The Dr. Josh Axe Show - The Enemy’s Attack on Your Health (Lies, Anxiety & Disease) | Pastor Max Lucado

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

What if your thoughts could literally rewire your brain, and your life?  In this episode, bestselling author and pastor, Max Lucado, joins Dr. Josh Axe to explore how faith and brain science work together to break cycles of fear, anxiety, and shame. We’ll unpack: How neuroplasticity confirms biblical truth about transformation The #1 toxic thought pattern holding people back How to renew your mind with Scripture The difference between your own fears and spiritual warfare Practical steps to replace anxiety with lasting peace #DrJoshAxe #MaxLucado #Neuroplasticity #ChristianPodcast #FaithAndScience #RenewYourMind #SpiritualHealing ------  Want more of The Dr. Josh Axe Show? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram X Facebook TikTok Website Follow Max Lucado Instagram X Facebook Tik-Tok YouTube Pinterest Check out Max Lucado’s new book, https://maxlucado.com/tameyourthoughts/ ------  Staying healthy in today's world is an upstream battle. Subscribe to Wellness Weekly, your 5-minute dose of sound health advice to help you grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. Every Wednesday, you'll get:  Holistic health news & life-hacks from a biblical world view Powerful free resources including classes, Q&As, and guides from Dr. Axe The latest episodes of The Dr. Josh Axe Show Submit your questions via voice memo to be featured on the show → speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe  ------  Ads:  Discover the CLEARSTEM difference and experience clear, healthy skin for life. Go to https://clearstem.com/DRAXE and use code DRAXE at checkout for 15% off your first order. At mybloodwork.com, you can uncover what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism. You’ll also get a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor to help you take action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When my mom was battling with cancer the second time, we decided to take an all natural approach. We said we're not doing conventional treatments. We're going to really focus on healing her mind, body and spirit. We started juicing vegetables, doing turmeric and rishi mushroom, all kinds of, you know, very specific protocol. But one of the biggest differences between that first time and that second time was we said, we're going to really focus on spiritual healing. And my mom beat cancer naturally. Her tumor shrunk. Amazing.

Yeah. And I believe that a lot of diseases, even cancer more than any, there is a very deep spiritual. and mental root that's feeding those tumors, it's feeding that disease. So if we can go and get to the root, the body can heal. Josh, by the time I was 20 years old, I was a train off the tracks. I was a drunk. I was a fighter, a brawler. I was misogynist, a racist, and a hypocrite. I heard sermons about God's forgiveness, and I thought, I just can't, I can't believe it. He couldn't forgive a jerk like me. 50 years ago, I heard a sermon that they convinced me, okay, I'm going to trust God to forgive me. What is heaven going to be like? So if you want to know the end, you go back to

the beginning. Hey, everyone, welcome the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I'm so excited today. We have Max Locata with us here in the house, and he's authored over 44 books. He's a pastor. He's a person that I've read many of his books. I know my mom is a big fan. She's read loads of them. And today we're going to talk about numerous things. One, how to win the battle of your mind. So many of us have negative thoughts that lead to depression, anxiety, lack of purpose, lack of motivation. And in our life. And we know that there is this deep, deep mind-body connection that oftentimes makes us ill. And so today we're going to go through and Max is going to share with us how to heal our mind, how to heal our emotions, how to have a deeper, more intimate connection with God and so much more. Max, welcome the show.

Thank you so much, Josh. I'm super excited to be here. It's a great honor. And I can't wait to pick your brain on a few questions that I have. Well, same here. Well, again, it's a, it's a, it's a honor here. Like I said, I mean, I've read, you've been reading your books now for, I mean, a long time. I mean, probably, you know, 25 years. So, so, so, so for a long time now. And one of the things we do on the show, you know, we hit a lot on, on diet and what to eat and supplementation and sort of the latest therapies and things like that. But we also talk a lot about, uh, spiritual health and mental health and the importance of that. And I've always had sort of that focus, even when I had my functional medicine practice on, I noticed with patients that just as much as eating a piece of pizza or conventional

Ice cream would cause a, you know, inflammatory response in their body, negative emotions, such as beating themselves up mentally, divorce, losing a loved one, stress at work. These sort of things really, childhood trauma. These things really affect our physical health. And I think much, much more than people realize, and I think probably the greatest deficiency today in the health field is this realization and people practically going after or focusing on healing. again, trauma from their past or negative emotions or negative thoughts. And this is something you've written a book on. It's called Tame Your Thoughts. And I'd love for you to kind of share your experience and practice with people in terms of, you know, how many people today are dealing with, you know, negative thoughts on a regular basis? You're spot on, Josh. Statistics vary, but they're consistent.

