Train Before The Crisis

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Resilient Solutions Shortcast, Episode 96, Guarding the Gate, Part 3.
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Train Before the Moment Comes.
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One morning years ago, I was working at home and received a phone call.
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That phone call changed my day and changed my life.
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That morning I was home writing an article for a magazine, and I got a call from a company I work for that said, can you respond to a mass shooting in Albuquerque, New Mexico?
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By the way, you'll be the lead.
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I'm like, oh my gosh, what's going on?
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Sure enough, I checked the news and it had been a shooting at MCOR.
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Some of you may remember that.
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It's been over 20 years ago now.
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But as I drove, I had two or three things I was dealing with.
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Number one, I'd never done a mass shooting before.
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Number two, the company I was working for was in the active process of purchasing the company that was responding.
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So I was in the middle of forming a plan while consulting with two different entities that were going to be controlling the event and paying me later.
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At first I was a little bit overwhelmed, but I realized I have trained my whole life for this with the army, with the crisis response work I've had, with the reading, listening, and training I've done.
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And I even remembered as a young boy scout the motto, be prepared.
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So while it was a bit daunting, I knew I was prepared.
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I prayed, I trusted the Lord, but I had trained for that moment.
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And I'd like to tell you, as crazy as it was, we had as many great outcomes as it could be, the team I worked with, and I'm grateful for that.
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But that was the moment that if I had not been ready for it, I would have failed.
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I am John Thurman.
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I'm an author and a therapist, and I'd like to thank you and welcome you to my shortcast, John Thurman's Resilient Faith Shortcast, where I look at practical biblical ways to help you develop a more resilient faith so you can stand strong in the storms of life.
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I'm so glad you joined me.
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Let's jump right in today.
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Hey, this is John Thurman.
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Thank you for taking a few minutes to join me today.
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In the next 10 or 12 minutes, I hope to give you some encouragement and some tools that you can use to build a more resilient and strong faith.
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I'm not here to preach at you.
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I'm not here to do a teaching.
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I'm not here to kind of harass you, harangue you, or manipulate you.
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I'm here just to share some information because I want you to win the race.
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For any of you guys listening, Boy Scouts, do you remember the Boy Scout motto?
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Be prepared.
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That's right.
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The key is really being prepared.
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And one of the things I've learned in all my years of crisis response is therapy and being the military is that the middle of an emergency or crisis is an absolute terrible time to start deciding what you believe, what matters, and what you're going to do.
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That's why in the military we would train, train, train, train, train.
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That's why when I played football in high school, I wasn't a great football player.
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But we trained, trained, trained, trained, trained.
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We did basics.
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That's why when I was a cadet, we trained, trained, trained, trained, trained.
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That's why when I take first aid classes, even though it's a review, I train and train and train and train.
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For those of you that are shooters, how do you get proficient with a firearm?
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You train, train, train, train, train.
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No matter what you do, it all gets back to training.
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That's why people train.
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You practice when things are quiet, so that when things aren't quiet, you have something to fall back on.
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Over the years, I've seen that principle work in crisis situations, in the counseling room, and more times than I care to admit my own life.
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Good Lord, I could write a book just on that.
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And I've come to believe that it's just as true spiritually.
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You don't build self-control in the moment you need it.
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You bring it into that moment with you.
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Let me show you what I mean.
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It's Tuesday afternoon, and coincidentally it's Tuesday afternoon as I'm recording this.
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Nothing catastrophic has happened.
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It's just been one of those days where nothing has gone terribly wrong, but nothing's gone terribly right either.
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And then your phone buzzes.
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You look down, you read the message, and while it's only a sense or two, somehow the person on the other end has managed to push exactly the right button.
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You read it again.
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Your shoulders tighten, your breathing changes just a little, and almost immediately your mind starts filling with all the things that message didn't actually say.
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I know what they meant by that.
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And now you're composing a response.
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Not typing it yet, but in your head you're writing it.
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And sometimes the distance between thinking something and saying it is remarkably short, isn't it?
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That's when the faith we talk about on Sunday morning has to work on Tuesday afternoon.
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And that's where resilient faith gets real.
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Because under pressure, we tend to travel familiar roads, don't we?
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The message may be new, but the road in your mind starts traveling.
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Those neuropathways that you've etched over the years move really fast.
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You've probably been down that road before, haven't you?
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You know how it turns, you know where it ends.
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And if you've traveled that road enough times, you can get there remarkably fast, even without passing go, or even without collecting two hundred dollars.
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That's one reason Proverbs 1632 has become such an interesting verse to me.
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Better to be patient than powerful.
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Better to have self-control than to conquer a city.
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There's something almost countercultural about that, isn't it?
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We usually picture strength as doing something, taking charge, answering back, setting that person straight, and yet the scripture gives us another picture.
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Sometimes strength looks like a person sitting at the kitchen table with phone in hand and not hitting sin.
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Nobody sees it, nobody applauds, but something important just happened.
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There was a little space between what happened to you and what you did next.
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We've talked about that space in the last couple of shortcasts, but here's what I want you to notice today.
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Fruit does not grow in an instant.
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Paul gives a wonderful example of this when he talks about the fruit of the Spirit.
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And one of those fruits he calls self-control.
