Thinking about Anxiety, Media, and Politics: A Conversation with Zach Clinton

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I am joined today by Zach Clinton. Zach is the vice president of the American Association of Christian Counselors. He's also the author of the book, Even If, Developing the Faith, Mindset, Strength, and Endurance of Those Who Are Built Different. And he is the host of the Built Different podcast, which just popped over onto the Life Audio Network. Zach, I think this might be the second time we're meeting, but maybe not. I think we met at NRB at one point in the past. I know I've been on with your dad a couple of times, but anyway, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Thinking Christian. How are you doing today? James, first and foremost, my friend, thank you so much for the opportunity of joining you. Yes, I think I do remember meeting you at NRB, but a blessing to reconnect, my friend. That's right, in passing. You were going out of the room and I was coming in or something like that. That's always kind of a hectic time. Yes, definitely a hectic time. Busy, but I'm grateful that we get to sit down together today and unpack some things. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, let's just give us a little bit of your background. I mean, you're a licensed professional counselor. Am I correct about that? Yep, finishing out my residency. Finishing out your residency. Okay, so what led you into counseling? What was the impetus for this? You know, James, for me personally, I've been around the field my entire life with my dad being the president of the American Association of Christian Counselors. So it's always kind of been in my blood, my DNA, my wiring. But, you know, it was never forced upon me, which I really appreciate about my dad and about my mom as well. They both heavily involved in ministry on top of ACC. My mom is the president and founder of Extraordinary Women's Ministry. So, man, I've been going to events. I've seen lives change just through the transformational power of Christ my entire life. And I grew up playing sports and loving sports, James. I mean, that was something that I wanted to pursue at the highest level, played college baseball, had a dream of playing at the professional level, had a chance to potentially go on, but just felt called by the Lord into more of a sports psychology, sports counseling space, walking alongside of athletes and kind of found myself in that motivational peak psychology lane that I live in now, just trying to help people unlock their full potential. You know, it's been pretty fantastic. One of my daughters is in gymnastics, and so she has a coach who has a background in sports psychology. And the way they handle gymnasts, which can be a pretty difficult sport. I mean, it's like you're either perfect or you're not kind of thing. But I've watched her grow over the time. She's been at this gym from, you know, really beating herself up over falling off beam or having a bad, you know, day on bars or something like that to just shaking it off, laughing, you know, kind of laughing at the mistake and moving past it. And it's just been beautiful to watch. And I attribute a lot of that to the work that they do with them on the sports psychology side. So I think it's a real worthy area to go into. It's something that I absolutely love. I just recently was hired by Liberty University to be one of their sports counselors up there on campus to work with the NCAA Division One athletes. And so it's a passion of mine. And it really comes down to a principle that I think my dad taught me growing up, which is the reminder that our worth, value and identity are detached from our performance. And so it helped me recognize that I'll never be defined by the worst thing I'll ever do, but I'll also never be defined by the best thing I'll ever do. I don't have the opportunity and I don't have that capacity to define myself. Only a God who exists outside of time, space and matter can do those things. And so when I kind of rest in that fact, it makes my performance be a lot more freeing than fear based or fear focused. Because like you said, we'll never attain perfection, but we can aim for progress. And that's my goal in helping athletes recognize every day. That's cool. Yeah, I don't know whether you know this, but my background is actually in exercise. So I did exercise physiology as my undergraduate degree before I kind of moved into theology. So yeah, I could have used you the other day because I kept missing my max and I'm like, dang, what's the matter with me? No, but I, I mean, I can remember doing personal training and coming home and my wife would be like, well, how was your, how was your day today? I'm like, oh, I had like six counseling sessions. I mean, people would just come in. It was just, it was just such an intimate personal sort of interaction and you'd get to know your clients over the years. And so some nights they'd just come in and they just really didn't need to work out. They just needed to decompress from the day. So you'd get the workout in, but you'd also listen to a lot of their problems and try to give as much advice as was appropriate to give. You know, I was doing it when I was like 21. So what do I know? Right. You know, I'm living my life. I don't know what you're, I don't know what to do with all this. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Adult stuff. I'm just, you know, working on the side while I'm doing my master's. But the sports side of what you do really does appeal to me. And I find it very interesting. There's tons of connections there. And I think it it's really important that athletes and just everyday people recognize, right? That just what you said, your your identity is not found in your performance. It's it's found somewhere else. So how do you help people sort of orient to that? Yeah, you know, how I help people orient to that really stems back to when it comes to the sport, when it comes to whatever the business, the occupation, the vocation, man, that's what we get to do. Right. But that's not what we have to do. That's that's just the reality of it. It's never going to define who we ultimately are. But I think it comes back to a mindset of just helping people really begin to reflect on what their identity is. I think we live in a day and age where there seems to be an identity crisis that is just infiltrating our country today. There's a lot of fear. There's a lot of confusion. There's just so much going on. I mean, if you look over the past five years, you've seen the mental health statistics continually spike from anxiety, depression, addiction, eating disorders, suicidality, so many things to where, I mean, it's like, who are we as a people? Who are we as a nation? Who are we as a world? I mean, it's it's honestly gotten to a scary point. But I think it's coming back to the root of what we were ultimately built upon. What is the foundation on which we stand? So I like to get people back to that idea of foundation. Who are you as a person? Exercise is that make them actually write down some characteristics, some traits, some innate personality things that God has wired into them as people, because if we can't start there, then, you know, I also try to remove like what you do from those things. So when I'm asking somebody, who are you? And I have them have a little exercise where they're writing this down, writing a paragraph, whatever comes to mind. I make them remove anything that may contribute to what they do that cannot define who they are. And so just simplistic things like that, I think, can help move them in the right direction to help them actually find and recognize and live in that space of their God given identity. And would you say you deal with a lot of that in even if I know you've got the book out. And so is that what the book deals with kind of helping walk people through that? You know, even if James is a book that was kind of pressed on my heart during a difficult season of my life where, yeah, I would say I was struggling with some identity stuff. I was going through some pain, some struggles, some adversity from just a challenging moment, dark and difficult. And it

Founded in my foundation in the identity that is formed in the image of God, but also not live in that fear-focused space when they say, you know what, King Nebuchadnezzar, your majesty, you don't even have the right to approach us about this matter. In other words, we've already made up our minds. Then they offered us the three-tiered prayer. Not only do we believe that God is capable, but we believe that our God will deliver us from your majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we will not bow down and worship your gods with the image of gold you set up before us. So the book really comes down to that idea of the difference and unpackaging the difference between what if, only if, and even if. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Yeah, I love that passage. I mean, it's one of my favorites. You know, you always go back to that because they're just, they know that they can be delivered, but they're not sure they will be delivered, and they don't, they don't necessarily, I don't want to, I don't think it's probably, this will be a little too straightforward, but they don't really care. The goal is not deliverance for them. It's like, it'll be fine one way or the other. But ultimately, our job here is not to be delivered. Our job is to be faithful. You know, that's the responsibility we have in this moment. And so, do you find, like, when you're thinking through that sort of narrative, that sort of foundation, and you're looking out at all of the mental health problems that we see nowadays, and maybe you can comment a little bit on this, but I'm aware of the mental health problems being more skewing a little younger. Oh yeah. Are they actually more expansive than I think? And then, and so maybe you can answer that question and then just go into, how do you, how do you see the mental health problems being really deeply related to the fraying foundations, you know, sort of the sinking sands sort of pulling away? Many of the things we used to be able to depend on are no longer there. Yeah. So, yeah, scope of the crisis, like, what are we looking at there? Yeah, no, absolutely. I think, you know, dad would always say we've moved from that mental health crisis to that state of mental health disaster. And I think society at large is experiencing it. So I would say every population group is really experiencing it. We say mental health does not discriminate. While at the same time, when you're talking about the next generation, man, I think they're, they've taken the brunt of the blow ultimately. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. It's been challenging for them to navigate, for them to grow up in, not just this fear-focused society over the last five years, but also you added in technology. I don't know if you've read Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, a fascinating read that I think every listener or viewer should be able to dive into and unpackage. I mean, the detriment that technology has provided this next gen when it comes to comparison, which is the thief of joy, they're grown up in what I would call a comparison culture that's built on perceived perfection. Social media has just become a human highlight reel where we don't get real and vulnerable about suffering and about the painful experiences that we all navigate in this life. Those things are inevitable. So I think all of those things really do kind of compromise the foundation at which we were born into, a very fallen world. We get that. And there's no such thing as perfection, as we've already mentioned, but then getting people back to this idea. And I'll kind of give you an idea of the book too with the what if, only if, and even if. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people live in this what if space and they allow the fear of what if to make them settle for what is. We would say that they're in a space of analysis paralysis, that they're so afraid of what could happen tomorrow, the what ifs, the catastrophizing incidents, the woulda, shoulda, couldas, that it makes them almost become idle or crippled in the given day. So they're so afraid of making the wrong decision, they decide to make no decision at all. That kind of leads to a comfortable or a complacent faith. And we know this, as believers, what God says and what the Lord says about a lukewarm Christians. Like, we don't want complacency in this life. Ultimately, we want to keep on building and stacking days. The next one, the only if mindset are kind of the people who live in that aspect of comfort and convenience. I'll do it only if it works out in my favor, only if I get out of it what I wanted to get out of it. Only if leads to that contingent faith. We don't want comfortable, but we certainly don't want contingent. And then there's the even if space. And that's the aspect that I'm trying to draw out of people through principles that I've learned throughout my life, lessons from my parents, lessons from scripture, biblical characters all throughout the book. But ultimately, just coming down to this fact, even if it's hard, even if it hurts, even if I don't get out of life what I was hoping or expecting or preparing or praying to get out of it, I'm going to stay true to my faith, my family, my friends, and the standard within me rather than succumbing to the expectations, opinions, or circumstances around me. Even if leads to that courageous faith and it ultimately comes down to trusting a God who has everything in control. Yeah. You know, it's interesting as you're talking there, a couple of things connect in my mind. So number one is the comparison generation. Yeah. Right. And there's something about the lives that we see online that I think lend themselves to coveting. In other words, God got this wrong. He's given that to them, but I'm the one who should really have it. Right. And so there's a sense in which that creates this discontentment and puts us in a position to say, as Paul tries to tell the believers in Corinth not to, you know, I'm an eye, but I'd really love to be an ear. Yep. Right. And so there's something about our current environment that keeps us from being comfortable in our own skin. And when I say that, I don't mean that we should just be comfortable like, hey, everything's going to be okay. Right. I mean, I love the even if aspect of this. Yeah. But I do think that there's a real problem with people not being able to be content within themselves, recognize their own limitations, and not be overly concerned with going beyond those limitations. Does that make any sense to you? Absolutely. You know, there's a passage or a piece within the book where I talk about assessment. Like you just said, knowing your strengths, but also knowing your limitations. And I think of David, right? Like David was that young shepherd boy, the eighth son of Jesse, right? Who ultimately we know was picked to be the king. We know he defeated Goliath, but when he was going into battle, it said that he ran into battle with confidence. And I'm thinking just this young kid who, you know, you may view as inexperienced, weak and wimpy. Like how did he run into battle with courage? Because he knew where his strength lied, right? He understood that, you know what? I might not be as good with the sword, but man, I'm pretty good with this sling right here. He knew those things and he was able to identify and was able to find contentment, like you said, with who he was. He knew that who he was, was enough. What I love about sports psychology and really counseling in general, I don't believe that it's our job or our duty or responsibility to create more talent for someone, but to ultimately unleash the talent that God has already entrusted to them. So when I work with people, I don't view them as like a project that I have to expound upon. I view them as someone that I get to open up. It's almost like a package to help them actually step into and view themselves as the giftings in which God has already given to them. That is a beautiful representation. I think my dad has passed along to me throughout the years because I've seen people that have come from very broken places, but then recognize again, the transformative power of Christ and being able to recognize that he is the great repurposer who can take what feels broken and make it seem meaningful and beautiful again. When we have that reality and that trust that as Charles Spurgeon would say, God is too good to be unkind, too wise to be mistaken. Even when we can't track or trace his hand, we can always trust his heart. There's something beautiful in that. And it gives me a courage and a boldness and