44% of Americans say they live. under a state of anxiety and sadness. That's stunning, in it, 44%. Wow. Even more so 42% of teenagers would say the same. And that's tragic. I mean, that's that time of life you're supposed to be optimistic, excited,

looking to the future. But the most sobering statistic is that 22% of teenagers have seriously contemplated, orchestrating their own departure in suicide. I was in a restaurant the other day and in comes a group of kids, you know, maybe 10 or 11 of them. And I was thinking of that statistic.

I had just read it. And I thought, what a stunning thought. If these kids are representative of that statistic, then four out of those 10 kids are not happy, two out of those 10 have contemplated. suicide. So it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. So I think it's a very real issue. And I'm so grateful for you, Josh, and your emphasis on this and your realization that our mind and our bodies connect. I read the book, Think This, Not That, and Loved It and Loved It. I think you and I are

really on the same page that if you really want to have a better life, it begins with better thoughts. Yeah. Yeah, you know, one of the things that I've seen, Max, is that there are a lot of gurus online. There's a lot of psychiatrists, a lot of psychologists, a lot of counselors. There's a lot of methods for helping people overcome and a lot of books that have been written on how to how to tame your thoughts and win the war in your mind and some of these different these different things. And one of the things I see in the health field is people saying, Dr. X, how do I know which diet to follow? There's keto. There's carnivore. There's vegan. There's gluten-free. And then there's like a million supplements I could take. I couldn't possibly do it all. From your perspective, how does somebody find the right way to do it? Like, how does somebody discover what the truth is and the right way to going about actually getting, I took a love with the root cause? How do we actually get to the root of these negative thoughts and emotions that affect our physical health? But this has really been a question that I've wrestled with, Josh.

I just turned 70, and so I've entered officially my eighth decade. Wow. I've been a pastor since 1979. That's a long time, right? A long time. And I don't mean this at all to sound morbid. But I'm at that season of life where I'm thinking, okay, I just have a few more shots. I get to go to bat, you know, just a few more times. and I'm thankful. I've had a wonderful life. I'm super grateful, and I cannot wait to go to heaven. I cannot. So I'm at peace. But as you move into this final season of ministry or work, I'm thinking, what is the burden that I feel? What have I seen? And so the reason this book, Tame Your Thoughts, is coming out is because it comes out of a concern I have. have. You know, all these years of being a pastor, how many conversations have I had? How many counseling sessions, you know, how many hallway chit chats? And it seems to me that all of our issues can be traced back to our inability to think in the way God wants us to think. And over the years,

Josh, I developed two or three tools, well, really three, three tools. I didn't really have them articulated, like, as they are in the book. I just knew to grab them when I needed it, you know. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to try to capture those tools because I think they work. I really do. I think they're simple. I think they're stickable. I think people can put them into practice immediately.

I present them always with the caveat that there are situations where people need a therapist or professional counselor or to see someone who's far more advanced in their study than I, and that's perfect. There may even be a case in which medication is prescribed, and so that's okay. However, all of us could benefit from kind of a thought management 101, of course. And so that's why I created the book. I share three practical tools for thought management, and then I applied those tools to some of the more dangerous or toxic thought cycles. that we have in life.

So practically, how do we do that? If we have, how do we think the way that God wants us to think? Yeah. So the big idea, Romans 12, 2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That's kind of the go-to verses. Yeah, I love that. And it's a beautiful verse.