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Fruit grows, but it grows slowly, quietly, and long before anybody sees it.
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Sometimes in our Christian life, I think we can we think we just command this stuff to happen.
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Well it doesn't.
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Fruit grows slowly and quietly long before anybody sees it.
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We have an apple tree in our backyard, and I can't command it to do anything.
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To get apples in the fall, it takes a whole nine months for that process to occur.
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So just realize the fruit is growing in you if you're cooperating with the Holy Spirit and in the Word.
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Now I want you to stay with me for a moment.
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Because something's been happening inside that tree for a long time.
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I think that's a beautiful picture of what the Lord does in our lives over time.
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When we spend time with Him, when we go to church, when we worship, we're in the Word, His Word begins working its way into how you and I think, how you and I pray, what to do when we stumble, how we apologize, when we try again.
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Have you ever noticed that?
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You learn some stuff, you practice some stuff, you mess up, you do a face plant, you confess, you forsake, and you get on down the road.
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And somewhere along the way, many times without even noticing it, we're changing.
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That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit doesn't do a bam, one and done.
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It's a lifelong process.
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And there's something else happening as well.
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As we worship, as we expose ourselves to the word, as we sit quietly before the throne, as we wait on Jesus and we learn, our brains are learning.
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The things we repeatedly do become easier to do.
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That's one reason some of our old reactions can feel so automatic.
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We've practiced them for so long, maybe without meaning to, maybe for years, but this is what gives me hope.
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We do not have to repeat the same old negative thinking patterns.
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We don't have to stay in the trap of thinking thinking because of the A, the finished work of Jesus, the fact that His death, burial, and resurrection gave us power over sin, death, and hell, and the fact that His Holy Spirit lives in us to give us what we need to live a life that honors him.
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Which brings me back to Tuesday afternoon.
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The phone is still sitting there.
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The message has not disappeared.
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Maybe six months ago, you would have already fired off our response, but today you're still sitting there.
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And somewhere in that little bit of space, you manage a very deep, profound, and sophisticated prayer.
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Something like this Lord help me.
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I know, I know I've prayed that a a few times, sometimes a few times a day.
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Maybe you have too, and strangely enough, that teeny weeny tiny pause changes something.
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The message hadn't changed.
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The person who sent it hasn't changed.
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But now you're beginning to notice what's happening inside of you.
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Some of what you're reacting to is what was actually said, and some of it may be the story you're telling yourself about what was said.
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So you ask yourself a simple question.
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What do I actually know here?
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That's different.
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Maybe another question comes up.
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What response will I give?
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What response will I be glad I chose an hour from now?
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Now there's a little daylight between the trigger and your response.
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So you pick up the phone again.
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Maybe you write something different.
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Maybe you decide you need more information before you answer.
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Or maybe you decide Tuesday evening will survive quite nicely without your response, and you put your phone back down.
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That's it.
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No dramatic breakthrough, no choir singing in the background.
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No one even knows what happened except you and the Lord.
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Wow.
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That's what growth often looks like.
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Not dramatic, not perfect, just a little different than last time.
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And I think sometimes we miss that.
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Sometimes we're looking for some enormous spiritual breakthrough while God is quietly doing something in us on that ordinary Tuesday afternoon, one day at a time.
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You notice sooner.
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You pause a little longer.
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You recognize that familiar road before you get too far down it.
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Sometimes you'll still blow it, I know I do, and sometimes you'll still send the email.
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And sometimes the words will be out of your mouth before you can catch 'em.
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And sometimes the spiritual discipline for Wednesday morning will simply be saying, I was wrong.
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Will you forgive me?
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Because you see, that's training too.
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Then another Tuesday comes another conversation, another message, another opportunity for growth and grace, and gradually, something that once felt automatic doesn't quite have the same grip on you it had before.
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There's a little more space, a little more freedom to choose, and one day you realize I am not responding the knee-jerk way I used to.
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That, my friend, is resilient faith.
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You see, the Holy Spirit's been at work in you all along.
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And those ordinary choices you've been making have been part of that work.
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Maybe the question this week isn't, how can I have more self-control the next time something happens?
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Maybe the question is, what am I practicing now?
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Because another Tuesday afternoon will come soon.
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Another difficult conversation, another unexpected message, another moment when something pushes exactly the right button at exactly the right or wrong time.
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And when it does, you won't suddenly manufacture self-control.
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You'll bring in the moment some of what God has already been growing in you.
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Because you've been training the guard long before you needed him.
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You've been training that voice to listen.
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You've been training your mind to respond.
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If you'd like to go deeper into this idea, I've written a little article called You Don't Build Self-Esteem in the Moment You Need It.
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You'll find the link in the show notes.
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I'll also put in there a link to my free tactical prayer reset, a simple tool you can use when you're feeling the pressure rising in you.
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Thanks again for spending a few minutes with you today.
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My name is John Thurman.
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I'm an author and a therapist.
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You can learn more about me at reaching out to my website, johnturman.net.
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I have a blog, a podcast, and a bunch of information there.
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Thanks so much for joining me today.
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I'd just like to encourage you that this is the day that the Lord has made, and I'll make a choice to rejoice and be glad in it.
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See you next time.
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God bless.