us through a grace filled process of moving from just being preoccupied with ourselves to the joy of focusing on God and others. Sharon, welcome. We're so glad to have you here.

 Sharon Hodde Miller: Jessica, it's so good to be with you.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, as I said, that quote really got my attention. We are never more fragile than when we make ourselves the center of our story. And as I also said, that is countercultural because we see so many things about just making yourself happy. Write your own story, follow your heart, pursue your own truth. You do you all of these things and really the self help industry is booming. And so what do you mean by that? Let's start with that, Quote, we are never more fragile than when we make ourselves the center of our story.

 Sharon Hodde Miller: Well, if it's okay with you, I would actually love to share a little of my own story. How I came came to that realization because it emerged out of a period of my life, out of a period of ministry where I was really wrestling with insecurity. And that was sort of new for me. I've wrestled throughout my life with a lot of different things, but comparison, strangely, had not been one of them until probably about 15 years ago where I found, you know, I was writing and I was speaking speaking. And it's so humbling to say that I was struggling with this in ministry, but I was writing and I was speaking and I found myself comparing myself to my peers and wondering if I compared well or looking to women who were a little bit ahead of me and needing their affirmation and needing their acknowledgement. And if I didn't compare well or if I didn't get acknowledgement, I became just as that that quote says, very fragile. And I was really shattered by it. And it was ne. It was no longer enough to just be serving Jesus in ministry. And so I was really perplexed by this. Like, where's this coming? Like, why am I comparing myself? I mean, after all, ministry is fundamentally about God. It's about Jesus. And so where is this coming from? And so I started reading, you know, a lot of self help books, like a lot of Christian ones that were about insecurity and studying what is, what does scripture say about me and reading blogs, listening to podcast podcasts, you know, doing research, because that's kind of my, my personality is like, I'm a researcher. I'm gonna figure this out. And after doing this for months and months and months, I realized that even though I believed all of these messages, like I believed everything that scripture said about me, I wasn't necessarily struggling with loving myself or believing in how God created me or his purpose for my life. And discovering that none of that messaging had helped at all. It had not touched what was really going on inside of my heart. And so that's when I realized there was something else going on and I needed to back up and re approach this issue. And a number of things are really helpful for me in this process. One was reading a book by Tim Keller called the Freedom of Self Forgetfulness. But another was just asking the question, when people in the Bible went to God with their insecurities, how did he actually respond to them? Because he doesn't respond the way our self help Culture responds. He doesn't say, moses, I know you're nervous about going to Pharaoh, but don't worry, you're awesome. Like, he doesn't say that. He doesn't say, Jeremiah, don't worry. If people think you're young, you have all this potential. Instead of affirming their abilities, God affirms his own. Like, over and over and over again, we see that God changes the conversation, changes the subject of the conversation. To quote Jen, Wilkin, who's written about this as well. And so that was when the light bulb came on for me, that when we talk about insecurity, there's actually two causes of insecurity, but our culture is really only equipped to talk about one. And that is low self esteem. And I would describe that. That is a real phenomenon. That you see yourself in a way that is untrue. That is not how God sees you. That is out of sync with what the Bible says about you. And we absolutely need to speak truth to those lies. But there's a second cause of insecurity that our culture is not equipped to address at all. Like, almost doesn't have a language for cause. I don't think it even sees it. And that is self preoccupation. That is when you have made yourself the center of the story. And so everything hinges on you. That that is why Moses was so insecure, it's why Gideon was so insecure, it's why Jeremiah. We can look at all these different people in the Bible. The actual reason for their insecurity is they thought they were the hero of the story. And so how that story played out was a referendum on their ability, on their strength, on their worth. And so there is a freedom in remembering that there are certain things that we are making about us that are not about us. And that is creating all this added pressure, all this added stress to prove ourselves. And so the freedom of self forgetfulness is not neglecting the self, rejecting the self, denying the self, you know, in unhealthy ways, but it is simply recentering the story back to its rightful center.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Wow, Sharon, that's. That's incredible. And one of the things that I love about sitting across the microphone from people who have written a book, I have yet to encounter an author who sat there and said, oh, yes, God revealed all of this to me, and I have just journeyed through it perfectly. It always comes from a place of struggle, a place of personal struggle and pain. And I love that God redeems, restores, renews, and he uses that to help Other people. And you're so right when you talk about that. You know, from my perspective, looking at how the world is shaping the next generations to even more be preoccupied with theirselves. As you say, we are doing that Even I think 10 years ago is when the word selfie first became a real word. It was one of the words of the year that was selected by a dictionary group. And I remember telling my husband saying the word selfie and he looked at me and he said, what did you just say? And I was trying to explain to him what a selfie was. And he said no, you're making that up. You've got to be kidding me. And now every person who has an iPhone has a selfie folder in their in their phone. And I think about even platforms like Snapchat which is estimated about 3/4 of photos that are uploaded to there are selfies. And we think about even video chatting where we're always looking at ourselves and the world is customized to us. We're, we're told, you can be strong enough, you can be brave enough. And I think about, I saw in a Bible study, I'm doing a Bible study about the life of David and looking at David facing Goliath, he didn't defeat him because he thought, oh, I'm bigger than Goliath, I'm stronger than Goliath. He knew he served a God who was bigger than Goliath and that's where his faith was, not in himself and God to to, to rescue him in that way. So that was really exciting in that way. But tell us about when you start to realize that self focus, because it is presented to us as a good thing, that self focus was actually a problem in a solution.