It's a beautiful verse because here Paul is describing two kinds of people. Some are conformed, right? They're pressed. They're shaped by the world, by the way the world thinks. It makes me think of Plato. When I was a kid, we had a Play-Doh kit, and we would press, you know, we have molds and we'd create a dog or a snake. Well, there are many people who are allowing society to conform them, to conform them, you know, to be always angry or to find your meaning in money, or to think about the, opposite sex in a certain fashion.

You know, we're being conformed. We may not know it, but we're being conformed. So Paul says, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't be conformed, but be transformed. And this is that great word in Greek, metamorpho, from which we get the word metamorphosis. And anybody who paid attention in middle school biology class

knows that the caterpillar experiences of metamorphosis to become a butterfly. I find this to be a goose bump giving, I'm having them right now, goosebumps giving promise. And that is that God can take our minds and transform them, transform them. You know, neuroscience talks a lot about neuroplasticity, how our brains can be shaped, can be changed, how we can create new habits. I love that, and I'm grateful for that.

I think scripture was teaching that, you know, long before the neuroscience, we're advocating it. And that is, God can change our minds. He can shape us. You know, I wanted to say this, just in a sort of like real world sense of something that I saw. You know, when we were going through COVID-19,

I think there was this thing that happened to a lot of people where a number of people started saying to themselves, I think I'm being lied to, maybe by the media or the government or the sort of medical agency. And if I'm being lied to here, where else am I being lied to?

Yeah. And I saw this a lot with people like, Russell Brand, Joe Rogan, maybe even Jordan Peterson. He was already there and moving in that direction before that, but I saw that with him. I mean, numerous people. And I think about someone like Russell Brand, too. And I don't know if you've seen online, but he's just had an amazing metamorphosis, an amazing transformation of his mind.

And, you know, he's now like, you know, he got baptized and baptizing others. And just, you know, and being a real spokesperson for Christ. it's been an amazing thing. But I think for him, I think there was this thing where he was around certain people and in certain flutes. And it was this thing that you're talking about is they were influencing their mind. And the first thing I think that I see with him or even someone I feel like Joe Rogan and other people are waking up, it's like, well, wait, one of the first steps is realizing, wait, I am being influenced. I am having people control my mind. And it's going to happen, but I at least need to choose what's going to influence me. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And the promise that God gives us is that he will transform our minds. So, of course, I come at this from a Christian worldview, right? And I believe there is a God. I believe that God is a loving God. I believe that God came to earth and visited the earth and spoke to us, left us the teachings of Scripture. I believe he loves us. I believe he's coming back for us.

My whole world is framed from that perspective. And one of the things that people might miss when it comes to the promises of Christ is that God gives us what Scripture calls the helmet of salvation. The helmet of salvation. It's a beautiful passage. Ephesion 6 that talks about the full armor of God. And one of the things that God gives us is a helmet. Well, where does a helmet go? The helmet goes on our head, right?

And that helmet is called the helmet of salvation. And that's to say that God is saving us. He's saving us from negative thoughts, from depressive thoughts, from bitter thoughts, from angry thoughts. Another scripture promises even that we have access to the mind of Christ. Christ never battled anxiety. He doesn't want us to battle anxiety. Christ was never sucked under by shame. And so God wants us to live a life in which we're free of shame. So this is the promise. of God. I think that discipleship are becoming a follower of Christ, Josh, is simply learning to think the way God wants us to think. You remember some years ago there was that bracelet that was the WWJD. WWJD. You know, you're quite the entrepreneur. You would know how to do this. I wouldn't. But create a new bracelet that says WWJT. What would Jesus think? Because it's the way he thought that is so remarkable. And like you, as a people helper in your profession, me the same, I've tried to find ways to help people think. Why do you think this way? Do you have to think this way? In fact,

can I share the first of my three tools? I would love it. Yeah, that would be great. The first is so obvious, but people miss it. I call it practice picky thinking. Just because you have a thought, you don't have to think it. There's a passage in 2nd Corinthians 10 in which we're told to take every thought captive. Yeah. Every thought captive. Yeah. And so just because thoughts are, I don't know, would it be overstatement to say 100% of life is thought management? Well, it's obviously a lot. And to your point, I think every day, you know, when I was younger, I had a teacher say something really negative to me, and it made me feel like I wasn't smart. And I live with this sort of issue for years. And I had another teacher tell me you are in a way. And I think,

I had the choice every single day to believe this or this. And one question I think that, or one thing that I sort of learned to do myself is, well, a couple things. One, what does the Bible say? Yeah. What does God say about these two things? And the other thing is, which one can be used for my good and the good of others? Like, you know, is me believing that I'm worthless or not smart or not capable?