problem. I mean, I'm stuck, you know, front to back in this thing. Just thinking to myself, like, this is not good. I like, they may need to get something to, like, chisel some rock out, because I'm not sure I'm going to make it through here. And you just think about the difference between those two. You know, one setting being a large person is actually helpful, and the other one, completely detrimental. And there's just something about that, that's what I mean by that tailored aspect of, yes, we're all grounded in our identity in Christ, but there are still these particularities about us that suit us best for, you know, one activity versus another. And it isn't about limiting possibilities, but I think it is about just owning who we are in Christ, who we are, you know, with the emphasis on the we. Absolutely. And I think it's important then for us to seek discernment and wisdom in decision-making when we're looking at, you know, who God has created us to be. And in a sense, the purpose for which he created us for. I remember there was a pastor named Aaron Burke who said, the one way to, in a sense, find your purpose out in life is to look at, obviously, the personality characteristics that God has given or entrusted to you, but then also to compare those to the passions with which he has given you as well. But then he also brought in this aspect of, I think that we're missing it, Zach, when I was interviewing him. He's like, we're missing it. It's not just the personalities, and it's not just our passions, but we also have to incorporate our pain, right? A pain can sometimes be that third aspect to remind us of our purpose and to remind us of, like you said, the strengths and the weaknesses with which we bring to life. It's funny as we talk about this, I was a pitcher and I'll tell you this, James, I was not like the most talented player on a team, right? Like I played at the collegiate level by God's grace. I feel like I had the work ethic and the passion to play the game that I found myself in a Friday night starting role upon my senior year in college, which is like the coveted role in all of college baseball. And so I'm pitching, I'm like a mid 80s guy, right? Like I threw a cut fastball that moved about three to four inches away from a righty and into a lefty. And I was throwing 85, 86 mile an hour, like cut fastballs. That was all I had. Mariano Rivera at a much lower speed. And I was pitching against guys, man, that are throwing 96 to 100 mile an hour, and you just looked at this kid out here and myself and guys are just like, how is he throwing on Friday nights? But it was just recognizing. I knew what my gifting was. My gifting was like precision. It was accuracy. It was mixing speeds and it was throwing strikes, pounding the zone. These other guys could be effectively wild. They knew their strengths too. But if you don't know your strengths, you'll never be used in the sense of effectiveness in which God created you to be. And is that part of what you would say is sort of the, you know, as we look at the broad scope of anxiety in society, as we look at the even if kind of principle that you're advocating, is that part of what we're really lacking? Is it, is part of it that people aren't owning their strengths and weaknesses because they're really not ever looking at themselves other than in comparison to other people. There's no real self-reflection there. It's only a, you know, a comparative desire to be something different. You never get to the point of actually valuing yourself. Is that some of what's going on? Like, just trying to understand this phenomenon. Yeah, no, I can definitely see that as something that's going on for sure. Just comparing ourselves to other people and sometimes not doing the reflective work of staring oneself in the mirror and recognizing our own strengths and weaknesses. But I think you touched on something a couple minutes ago where you were talking about how sometimes we begin to lack trust then. And I think sometimes we look at God, like you said, as he gave something to somebody else that I deserved or that I should, I feel like I earned the right to, but oftentimes I feel like we begin... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. And to get out of, let's just say, context, when we view God as saying, I know that God is good. Like, I know that he's faithful. I know all the stories in the Bible. But sometimes there are some moments in life, James, where it just feels like, I'm just not sure that God has my best interest in mind. And so we begin to, in a sense, lead out of line, and we begin to take matters into our own control. And I think that sometimes when we try to control the things that are outside of our control, that's where things like anxiety, that's where things like pressure, that's where those things can begin to build and surmount in our lives because it's like, man, let me tell you something. When it comes to these particular incidents or these particular situations, we could never control those things. I always try to remind people and simplify it. Like, I always say, control the controllables. What is inside of your control, right? Your thoughts, your words, your actions, your responses, your decisions. Those things are inside of your control. But everything else, such as the worries and the fears of everyday life, man, there's nothing else we can do about it. There's a Mark Twain quote that says, I've known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened. Right, fear is something that I think is so elusive that it's like, I would say 99% of our fears that we always, in a sense, build up in our minds to be this horrific thing, man, oftentimes we don't even experience it in the first place, but we're terrified that we potentially could or would. So, we have to recognize again, what is inside of our control? Do you see that happening a lot now? I mean, you know, I've been speaking an awful lot about politics and just had an event this weekend where I talked about the upcoming election and the relationship between the church