 Sharon Hodde Miller: Yeah. You know one of the things I. So this devotional that I just released was actually a follow up to a book that I released in 2017 called Free of Me. And one of the, the reason I wrote the devotional is there's more I had to say and I really wanted to walk alongside people in this journey of self forgetfulness. But one of the things that I learned when I was researching that initial book Free of Me was about these self esteem movement and why it ultimately failed. And it's one of those things that we sort of blame, you know, younger generations for the self esteem movement. It was really interesting to learn that the concept of it originated with boomers and so it's been around actually for quite a while but it did not yield the results that it promised. It could deliver.

 Sharon Hodde Miller: You know, it promised to yield, like if we just raise up a generation of kids who are constantly told how special they are. And in the church there's sort of a God spin on that, that God thinks you are special. That if we, if we teach kids this message, if we, you know, raise them up in that, that it will yield kids who. Adults who are confident in themselves. And it has not. And in fact, in many ways it's produced the opposite. Studies have shown that young people are, you know, more anxious than ever, more insecure than ever. And one of the things that was really fascinating and for anyone who is a little bit nerdy like me and wants to do more research, there's an author named Jean Twenge. She's a social psychologist and she's written a lot about this. But she talks about how young people are not more confident, they're just more self absorbed. Now, there's not a lot of explanation from a secular perspective about why that happened. But I, do think as believers, as people of faith, we can offer an answer to why the self esteem movement ultimately failed. Because there is a lot about it that is actually right. As I said, low self esteem is an actual problem. It's an actual result of living in a broken world where people see speak lies over us. If we grew up in dysfunctional homes, you know, the gospel addresses that. I think the problem with the self esteem movement, why it ultimately failed, is that its aim is too low. Its goal ultimately is the self, like that, that is, its highest goal is this healthy self. And that's a good goal. But we were actually created for much more than that. We, that is too far small a thing for the human soul. We were created to worship. We were created to raise our gaze. As the title of my devotional gazing at God sort of nods to. And so I think when you, when your goal, kind of your, your sole focus in life is just self actualization, that becomes its own type of sickness. It becomes its own type of unhealth. Because we weren't created just for ourselves. We were created for God. And so for me, that was one of the things that helped me to identify why this had ultimately failed me. Is my ministry is not about me, obviously, but if I'm just absorbing all these messages that are fundamentally about me, instead of saying, no, Sharon, you have made your ministry about you. And that is why you are so insecure, that is why you are so fragile, is you've taken this ministry that is meant to be about the infinite omnipotent God of the universe. And you've made it very, very small. And so that was one of those kind of lightning bolt, light bulb moments for me.