Is that, you know, is that going to allow me to advance the kingdom of God? that true? Is that good for me? Is that good for others? No. So I think having these filters, as you've created in your book, is so powerful because it's a way of finding what the truth is. Exactly. Exactly. And that presupposes that you know where to go for the truth. And as a Christian, I believe in the Bible. I believe the Bible has authority over the way that I think. Yeah. I had a family member recently graduate RN school. And so we wanted to get him a Bible that had his name engraved, you know, just a really nice, really nice Bible.

And I was going to get him for Christmas. But it just kept getting backward, backward, backward. And finally we got it in May, just right in time for his graduation, because there have been so many Bible sales this year. The sales of Bible that just skyrocketing. Skyrocketing. Why is that? I think, especially among the young generation, Gen Z.

So while we have concern with these statistics, we have good news because that's the generation that's going back to church or going back to Christ. We're reading wonderful reports, for example, that church attendance in England is at an all-time high. Stunning and primarily led by males. Hey, Dr. Axe here. I want to let you know about an absolutely incredible and cutting-edge line of skin care called. clear stem. That stands for clear skin and also helping stem cell production. I am a big fan of stem cells because they've helped me heal and regenerate my body. And now I want to do that, not just internally, but via my skin. If you've dealt with breakouts, you know that typical acne

products, they dry you out, they damage your skin, while traditional anti-aging products tend to be all oily and clog your pores, well, clear stem is really different. It's comprehensive. Also, it's backed with rigorous scientific studies and evidence. And unlike other skin care brands, ClearStem is dedicated to both product safety and efficacy. I want to encourage you to discover ClearStem, what I believe is the most powerful skin care line for helping acne and stem cells, helping you look younger. You can go to Clearstem.com slash DRAXC and use the code Dr. Axe for 15% off. I think the secular promises have just failed to deliver.

Yeah. Just fail to deliver. Yeah. Right? Yeah. The Christian promise says, God loves you. God made you. He's coming for you.

He's going to help you. He's going to bless you. The secular promise says you're born, you die, have as much fun as you can, and hope you don't get shot. I mean, it's just pathetic. Exactly. Well, you know, I think the other thing that's happened is, I think, to your point, I think also this world of social media today has uncovered

uncovered more of the truth. You know, I think about this more in my field in being in natural medicine. I think that we have the best emergency medical system in the world. That's what the statistics say. But our health care out of like the 42 industrial nations is like

between 40 and 42. It's like dead last because we've taken a crisis care system and tried to apply it to health care for a long term health for people actually healing and it doesn't work that way. I bring that all up to say. I think a lot of people have started saying, well, I want to take turmeric instead of taking aspirin or I want to start doing this instead of this because for years, maybe you couldn't even, it was hard to even find the truth. And today with social media so much is popping up, people can actually sometimes discover things a little bit more quickly.

And so I think even to your point with this young generation, they're able to search a sermon or read a book or get, you know, have access to this information maybe a little bit more quickly as well. But yeah, these sales have just, you know, obviously gone up dramatically in so many ways. One of the things that comes to mind with what you're sharing is there's this quote by AW Tozer, and I'm going to get this somewhat close, but maybe not word for word. But it's something to degree of what you believe about God is like the most important thing about you or the most thing about your thoughts. Yeah. How true is that important of it? And it's absolutely true.