and the state and all that kind of fun theological stuff. But there does seem, as I've met with different people or I've even met with, you know, people who are really advocating for a particular candidate or advocating that Christians get out and vote, these kind of ideas, which are fine ideas. But there's also an underlying sense of urgency that oftentimes, I think, comes out as anxiety. That there's an election sort of anxiety that's going on right now and that this fervor for Christian participation in politics has far less to do with exercising faithfully our calling to, let's say, love our neighbor or love our nation and far more to do with a fear of the unknown, what will happen if things go on. And so, I know there's some anxiety around the election, but I'm wondering if you have thoughts on, you know, sort of the election anxiety that's happening at the moment. No, James, I think you're nailing it, man. When it comes down to that fear or that anxiety of what happens if the person that I am voting for does not get elected into office as the next president of the United States of America, right? The uncertainty of it, the unknown behind it, that causes a lot of fear. Let's be real. And, you know, although we push people to exercise their right to vote and we push people to, you know, vote for principles and not personalities or people, we get that, right? Everybody's been talking about that on podcasts and everybody's been speaking on that. But I think it goes back to this whole entire idea of, like you said, even if the person that you're voting for, right? Yes, control what you can control. Do those things. Make sure you exercise that right. But also, recognize that we serve a God, again, who does exist outside of time, space, and matter. That even if, right, the other person or the other candidate gets into office, it's like, man, can I trust God then too, right? Can I trust God that, you know what? This is not how I wanted this to turn out. This is not what I was advocating for. This is not who I was pushing and I was promoting. But yet at the same time, even if that doesn't happen, will I continue to find trust in that? I think there's a lot of unsettledness because there's a lot of people who maybe aren't fully ready to put their full entire trust in God and knowing that even if there's the other candidate there, man, good things can potentially still happen because we still have a God who's in

usually involves weight picking up the weight off the squat rack and just holding it, getting your body used to the weight and the feel of it so that everything starts to realize, okay, we're going to lift this. And then you kind of put it back and then you wait a few minutes and then you do your set. So it's a priming effect that I think visualization and some of these other techniques sort of lend themselves to. And so I'm wondering if you see a correlation with that sort of priming effect and the amount of information, contradictory information, conflicting information that we are all dealing with with regard to the election. But, you know, let's just be real. After the election, it's going to be something else, right? Are we priming ourselves to be anxious simply by looking at all of the um speculation, right? The prognostication about what's going to happen and where's the poll leading and what, you know, but it's like the event hasn't even happened yet and we're already trying to guess all these different things. We're not living in the present. We're living in the potential future. So do you see a correlation in that in those some of those priming mechanisms that maybe you agree with, maybe you don't, but and what's going on with the election? Are we doing some negative priming? I guess would be my question. No, I hear exactly what you're saying. It's funny because you talk about priming. You talk about visualization. When I was playing college ball, we played the University of Virginia and Coach O'Connor, he runs a tight ship over there and UVA, let me tell you something. They're always a top-notch program. They're very prestigious because they practice these things on a daily basis. I'll never forget the first time we played them was at Liberty my freshman year and I was ended up I ended up pitching that game, but man, they were on the other side and all of their position players, infielders, outfielders, catchers, all the pitchers that already got done with their daily throwing. They're in the dugout. All the batters run out to the outfield pregame. This doesn't happen with their bats and their helmets and batting gloves. They line up in two lines and Coach Mack is their third base hitting coach. He starts walking up and down the line of hitters and batters and he's saying, close your eyes and he gives them all of these different things. Let's imagine this is the second inning. Nobody on and you're going to hit a line drive up the middle. All of them would go through their pre-pitch routine. They would all swing in unison like soldiers. Then he would give them another thing, a sacrifice bunt, a sacrifice fly. Nothing grand, nothing extravagant, but like you said, there's benefit in seeing something so that way you can then create it. But when you're talking about this idea of like the negative aspects as well, yeah, it's very much a possibility that people are continuing to do that and that is causing the higher rates of anxiety that we are beginning to experience. Although the future can help orient us in the right direction and our direction is more important than our speed, the future can also be incredibly distracting. And I think that's what we're sometimes seeing is we get so fixated and we begin to ruminate on the future like this happening, this happening, this happening. Then when it doesn't, it's like, well, then what? How are we going to respond, right? How are we going to react? Are we going to react emotionally or are we going to respond effectively? There's a principle that I... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Teaching on that different guys in the motivational space, Inky Johnson, Eric Thomas, all those type of guys speak on, but it's kind of the idea that your perspective will always steer your potential. Inky Johnson says how you view what you do will always affect how you do what you do. Eric Thomas would say this, where your focus goes, your energy flows. It kind of goes back to the law of attraction that whatever you want out of life, like you're going to create that because all of your perspective and all of your behavior is going to be geared toward those things. But if you're not rooted and if you're not careful about being strategically planted in the moment and focusing where your feet are, not where where you wish they would be, that's where we can get in a sense over ahead or out ahead of our skis. And that's where we leave ourselves susceptible, like you're mentioning, to experience higher rates of anxiety and fear, I think. Yeah, it just seems like we don't have, and I think it goes back to your comments on foundation. We don't, because we don't have a clear sense of ourselves, we're constantly trying to envision who we're going to become. And that's a difficult thing to do. You know, even the, even the situation you described, which I think is fascinating with the batters. Oh yeah. They're batters. Like they know what they're doing there. These are collegiate level baseball players. They've been at this for a long time. They know they have a particular skill set and now they're applying this visualization to a game they're about to play. You know, they've probably done it a thousand times. Yeah. Right. But I think sometimes we, because we don't have that niched understanding of who we are in the world, we're constantly trying to visualize, but it's like, well, I could end up there or I could end up there. I could end up there. You know, like you've got too many options and too many unknowns and those things start to then sort of thrust you is the way it feels. Yeah. And I'll give you a story. Um, it actually is how I opened up the book because it's a dear friend of mine and it just came to my mind because I'm about to see him at our upcoming Unite Men's Impact weekend in Grand Prairie, Texas this weekend. Uh, but Dr. Rick Rigsby is near and dear to my heart. Someone that has poured into my life, invested in my life for quite some, some years, I would say. And he tells a story about how he had to watch his late wife, Trina, battle breast cancer. Um, and he was praying and praying and praying that God would perform a miracle this side of eternity. But as God had it strategically planned, he called Trina home to be with him. And Rick was devastated, just broken by that. And he says that he picks up this story of being on his knees weeping at the foot of his wife's casket. I mean, that's a horrific moment that not many people would ever imagine. They can't even imagine that. But here he is weeping and his dad came over to him, James, and wrapped his arm around him, just trying to console his son. And he said, you know, Rick, in a sense, what can I do for you? And Dr. Rick looked up at his dad and said, you know what, dad, I feel like I've lost all hope. His dad looked down at him and said, son, you can't lose something that God gave you. He said, you haven't lost hope. You've just lost perspective. And I would dare to say that there's a lot of people, right, that are feeling anxious, that are feeling worried, like you said, that maybe haven't built the foundation on the rock, but maybe are on kind of the quicksand right now in their lives where they feel like they've lost hope, especially if things don't go their way or the miracle does not occur this side of eternity, when in reality, we can recognize that hope can never be lost. Sometimes it just needs to be redirected because hope is a person and hope has a name, and that name is Jesus. And when we view it through that lens, that's when I believe that hope becomes the key that bridges the gap between despair and resilience. And the greatest definition of resilience I've ever heard is positive adaptation in the presence of adversity. The people that can adapt under change and under fire. That's great. I wanted to ask one more question. So I'm not a licensed clinical counselor. I don't do a lot with psychology, but I've run across a few psychological studies. And so I just wanted to get your take on a couple of things. Have you ever read Ian McGilchrist? I have, yeah. So The Matter of Things, in that book, he talks about attention an awful lot. So you referenced sort of attention and focus. And I think this idea of perspective ties into this. There was an interesting line in his book where he's talking about the difference between the right and the left hemisphere and how when the left hemisphere takes over and it starts to attend, anything it's not attending to tends to fade away. Right. And then he cites this psychological study where they asked participants to count the number of times a basketball was passed. And then a guy in a gorilla suit walks across and, you know, most of the people miss it. Have you ever heard of