Dr. Jessica Peck: That is so brave of you to say that. I think there's not a lot of people who would say I made it about me and it wasn't about me, it was about God. But that is so freeing for the rest of us. And I have so many more questions to ask you, Sharon, because that's been part of my critique in the anxious generation. Is it kind of in the book by Jonathan Haidt? Because it finds a common enemy which just blames kind of everything on the smartphone and saying, hey, our goal is to restore childhood and make it, you know, make play again a part of childhood. But there's so much more going on. And especially, as you say, when we look at that through a certain spiritual lens, there's so much more to unpack. We will have more about the book Gazing at God with Sharon Hoddie Miller when we come back. Don't go away.

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Give Me Jesus by Jeremy Camp: In the morning when I rise. In the morning when I rise. In the morning when I rise. Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. You can have all this world. Just give me Jesus.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is Give Me Jesus by Jeremy Camp. And that may sound like such a simple truth, but simple truth is so, powerful. And when we're living in a world, in a culture that constantly tells us to look inward, to fix ourselves, to work on ourselves, to improve ourselves, to help ourselves and be true to ourselves, everything about ourselves. It leaves many of us feeling exhausted, feeling anxious, feeling weighed down by expectations that we can't possibly meet. And I am here to tell you that there, there is a better way, friend. There is a better way. The next few moments we're going to continue to walk through. How do we break free from that bondage of self focus and embrace the life we were created for? And Sharon, before the break, you were talking a little bit about that generational perspective. I agree, there's not a lot written about it, not a lot of research. But here's where I've looked at it in looking at the greatest generations, starting with that they were very brave, very bold, but experienced unimaginable trauma through World War II. And they were taught, you just be stoic about it, you just don't talk about it. And they raised the silent generation who were raised to be seen and not heard. In my estimation, that was to avoid triggering the trauma of their parents. Then they raised the baby boomers who you referenced, and they thought, no, we're tired of, we want to be loved. And so that started this journey. And of course, I'm speaking in very broad general strokes, but every generation has its characteristics. And then baby boomers raised Gen X, the latchkey kid generation who thought, you know, maybe we should be more invested, invested in our kids. And they raised millennials who did love their parents, but are mocked for the dependence on their parents sometimes. And then now we have the rise of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. And I'm going to say something pretty hard here, Sharon, but what I see in this generation of parents, and, and I struggle with it too, is a, leaning towards idolatry, where we just say that, just like you said, you're so special, you're so wonderful. And we put our kids way high up on this glass pedestal and our kids feel the pressure of our identity and what they do with their selves, whether that's academically, athletically, or just their personality, how their social skills are. It's so, so difficult. And we are living in the age where we see social media, we see personal branding, we see this even through nil changes and kids making money from athletics earlier and earlier. And again, all of this endless self improvement content that you talk about, how do you see all of those factors that we've talked about? Looking backwards, histor. But right now, in the present, this culture of self focus, how is that impacting mental health and relationships, because I think it has a really big, impact.