Absolutely true. What you believe about God is the most important thing about you. you. If you perceive that there is no God, that's going to create one kind of person. If you perceive that there is a God, but he's distant and uncaring, that creates another kind of person. If you perceive that God is perpetually ticked off at you, that's going to create another person. But if you believe in the God that we see in Scripture as presented in the face of Christ, Jesus is the only picture of God ever taken. So if you want to see God, you see Jesus. Then you see a Christ who loves people, who cares, who hates what hurts people, who has promised to provide a sacrifice for our sins,

and who has a destiny for us to live forever with him, serving in a perfect paradise. So that's the understanding that can create a healthy mindset. And so I think that quote by A.W. Tosier is absolutely true. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I've always appreciated about you, Josh, and especially the whole world of functional medicine, is you try to get to the root cause, right? Instead of just treating the symptom, you get to the root cause of the problem. And I think that applies in our thought process, too. You know, instead of treating the symptom, well, I'm always anxious, so I guess I better go take another pill, you know, or I'm always.

angry, so I guess I better go sit in the corner and just be angry. You know, why don't you go back to the beginning and figure out where this is coming from? Yeah. One of my tools is called UFO, not like the aliens in the spaceships over Roswell, New Mexico, but understanding that an untruth always leads to a false narrative that creates an overreaction. When I'm talking to people in a pastoral setting, in my mom, mind I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to try to find that untruth, that they come in with an overreaction. I'm so angry at my husband. I'm a terrible parent. You know, I just said, her life is miserable.

I get it. But I've learned, Josh, that if I really want to help that person, instead of just saying, let's deal with your overreaction, if we could go upriver, we'll find an untruth. It might be a lie. it might be just a misunderstanding or misconception. So let's find out what that is. And that'll create a false narrative, which is a narrative is what we say to ourselves and the way we see ourselves. And that then leads to the overreactions.

So I think it's really helpful in managing our thoughts to be aware that an untruth can, you mentioned a teacher who told you what was it. Well, but, you know, basically I went in, I told her I wanted to be a doctor. I was familiar in class. This is freshman year of high school. And she said, Josh, listen, you'll never get into med school.

Your GPA's too low. She's like, you know, you got enough on this paper. And then I went into a doctor. And my mom brought me because I had really severe ADHD. And he said, listen, your son has a learning disability. He's having trouble struggling here, you know, got prescribed Adderall, you know, in Ritalin. And so, but that, that's sort of that what that background was. We all have those moments.

All of us. All of us have those moments. In my case, I just didn't believe God could forgive me. Josh, by the time I was 20 years old, I was a train off the tracks. I was a drunk. I was a fighter, a brawler. I was a misogynist or racist and a hypocrite. And I just did not.

I heard sermons about God's forgiveness. And I thought, I just can't, I can't believe it. He couldn't forgive a jerk like me. Well, that's an untruth. That's an untruth. I can see why I assume that. I even had a couple of my drinking buddies tell me that. But I had to make a choice.

And 50 years ago, I'm kind of celebrating a golden anniversary of grace these days. 50 years ago, I heard a sermon that that convinced me, okay, I'm going to trust God to forgive me. So I went from an untruth to a truth. My untruth could have led to a false narrative. I'm unforgivable. I'm going to be covered in shame. It could have led to who knows the tragic overreaction, you know. But the truth, God does love me. He can forgive me. Led to an accurate narrative. I am a sinner, but I'm saved by God's grace. And the appropriate reaction is, thank you, Father. I want to do my best to help others. Now, I have let Jesus down many times in these

50 years, but he's never let me down. Yeah. Hey, by the way, to commemorate that, I got a tattoo. Wow, look at that. Yeah. Celesta, what is that? That's a Greek word when Jesus hung on the cross. Oh, right. He said, it is finished.

Yeah. It's a commercial term that means it is paid. Yeah, wow. I don't care about tattoos, but on the 50th anniversary, I thought, I want to do something. Wow. to really commemorate that. And so I found a friend who knew a friend who was a tattoo. First tattoo at 70.

I love it. Yeah, I love it. And I love it. And I show it to people. It gives me a chance to tell my story. Oh, man. I love that. That's so powerful.