You talk about that idea of, you haven't lost hope, you've lost perspective. Yeah. It's such a crucial point because I think, you know, anything you look at in scripture, the fear of the Lord, right? It has such a strong component of attention. Yeah. Recognizing that God is the most infinite or infinitely relevant thing that you can pay attention to. Yeah. You know, keeping him in the foreground of our lives is a perspective issue. That's right. But oftentimes we just get so, we call it distracted, but I think probably the best word is focused on the wrong things. And he disappears just like the ape in the video, right? I mean, it's hard to say God is the ape in the video, but that's kind of the idea, right? We just get so focused on doing these things and we get so focused on the one part, the pain or the performance or the what have you, that God begins to sort of fade into the background if we see him at all. And so I'm just interested to hear your thoughts on maybe McGill-Christ and attention and just the way you encourage people to attend, you know, as you're going through more of a counseling or coaching relationship. Yeah. You know, they say that one of the biggest symptoms of depression is rumination. I brought that up already. And the greatest kind of definition that's very simplified for our listeners and viewers for rumination is the psychological obsession with one's pain. In other words, it's all we can think about. It's all we can fixate. It's all we meditate on day and night. But then I'm reminded... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. of this idea of perspective. And I'll never forget this. I had a client sitting across from me and he was talking about distraction and he was reading a lot of books about attention and focus. And he said this, Zach, I came across something fascinating the other day and I want to run it by you. He said, I read something that talked about the opposite of the word distraction. What is it? And I thought to myself and I thought, focus, right? Concentration, attention. I thought of those three words. So I rattled them off thinking, of course, I'm right. And he was like, that's exactly what I thought. But this author, I forget the particular author, but he said this author said, no, it's not focus because think about it, when you get distracted by something, you don't lose focus, you shift focus. So it's not that we've lost focus, but we've lost momentum. And so a lot of times in life, what I try to remind people of is exactly what you're saying. I think of 2 Corinthians 10, 5 that encourages us, charges us to take every thought captive. I think of Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, to think on these things. If we lose sight and we begin to drift into this negative pattern or this cyclical pattern of, in a sense, stinking thinking is what I like to call it, then naturally we're going to get out of life what we look for in it, right? It's not just getting out of life what we put into it. It's getting out of life what we look for in it as well. Thoughts become things. What you see in your mind, you can hold in your hands. And so just being able to remind people of that pattern that we so easily fall into, but then trying to, again, help them redirect their attention onto gratitude. And I'll say this, Mark Batterson is one of my favorites. And he often has said to me in interviews in the past, he said, Zach, you can assess the spiritual maturity of a man or woman by whether or not they can see or find the miraculous in the midst of the monotonous. There's this term out there right now in our psychological space called neurotheology. And it's the impact one's faith or spirituality can have on the development of one's brain. We all know neuroplasticity is the area of which our brains can actually adapt, grow, change, develop over time. And this idea, though, of so many times, I think, James, that people will say, well, I didn't see God. I didn't see God in that moment. Right. Like that. This doesn't seem very good. Like Romans 8, 28 promises. Right, right. But I think, too, we have a poor representation of what good means. We have a different definition than God's definition of good. Our good means comfortable, convenient, successful, easy. God's definition of good is the next verse, Romans 8, 29. Those he foreknew or those he foresaw, he also predestined that they would be conformed to the image of Christ. Right. If we can be conformed in the midst of our pain and we begin to see things through that lens, through that perspective, I believe that we'll begin to find God because we'll actually be looking for him in the right areas. There's something in your definition, you know, of resilience, the ability to adapt to painful situations, I think is what you said. Is that right? Yep. There's something in that adaptability. And when you mentioned the distraction thing, I don't remember where it came from either, but I recall it being the opposite of distraction is actually traction, like actually getting tread under, you know, digging in. And I think there's, you know, a commonality between what you'd get if you were attracted, if you had traction, in other words, and you were able to adapt because that adaptability requires you not to get distracted, but to actually look at the situation you're facing and pivot in the right ways. It requires a perspective that isn't going to be defeatist, but that's going to say, yep, this is what I'm facing right now. How am I faithful in this moment to get through it? What does that look like? There's just so much there that I think is that topic of attention has been one that I've sort of been researching over the last few years. And so it's fascinating me to think through how often it comes up, how crucial it is to keep our attention in the right place and to have that appropriate perspective so that we're not losing force for the trees or vice versa, you know, ignoring the details to see the big picture. Like there's this in and out of focus thing that we tend