 Sharon Hodde Miller: Yeah. Well, what I said earlier, I do think that, part of the mistake. And it's really interesting that you offer this critique of the anxious generation as well, because I really love that book and I recommend it to everyone. But I do think it's really important and healthy for Christians to not have this embattled posture towards the culture where everything is just bad, bad, bad, wrong, wrong, wrong. I think we need to acknowledge all truth is God's truth. And so if there is anything that our culture is teaching that is true, we can affirm that. But then we can ask, how is this directed? Like, is this directed towards God's vision for human flourishing? And where I believe the self esteem movement went wrong is have ultimately pointing it back to ourselves. You know, it had no other goal. It's secular. But for us to be able to say, yes, you are identifying kind of like what you said in these generational mistakes that the self esteem movement identified a mistake, but then its answer was also a mistake. And so one of the things that I tried to do with this devotional is to correct that, to incorporate some of the strengths that we have learned about the importance of knowing the self and understanding the self. And that isn't a secular idea. I think it was John Calvin who said, there is no knowledge of God without knowledge of self. And so there is this rich tradition in the church of the importance of understanding yourself, understanding your interior world, understanding your history, your family of origin, your trauma. All of that is really important because those things do interact with your faith and they do interact with how you experience God. But the trajectory of the devotional is ultimately outward and upward. And so I think people are going to be really surprised in a devotional call, gazing at God, how much there is time given to understanding the self, not from a worldly perspective, but from a biblical one of examining what are the scripts that, that I tend to run when I'm wrestling with insecurity. There's a lot of studies showing that people struggling with depression use a lot more I language. And so when you're noticing yourself saying, me, I, why didn't they include me? Why wasn't I noticed? Those kinds of things are usually a clue to what's going on in your interior world. And so paying attention, but then walking through, in the course of these 40 days, once we see this, what is going on, once it tells us about why our self is being or our focus is being pulled inward, how do we then Redirect our gaze back towards love of God and love of others.

Dr. Jessica Peck: That's really powerful.

Let's talk about gazing at God, because it is really hard in a culture

Let's talk about that, about gazing at God, because it is really hard to do that in a culture. And I appreciate what you say about the embattlement posture. I think so often we get lost in what we're fighting against. We forget what we're fighting for. And I feel like, especially as parents, we're fighting for the hearts of our children. And I, I don't know about you, but I want my kids to grow up to love God and serve others. I feel like that is the, the crux of everything. And they, to love God, to. They need to know God and to spend time with God and to gaze at God. And I think about that even in my prayers. And I know that can be really hard. Even when I'm in a church setting, we usually go straight to what we want. Like, dear God, please help, you know, so and so in the hospital, please help this situation resolve at work. I need this, this and this. And we don't spend time really reflecting back on the character of God and giving him the praise and the adoration that is there because we, it really is, almost counterintuitive. But in doing that I start to feel more secure because I know, okay, this is the God who loves me, who made me, who knows me. This is the creator of the universe and I have access to his throne room, am his daughter at. Ah, those things, when we get to know the character of God, they shape our identity. And so what does it look like to specifically gaze at God? How does that really help break that cycle of self obsession?

The first and second greatest commandments are to love God and to love others

 Sharon Hodde Miller: One of the really sweet things that I discovered in this journey was that when Jesus. clarifies the first and second greatest commandments are to love God and to love others. I think for anyone, whether you grew up in the church or not, it's really easy to hear those commands and think these are the rules. You know, this is Christianity 101. This is how I just can be a good Christian. Like good Christians love God and they love other people. And that's not God's character. He's not just an arbitrary rule giver. But every command, every instruction is for our good. And so to remember that when God says, you know, the, the purpose of your life, like the, the greatest thing that you can do in your life is to love God and to love others, it's because we are actually at our best when we are living that way, when our souls aren't turned in on themselves. And we're living for these really small purposes, these lesser purposes, but the, the humanity that God dreamed of, human flourishing. And his original design is this soul that's kind of unfurled and oriented towards God and oriented towards others. And so that was something that really changed how I saw a lot of those commands that this is an invitation towards freedom. This is a description of our rescue in some ways that when Jesus says love God, he's not just saying be good, he's saying no, this is actually you will experience greater freedom in your life when you live this way. And so that was really helpful for me. Just re approaching a lot of those very familiar teachings and looking at it through that framework.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You're right, because I think we, we start to look at those things and we start to enter into an if, then contract with God and we think, okay, if I do all of these things, if I follow all of these rules, then you will bless me, then I will have a happy life and then I will be, you know, all of these things. It says if you do this then I get this. And that is, that's not the posture, that's not the heart of God. Every command that he gives us is for our good and for his glory. And it's a, it's really kind of a parado. I agree with you Sharon. I think people from the outside trying to explain it how following these rules that God has given us gives us freedom can be really, really confusing. But that has been my experience in my life for sure.