You know, one of the things you mentioned earlier is that, you know, in finding the truth, what we believe about God is so critical of that. And so you mentioned somebody who might believe that there is no God. And that's going to lead to them acting. a certain way, that untruth. And somebody who believes he's a angry being in the far off distance or he's a compassionate, all-loving, you know, God and in Jesus. You know, the way that I think about is if you don't believe, if you don't believe there's a God, you know, one, to me, that's going to set someone up to have a sense of maybe pride to or maybe they sit in the metal in their God.

Yeah. Or maybe life isn't meaningless. So what I do doesn't really matter. I can kind of do whatever I want. Yep. You know, and if God's angry in the distance, and if he's angry at you, there's going to be a lot of shame and guilt in your life. No doubt. You know, and affect you that way. Versus if you have a God that's all loving, and that's what you've been exposed to,

and you know that, well, now that's how I need to act towards my kids and other people around me. It's just, it's such a sort of a domino effect of what happens with sometimes one single belief. Yeah. What we believe about God. Now, I want to ask you about this because this is something I know you've written on, and this is one of your best-selling books, is a book. about heaven. And there, I think, I think that people have maybe even a better sense or more people

about who God is. But I think probably Christians, as much as anybody, don't have a real sense of what heaven will be like. You know, there's many Bible verses, but we know even in Matthew, it's, you know, God says, do not store up treasures in heaven. You know, we're moth and rust and Steve's, you know, thieves break in and steal and destroy. So, so, so if, if our mindset should be, I am storing up treasures in heaven. And this heaven is an amazing place. But most people think of heaven as like, you know, hearts on clouds and, you know, robes and, you know, and angels. And, but it doesn't sound all that great. Yeah. Probably to people. Yeah. So I think, I think probably the person I've read who's done it the best is probably someone like C.S. Lewis. But, but I'm curious from your perspective,

and for everyone listening, like, what is heaven going to be like? Yeah. Do you have unexplainable illness, hormone dysfunction, weight loss, resistance, brain fog, and you're tired of being dismissed when you know something isn't right? Well, get my at-home testing of targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid, and metabolism, plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to help you understand your results. The truth is your doctor's probably reading your blood work all wrong. They're missing the cellular issues behind the symptoms. This new testing flips the script.

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So if you want to know the end, you go back to the beginning. And the greatest picture of heaven is a picture of paradise in the Garden of Eden. That's a picture of paradise. It's a place where Adam and Eve had perfect harmony with each other, perfect harmony with God, and perfect harmony with nature. They were co-regents with God to care for the Garden of Eden. Remember, he said, I will place man in the garden. to tend it, to care for it. So here's the image of a perfect place in which we will be responsible to care for it. We will not have sin. There will be no curse. There will be no sin, so we won't have

the curse of the sin, all the consequences, the guilt, the racism, the hurt, the anger. That'll all be gone. And we will be in a perfect paradise. I personally believe it's going to be a physical paradise. I believe God will restore the universe to its intended state. You know, Romans 8 says even nature or creation groans, groans for the return of Christ. So even our world is out of whack, right? Earthquakes and tsunamis and heat waves and that's going to all end. And Christ will restore this earth to its intended state. And he's going to restore you and me to our intended state. We'll have a mind that never wanders. Without the shoulder pain.

Not it's not. I don't have to go get a new shoulder. Yes. Yeah. And one of the most common questions I get is, but won't we be bored in heaven? No, we won't. No, we won't.

Because the reason we're bored on Earth is because our brains don't work. Our attention span doesn't work. We get distracted. We have to be stimulated and entertained. There is a new you that's going to happen in the heaven that will not require any entertainment or stimulation. And so we'll be serving, we'll be using the gifts God gives us, and Jesus, who is ever a creator, will continue to create. And who knows

what assignments we might have in our eternal state. Yeah. I mean, it's exciting to think about, you know, this brings a couple things in mind. One, I watch this, there's a really great post, somebody did on social media recently. And he talked about sort of this idea of, this idea of, of if you had twins in a womb. And I don't know if you've seen this, it's really, it's really thought provoking. But he says, if you had these two fetuses sort of talking in the womb of saying, what's it going to be like on the outside? What I'm saying, what do you mean on the outside?