to do and we've got to sort of continually attend in different ways to the world around us. Yeah. And I would be remiss not to mention this when we're talking about resilience and attention real quick is that what I've recognized in all of the research I've done and all of the books I've read about resilience is that resilience is ultimately rooted in relationship. And when you talk about the attachment frameworks and the ways in which they integrate with resilience and human flourishing in all of these aspects, yes, vertically with God, but also horizontally with one another in community, there's something about when you have somebody holding you accountable, when you have somebody helping guide, steer, direct you in life. That's why I think it's so important to raise resilient kids because of the opportunity that parents have to train a child in the way he or she should walk and they will not soon, like surely depart from it. That's a beautiful reminder because ultimately resilience is taught and caught. We need people, the right people in our lives who won't just surround us, but will also support and sharpen us to remind us of where our attention flows and just being able to sometimes point us and put us right back on track too. Man, talk, you know, as we get toward the end here, I'd just like to hear you talk about why the what if, how the even if sort of mindset really helps people and kind of give us a sense of why you think this even if mindset is so crucial for people to adopt. You know, James, I appreciate that kind of closing question because it comes back to the whole idea of Daniel 3 and how the story ended. Some people that weren't familiar with the story, they would be like, well, wow, that's an incredible proclamation or declaration of faith. Even if, right, what happened next? That's a cliffhanger. Well, the next thing that happened was that God just didn't dismiss the guys from their pain. He didn't dismiss Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace, but instead he chose to develop them through it. King Nebuchadnezzar was so angry. It says that his disposition was changed toward those men, that he was so mad because he had just promoted them in his kingdom. Now they're embarrassing him in front of the empire of Babylon. He said this, turn the furnace up seven times hotter. He bound them in their cloaks and their wool tunics and all of these things. And then it says that when they took them up to throw them into the burning high

of this burning hot fiery furnace, a man named Nebuchadnezzar, who once was condemning their God, who was making fun of their God, who will deliver you from my majesty's hand, is now saying, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servant of the Most High God, come out and come here. And it said this, that nothing in their clothing was damaged, that not a hair on their head was singed, and that they didn't even smell of smoke. I believe this, that because of the God that we serve, who is a God of restoration, a God of redemption, again, a repurposing God, that no matter what you may be going through in this life, that not only does he equip us with friends for the fire, but he is also that fourth man in the fire as well. It doesn't matter what you may be going through in this life. You are not alone. I'll finish with this last thought, one of my favorite verses, Isaiah 43, verse 2. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, says you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze. Again, praise God that he doesn't just dismiss us from our pain, but he chooses to develop us in and through it. Why? Because as my dad always reminded me, James, it's the moments of powerlessness in our lives that draw us closer to and reveal the character of God's heart. Very cool, man. Well, and you address, I mean, obviously, we'll put the book in the show notes, but you also address topics like this on the Built Different podcast. So let's end with a little bit of a pitch for the Built Different podcast, which is now on Life Audio. Yes, no, I appreciate that question as well. Built Different is a podcast that started three or so years ago, just really testimonials from people from all different walks of life, ministry spaces, mental health professionals, professional athletes, just different areas and lanes and avenues that I love hearing. But all coming back to the power of what God has done in their lives, giving us simplified perspective shifts that we can begin to implement in our own lives as well. You can find all of those resources at ZachClinton.com. That's kind of the one-stop shop. Very cool. Well, Zach, it's been great talking with you, man, and just excited for everything you're doing. I love the even if idea and really appreciate your perspectives on anxiety and just what we're going through right now. So everybody will put the links in the show notes so you can see them. But Zach, really appreciate you being here today, man. Thanks for coming on. James, thank you so much for the opportunity again, man. I love all that you're doing. It was a blast. All right. We will catch everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to LifeAudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. What happens when a writer and former history teacher goes toe-to-toe with his best friend, a nationally touring stand-up comedian? Total carnage, that's what. Two men enter and two men leave because that's how it works. Actually, you get hilarious, real, and insightful conversations about life, history, culture, faith, and everything in between. Join me, comedian Johnny W., and my pal, author and speaker John Driver, for Talk About That at lifeaudio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.