Self forgetfulness is freedom from self preoccupation

And I love how you give this 40 day journey because 40 is such a, an important number in the Bible. It's been used as a time of preparation and God uses that 40 day journey. There's so many examples of that in the Bible. And so you are inviting the read to a 40 day journey of self forgetfulness, forgetting yourself and gazing at God. It's more than just a perspective shift. But explain what this looks like. Tell them what this journey will be like. If they say okay Sharon, I'm in. I want this 40 day journey, what is that going to feel like?

 Sharon Hodde Miller: So self forgetfulness. Just to clarify, I mentioned this earlier, but it is not about self neglect or self rejection or even the belief that the self is bad. And that is really important from both a biblical and theological perspective because everything that God creates is good and that includes us. And so this journey needs to include an affirmation of the self that even though ourselves have been broken by sin, that when we look at Genesis 1 and 2. The human self is good and reflects back the actual image of God. And so self forgetfulness is not saying the self needs to go away, the self needs to disappear. Like even our, our understanding of the resurrection is, is God not just, you know, discarding some part of us, but he's going to resurrect all of us. So our whole selves really matters to God. He is invested in redeeming all of this. Instead, what self forgetfulness is, is freedom from self preoccupation. So for instance, if you are, you know, you hurt your, your wrist or your elbow or back pain, like I'm, I'm at, I'm at the age now where if I like turn to check my blind spot when I'm driving, if I turn away, yeah, it's like I am going to be in pain for the next week. Like my neck is going to hurt and I'm going to be constantly focus on that neck pain and I'm gonna orient my whole life around it. You know, I'm gonna be constantly preoccupied with that pain. And emotional pain is the same very often for a lot of us. We are fixated on ourselves because of some unhealth in the self. There, there is some pain that is actually distracting us, is pulling our focus inward. And so the purpose of this is not actually to reject the self, but to heal the self. And then once you are free from constantly focusing on whatever that unhealed thing is, you are now free to reorient your gaze back onto God and, and also onto others as well. That when, when we are fixated on ourselves, it doesn't just affect that first great commandment, it affects the second one as well, of loving others. And so to clarify that that is the journey is, is not one of self rejection or of self neglect, but instead simply being free from focusing on yourself all the time. Which doesn't that sound wonderful?

Dr. Jessica Peck: It really does, because I do agree. And in this culture, I mean, you look at the billions of dollars that the self help industry is generating and really it's dangerous because we're buying into this lie that we can be wise enough, we can be strong enough, we can be determined enough to help our. And we think about even the phrases that we celebrate in American culture, like, you know, self, oh, she's a self made woman, she's a he's a self made man, all of those things. But I love this perspective shift that you are giving us. And we're just coming up on a break here, Sharon, but just in a minute.

Self help world has become its own idol, says Sharon Hodde Miller

Or so give us a preview of an answer to this question because we see so many people telling us in the world, hey, you can't love other people until you love yourself first. How do you respond to that?

 Sharon Hodde Miller: That, you know, I actually do think there is some truth to that, but I think that in our self help world that has become its own idol, as if the goal then is self love. And that isn't the goal. That is a step on the way to the goal. And so again, I, I think our culture is, gives us a lot of half truths. But what is the task of the Christian is to discern those, to hold those up against scripture, to test them and to see what is of God and ultimately what is not.