This is the word it's going to be forever. And one's saying, well, what if there was, you know, this, like, you know, chocolate and the sun in this way. And he's like, that's great. You know, and it was very, and he kind of puts it like, you know, you being in the womb, like that's, that's how. much probably different when you get on the outside. It's going to be compared to how what heaven's going to be like. Absolutely. It's a challenge because we try to filter heaven through earthly physics.

Yeah. Just yesterday on the plane, actually, I'm trying to write a sermon, Josh, about the Jesus before time. You know, Jesus before the creation. Wow. And I was struggling because we don't have language for a world. that is not measured by time. But he was in a timeless eternity. Time is his idea, right? Yeah. He's not in time. Time is in him.

So in his mind, he created not just space, but time. So there I was trying to, I don't have vocabulary for that. I don't have vernacular. But that's another example that we just have to trust that our good God will create everything in the way he was intended to be and we'll enjoy that. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I try and do with myself is just do my best to sort of take these little inklings of what life is like here of the most joyous, precious moments and think about, well, that's just a, you know, a small sample of what I could be like. You know, I think about, so Chelsea and I, we did

our honeymoon in St. Lucia. And we were like in the side of a mountain, there was waterfall, you know, and we're snorkeling every day. And I'm also a big. And I'm also a big, fan like Lord of the Rings, you know, when you're reading about Rivendale and LaThorrean, I'm sort of make, you know, labeling myself as a big, big nerd here. But, you know, I love reading about those books or watching those visuals on a movie like that and looking at sort of, it reminds me of in the book of Revelation, you know, where obviously in Genesis, we start off in a garden and then, you know, Revelation 21. It's, we're in a garden city. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, but it makes me think of that or some of those best moments, you know, where I was with, again, honeymoon or whatever it is.

But that's just a small sampling. So we have so much to live for, so much to be excited about. But I think most people don't live with that eternal perspective. You know, there's a principle in the business world and the success world. And it's this. The more long term you're a thinker in terms of if you're a long term thinker, typically, the more successful you are. Yeah. Like if you're just saying, I just need to get by today.

And you're typically only thinking about week to week to week moment to moment versus if you're thinking, hey, I've got a two year plan. I've got a five-year plan. I'm trying to build towards something. You tend to be more successful. And I think about, and this is something I need to do more of, is saying, okay, I've got this eternal mindset of something I'm building towards. I think that's absolutely the case. And if you don't have that, if your understanding of your life is just limited to what

happens between the birth and the hearse, then that's going to create a certain stress. I hate to harp on the fact that I'm 70 years old, but it has been interesting to me because I have a lot of friends who are the same age, and I'm hearing them all talk about their bucket list. I like to play golf. I'm not a very good golfer, but I have eight or ten guys. We play all the time. And one of them saying, okay, I've got to get this done before I die. Oh, I want to get this done.

And they talk a lot about their bucket list. It had dawned on me, Josh, I don't have a bucket list. I don't. And it's because I know I don't have to hurry to experience things before I die. Because the greatest experience for me is going to happen after I die. And it's just taking that load off of it. Again, we're talking about thoughts, right? Yeah. And our worldview.

And so I don't live at this frantic pace of thinking. If I don't get it done, my wife or I have a friend who's in Asia and he said, I want you come. We want you to come and speak at our campus in South Korea. And I thought, that'd be great. I want to do that before I die. And then I thought, well, if I don't do it, I'll do it in the millennium. I'll do it after I die. So it creates a whole new possibility for us. I mean, that that's such a mind frame that. That's the word. Mind frame. You're in the 1% there, I think, actually, because I do think that there are very few people that have that level of sort of peace and understanding with both living now and through eternity and that

extension there. And so I love that. That's, that's, that's powerful. Well, that's available to anybody. Yeah. Yeah. It's available to anybody. I mean, I compete with the Apostle Paul for being the chief of sinners. I mean, I was a, I was a scoundrel. Yeah. You know, but the Lord's grace was, was kind to me and he's blessed me. I've let him down many times, but he's never let me down. Wow, that's so true. That's so true. Can I give you my third tool? I love it. Yeah, please. Please do. Because this one's a really important one. Yeah. So there's three tools. Practice picky thinking, just because you have a thought, you don't have to think about it. Practice UFO identify the untruth as leading to the false narrative that's creating the overreaction.