Dr. Jessica Peck: That half truth is really true. I think that is one of the greatest weapons that Satan uses against us because it can be so confusing. But listen, we have much more help and hope for you on the way about how to take time to gaze at God. The book is gazing at God. Sharon Hodde Miller will be right back with more right after this break. Don't go away.

Pastor Erwin Lutzer: Pastor Erwin Lutzer from the American Family Studios documentary the God who Speaks. I remember when I was in Bible college, I said to myself, I can believe in the New Testament, but it's hard for me to believe in the Old Testament. And then I realized something. I can't believe less than Jesus believed. He not only affirmed the Bible of the Old Testament, but he also affirmed its stories. I mean, obviously he believed that, Jonah was swallowed by a fish. He believed in Adam and Eve. And you can go through his ministry and you say, wow, Jesus believed in the Old Testament in every detail. And if we are his followers, we have to believe what he believed. Visit thegodwhospeaks.org.

Rest For Your Soul by Austin French: Are, you tired and troubled? weighed down by a heavy load Praying for change Searching for faith Waiting on a miracle Are you drowning in Questions? can't believe where the road has led there's one who knows the heavy you hold and he says come. To me. All who are weary And heavy burdened all who are hurting Come to me I'll be your shelter My yoke is easy My load is. Light. And you can find Rest for your soul Rest for your soul welcome back, friends.

Dr. Jessica Peck: That is rest for your soul by Austin French. And maybe you're listening to that song thinking, I feel anything but restful. Maybe you're feeling restless. And every day in this world, we are tempted to make ourselves the center of our Universe, we, depend on ourselves for our success. We blame ourselves for our failures, our insecurity, our image issues. But the more that we focus inward, the more fragile, the more dissatisfied, the more restless we will feel. And Sharon is talking today about how do we recognize our true selves as God created us and release that endless cycle of trying to improve ourselves and then feeling bad for failing. But you can rediscover the joy of being fully focused on God. And Sharon, you were talking about half truths right before the break. And I was thinking of, actually a devotional that I heard this weekend from. I'm a speaker at an event that I was at. And she was talking about how Satan deceived Eve and with a half truth, right? Saying, didn't God say that you couldn't eat? And he goes on to, to really deceive her. And one of the interesting things that this speaker pointed out was that in Genesis 3, as you referenced, it talks about when the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom. She took some and she ate it. And she also gave some to her husband was with her, and he ate it. And then it talks about then their eyes were opened. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked. And then you contrast that with the redemption of God. And she shared this story about the disciples on the road to Emmaus and how they were prevented from seeing. But it's so interesting because of course, the disciples, you spend all this time with Jesus not realizing that it's Jesus. And then, reading, I pulled this up from Luke chapter 24. It says when he with Jesus was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And she talked about just the beauty of that unwinding of the curse and how Eve was deceived over food. Jesus restored over food, just sitting and dining with us. And that really stuck with me and really made me think about the character of God and how if we just see him, if we spend time, especially in scripture, I can read scripture so much and just still come away just amazed at, at the goodness of God and helping us in this. And so I'd love for you just to pick it up where, where you left off and just keep talking to us about breaking the cycle of self obsession and, you know, and rejecting the lie that we have to learn to love ourselves and the way that the world says that we do before that we can. Before we can love others.

 Sharon Hodde Miller: Yeah, I mean, I want to just go back again to the kindness of God and the goodness of his character. That the reason this conversation matters is not for you to listen to this and beat yourself up because you are so focused on yourself. If that is what you take away, then we have ultimately failed. I have ultimately failed because that, that isn't the point. God does not speak to us in the voice of. Of shame. That is how his enemy speaks to us, but rather the. The freedom of this message. Ultimately, this is a message of freedom. When, When Jesus says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light, that is only possible if our stories are not about us. Because if you are at the center of your story, for instance, if you are at the center of your family story, and I think for women, this is especially tempting as mothers. We want to be these superheroes. We want to be these perfect moms where we never get angry and our homes love, look beautiful all the time. And we know just what to say when our kids are upset, you know, whatever it is. And that becomes a really heavy yoke where you are constantly feeling like, this is what I was called to and now I am failing. And so the message that ultimately marriage, parenting, all of it is not about you, that is a message of freedom. Because what it reminds us in parenting, for example, is that your children, they already have a perfect parent, and it isn't you. And so your job is very simple, which is simply to point your children to him. And so that allows us, now we are able to fail. We are allowed to fail. We will fail. There's no way around it. But. But we are allowed to fail because then that sets us up perfectly to a apologize, ask for forgiveness, but then point our children to the one who will never fail them, who will never disappoint them. And that is so such an easier way to parent. It's such a freer way. I mean, I feel the same freedom as in leading my church with my husband, where there's. It, feels like so much pressure. And leading a church when you're in leadership in a church, there is a unique expectation. People don't even realize they're doing it. They want you to be Jesus for them, and you can be Jesus to them, but you cannot be Jesus for them. And so they, they want you to show up, you know, when they need you. They want you to always have the perfect answer, to always do the perfect thing. And it's tempting for church leaders to want to do that. We want to help people in that way. But at the end of the day, I'm not Jesus. I just cannot be. And so there is a freedom in knowing that I get to point them to Jesus in actuality, like I. My failure is that opportunity for them to remember, oh, you are just a person. You are not a replacement for my actual savior. That is a much freer way to lead in ministry as well. And so for anyone listening, I want to be really clear that that's why we're talking about this is not simply to, you know, wag our finger at the culture or to scold you for being self focused, but to say your inheritance in Christ is freedom, like actual freedom. You can live that way, but the only way to live that way is to live for something, someone greater than yourself. That is why this conversation matters.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, now I feel like, honestly, Sharon, you're not gazing at God, you're gazing right into my soul here. Because those are the things that I struggle with. I struggle with that pressure to be a perfect mom because I didn't have that growing up. And I so want to give that to our kids. And so often I put too much pressure on myself, think, oh, I've got to say the right thing and do the right thing and be the right person. And it has taken me a long time to say, hey, I am not perfect. I am going to fail you. But I hope to point you to the one who will never fail you. And I hope that you know, I love God more than, I love myself. And I am always going to drag myself back to the foot of the cross and apologize when I fail and trust that God can pick up those broken pieces. And even talking about that was such a great point about being Jesus, to people, but not being Jesus for people. And I remember I've shared this before with my audience, but my husband and I were in an argument one time m earlier in our marriage, and he finally looked at me and he said, sharon, he goes, you know I'm not Jesus, right? Like, I really need to know that, you know, that I, I'm not perfect. I'm, I can't be that for you. You've got to dep the Lord. So I really want to dive into that just a little bit more, Sharon, because there are people who are stuck in that mode of self criticism, maybe even to the point of self hatred, where the things that they're saying to themselves are things that they would never say to other people. How do you stop that cycle? And where does that fall into turning your gaze to God?