And then this is really important. You've got to uproot and replant. This is similar to some of the teachings in your book. Think this, not that. But you uproot, you've got to say, okay, that is a thought I'm not going to have. And you get deliberate about it, right? You get focused on it just a couple of days ago. I realized a friend had not returned a text to me,

and it was a bit of a tense text. He and I were having a hard discussion. And it had been two or three days, I hadn't heard from him. And so my mind began to spiral. Oh, he must be mad at me. Oh, I ticked him off. Oh, he's not going to be more.

I mean, before I knew it, Josh, I had gone down into a quagmire of negative thoughts. And I had to practice when I'm preaching. Yeah. I had to uproot that. Say, wait a second. I don't know that. That's not true. I'm going to uproot that.

So I literally kind of pull it out, get vicious, get intentional. And then, but you've got to replant. You've got to pull that thought out and replan it with truth. And this is why scripture is so important. You take a scripture that I urge people to memorize five scriptures. It's so good. You know, when my mom was battling with cancer the second time, we decided to take an all natural approach. We said we're not doing conventional treatments.

we're going to really focus on healing her mind, body, and spirit. We started juicing vegetables, doing turmeric and rishi mushroom, all kinds of, you know, very specific protocol. But one of the biggest differences between that first time and that second time was we said, we're going to really focus on spiritual healing. And we're going to go and address some of my mom's biggest lets. My mom was a real people pleaser. If somebody said something negative to her, it was just crushing to her.

So there was a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, a lot of worry. And we went and addressed those things. She started pulling those things up by the root. And then she reinforced it by reading your books. And I remember Joyce Meyer had a book Battlefield of Mine and there's other. Like she read a lot of these books. And then she had about 10 verses, you know, that she kept saying over and over and over of God's promises for healing God truths about her and her identity.

And my mom beat cancer naturally. Her tumor shrunk. Amazing. Yeah. And I believe that a lot of diseases, even cancer more than any, there is a very deep spiritual and mental root that's feeding those tumors. It's feeding that disease. so if we can go and get to the root, the body can heal.

Absolutely. And I think people don't really typically understand to the degree of which our spiritual and mental health impacts our physical health. And this is why, you know, I want to encourage people to get your book. You got a great book here. It's tame your thoughts. I want encourage everybody to check out Max's new book. Listen, he's authored 44 books.

He's kind of good at what he does by now after 44 books. And so, and this is such a good book for anyone out there. If you're saying to yourself, I do have negative. thoughts. I have guilt. I have shame. I have anxiety. I have worry. I'm depressed. And you want to start embracing the mind of Christ and thinking differently. This is a great book. The other thing I like about it, it's not, it's not like the size of a, you know, of a the thoris. I can say it's a, it's a book that you can, you know, that you can read over the course of a week and literally transform the way you think with this book, you know, having the Bible alongside it especially. And it can be incredibly

hang so I want to encourage you check out get the book it's in bookstores nationwide it's on amazon dot com it's called tame your thoughts by max locato and just want to say max thanks so much for coming on it's it really is truly an honor like i said i've read your books my family's read your books and um again it's just you're doing a great work josh you are and you're blessing people instructing people and providing people with practical tools as well as products that can change their lives forever. So thank you. And God's richest, richest blessings be upon you for the remainder of your life. I receive it. Thanks so much, Max. Well, hey, everybody, thanks so much for tuning to here with the Dr. Josh Axe show. Remember, each and every week, we're diving deep into the science

and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually. Also, remember, take those thoughts captive, uproot them, replace them with the truth, that biblical truth. And, hey, if you're watching on YouTube, we'd love to hear from you. What is the biggest piece of advice that you learned here from Pastor Lucado today. We'd love to hear from you on that. Have you read any of his books? What are your biggest takeaways? Hey, please share that with us here.

And by the way, so many people need to know this truth on how to heal their mind, their emotions, grow spiritually. So thank you all of you for sharing. Thank you for subscribing. We'll see you on the next episode.