 Sharon Hodde Miller: Yeah, so that is ultimately that question right there is ultimately why I really wrote this devotional as a follow up to Free of Me. Because I realized after I released Free of Me, I didn't get into this quite as much. I didn't get into the reasons why we struggle with self focus. And one of the reasons we struggle with self focus is just sin. You know, like we have pride, we have vanity there. That's one reason why. But a big reason that I was noticing, especially in folks in our church is, and I alluded to this already, talking about that neck pain metaphor, but realizing that it was actually because of some unhealed pain, that as long as my neck was injured, it was going to distract me. I'm going to continue to focus on it. And so I'm not going to be able to stop focusing on it until that pain is actually healed. And that is also true of the human soul that many, many of your listeners, they grew up in homes where lies, like the enemy's lies were in the mouth of your parent. And that is what was spoken over you, that is, is how you formed your understanding of self. And so you do struggle with self hatred, you struggle with shame. And as long as those wounds remain unhealed, it will be very difficult for you to raise your gaze because there is an active wound wound. And so I want to really speak grace over anyone who is struggling with really low self esteem like that. That is, as I said, that is a real thing because you have been taught by people that you should have trusted that yourself is bad, that there's something inherently flawed and wrong about you and that that needs to be corrected with therapy. But also the truth of the gospel, the truth of God's word, and so it self focused for you to do that work of, of understanding and healing. The reason it's not self focused is because ultimately the purpose of that is not what the world would say, which you just need to love yourself again. The purpose is that God created you for a mission in this world. And right now you are limping, you are hobbling because of this wound. And so the, the purpose of the healing is greater than the self. And so I, I do want to just release people that, that, that if you're hearing, don't, don't focus on yourself, don't, don't heal yourself. That's not at all what I'm saying is that you can't actually step into the purpose that God has created for you as Long as you're still believing those lies.

Dr. Jessica Peck: And at the same time, we're just not capable of completely healing ourselves. When I look at, I mean, my, my primary lens of work is actually in people who have experienced human trafficking. Looking at that level of brokenness, I think the only hope is in a God who loves you, who sees, who will restore, who will renew, who will make right in a way that we can't understand. Because I say this all the time. If God was small enough to be understood, he wouldn't be big enough to be worshiped. And if parents don't take that healing journey and they don't seek God's help and healing the traumas of their childhood, it will become their children's burden to bear. And that is a responsibility, but it's also an invitation, as you say, to grace and to freedom. Because God can do that. He is in the business of miracle healings. And he can heal even what you think is impossible to heal. And I think even for parents, broken or not, traumatized or not, parents are really struggling today, Sharon, in raising kids in this kind of world. How in the world do we help our kids have a healthy sense of self when they are in a world that's saturated by screens that are going 247 that have countercultural programming that we're competing with, with MHM?

 Sharon Hodde Miller: I mean, that's a.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Just solve world peace in about the next 90 seconds. Okay.

 Sharon Hodde Miller: Yeah, okay. I'll just, you know, give you the 60 second answer. I mean, that, that is such a, that that is the million dollar question. And so I can just answer in one way that I have walked this out personally, which is to love my children unconditionally. So they're, they're. My love for them is, is not contingent upon how they perform. And so they, they understand that. Which is very different from, from affirming them unconditionally. you know, in terms of everything that they say and do, I don't affirm that unconditionally, but I do love them unconditionally. And so that's been important, but also for them to know I love them unconditionally, but I do not orbit around them. And so they're not the center of my world. And one of the ways that I walk that out is I, I travel, I, I speak at other places and I'm, I'm not gone for very long. Usually, usually it's just 24 to 48 hours. But when that is hard for them, I'm able to talk with them and say you know, God has called our family to something larger than ourselves. And so sometimes that means doing hard things. And for us as a family, that means, I'm going to be gone tonight and tomorrow night and then I'll be back. But I know that that is developmentally, that is a developmentally appropriate challenge for them in their own discipleship of learning that at the end of the day, I don't orbit around, around them. The world does not orbit around them. Our family orbits around Jesus. And so walking that out in developmentally appropriate ways has also been important for us.

Sharon Hodde Miller's new book is called Gazing at God: A 40-Day Journey to Greater Freedom from Self

Dr. Jessica Peck: Such great conversation, Sharon. This has been so encouraging to me. The book is called Gazing at God. A 40 day journey to Greater Freedom from Self. It's by Sharon Hodde Miller. That's Hodde in the middle. Miller. I encourage, encourage you to take your own journey if this has resonated with you. And as you do, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. Be gracious to you and give you peace as you're gazing at God. And I'll see you right back here next time.

Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.

Sharon Hodde Miller talks with Jessica about the culture's endless focus on self-help and her devotional "Gazing at God"

Rx for Hope: Take Time to Gaze at God

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