Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 798 | Phil Declares the 1 Thing Couples Should Avoid & All Games Are Blood Sport to a Robertson

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Phil and the guys agree that there’s one thing every couple should avoid, and it’s advice they’ve all lived by their entire lives. Jase can’t believe how much food his houseguests have consumed during their stay. Guest Dr. Trent Langhofer of Colorado Christian University and personal friend of the Robertson family gives insight into how Jesus is the perfect answer for anyone who suffers from trauma, pain, or addiction.  — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashame. We got Zach for a little while. Zach's already informed us he has to leave after the first break. Zach, you're a man on the move. That's all I can say. You're always a mover and a shaker. I think secretly you're creating one of my movie ideas and you're figuring out how to make it your own. He's got a team of writers. Is it the good zombies? Is it the revelation idea?

Yeah. What was some of the other movies I had? I don't know. You weren't writing them down? If I do one, if I do one, it's going to be the revelation. We're going to do a new revelation movie. Well, when you do the horse scene, I would like to be. a character riding one of the horses, preferably the white one or that red one.

Wait a minute, which one is, what Teamstone say? What was that line? He quoted Revelace. Oh, yeah. He'll be riding a pale white horse and hell's coming with him. Yeah. But we won't have to do that. He'll hear me.

Hell's coming with me. But he rode a black horse in the movie the whole time. That's what it was kind of weird because he had a memory because he goes up and the guy's getting his horse off the train and he whipped that. And he took that whip and whipped him. He said, Harts Don't it. Yeah.

Yeah, he did. That's got to be the most, that's got to be the most quotable movie of all time. It is. And it's funny, you think you wouldn't want to watch a movie that you quote all the time, but I can't help myself. When it's on,

I'm watching and I'm quoting. I do too. One of my favorite movies. It is. Oh, you're not, you're not wearing a bustle. Yeah,

it's gotten me in trouble a few time. Yeah, I know. So, uh, did you tell anybody about our, her little secret last night. Did you reveal that to your guest? Some of them are in the room.

Well, my guest, I have a family that's really close to me, and we just, we formed a bond over. I guess we can tell that story, because later we may have a guest to parents. That's right. We have a surprise guest in a few moments. But the lovely wife, I did tell her because she didn't, when this eating, happen because last night was meatloaf because missy's meatloaf i mean it it's interesting when we talked about the christmas episode that one of the reasons you gave missy the possible thumbs up

for the christmas episode and pulling off the famous crawfish pies that miss k makes was you brought up that meatloaf oh it wasn't one of the reasons it was the reason it was the only reason now look We've talked a lot on this whole reason. Podcast, although it is one of the greatest things you'll ever eat, there is a catch. And I tried to warn the male members of this family that was down with me. That looks like that's way too much because they had five times a helping that I had. Knowing this family that you have over five times more than what you would normally cook is about right. No, on their plate, I fixed my plate.

And I eat, you know, pretty good. they had five times the helping the poor plate you felt sorry for it because you thought but the owls point but the owl's point the patriarch of this family that you're talking of said family this man can eat i've never i mean the only guy that can come close is christian uh huff but i'm not even sure that he can he's not quite there but he is in the neighborhood you know how you get a square of lasagna like in a square you know like a you know like a man-sized square this man ate four squares at my house. I mean, that's impressive.

It's like, I don't know how he lived through the process. But so, yeah, it was. So, so. And Missy's meatloaf is just as good as mom. So she's pulled, she nails the meatloaf. Fantastic. So, I mean, I know, you know, if you're following along on the podcast, days go by before we get together and do podcasts, then days are released. So, so, you know, we had, we were.

We actually did a Christmas episode in Nashville, Tennessee. For your treasure show. And we just acted like it was Christmas. We just did Christmas, and they filmed it. Well, it is December, so you're in the month. You're in the month. Everybody knows when you have a holiday episode, you had to film it for a while. Yeah, we're not doing the Christmas episode live.

I hate to have a spoiler alert here. Spoiler alert. It must be edited. We're not filming the actual Roberts and Family Christmas. So, but here's the key thing. thing before I tell you how this turned out when I told my wife that I had shared this story on the podcast and I said we all went around and said I wanted to know this yeah placed our thumbs up or thumbs down on whether you could pull this off well she she perked up then and she said well what

it feels say and I said he actually said don't don't doubt her I think she can pull We were all three. And she was like, are you serious? She's like, he supported me in this. And I don't know if it was some kind of intervention. We may have broken that shrimp scare from 30 years ago. That was a generational curse was broken in that moment. That's healing.

That's it, man. The curiosity turned into some kind of intervention, counseling. So right now, my wife, she is looking at you very favorably, you know, that you supported her and was believing in her. And so I would tell you how it turned out. That's got the cigar store in the end look. Yeah, how did it turn out? Because you guys made the pies, right?

So what? I didn't realize the last time we had this discussion. You already knew how I was going to turn out. No, I do now. So what are we right now? Okay. Yeah, I do now. And so I, as much as I would like to tell you, I feel like I should take this opportunity.

It's a tease. To say, this is. well worth the watch. This is a cliff hang. Yeah. So December 17th, you will have the opportunity. If you all cable. It's going to be on cable.

Yeah, big fox. So we're 10, that'd be about 10 days from now. 10 days from now. Find out. Now, I will say this. How the crawfish pie turned out is the undercard. And it's spectacular. So there's a bigger message than the...

There is a bigger message. And for the first time in my TV, career, I felt like this episode, the way it turned out, especially because Jesus is not only involved, but is the focus. I'm really proud of this. I tell you what, yesterday's funny that I didn't know we were going to talk about this today, but I watched the Christmas tree lighting that they do every on Fox. They do it on the Five, and I watched it last night. And I was so impressed, not with the Fox people. I mean, that was all okay. But they had a Baptist preacher pray, and then they had a Jewish guy just speak.

And, of course, you know, with everything going on with Israel, but his stuff was so good. And then they had the Catholic Cardinal of New York. But all three were outstanding. And I was just, I was so impressed that they took 10 minutes on the air at 5 o'clock in their biggest show on their program, on their network. And we're giving glory to God from three different groups. And all of it was very unifying in its tone. but so just to say now this episode is going to be on that same thing so you know so wait for it

the last five minutes i thought i think the lord just intervened because i don't want to take credit for it because i was i was kind of amazed we just did christmas i mean our show contrary to what you know what you would think is there's no script and we just did what we do and they filmed it and put it together but i really think this will excite you and inspire you. And people who don't know Jesus or never consider Jesus, I think in this moment, this could be a moment. Yeah.

It was really good. That's good. And the crawfish pie, I'll just say, watch and see how it turned out. Because it was, it was Roman gladiator. It was Roman gladiator style. You know what I mean? It was. Just clarify, you're not going to even tell the three of us.

Are you, is that what that's what? They said, watch us out. No, I want you to watch it. Watch it. What else you got to do? December 17. What's going on? To Sunday night.

There you go. I'm going to be watching Duck Family Treasure. Great cooking is always, to end up with great cooking, cooking has to be critiqued. Well, we critiqued it. So the great chefs of the world from time to time, the big dogs, they get about the 10 that are known to be in that business. and they each cook the same thing. Yeah. They all, the ten of them cook, all right, some kind of roast.

So they cook it, some kind of deal. And they all ten, then eat it. Yeah. Well, then they vote on it. Right. And if the vote comes out, you know, six or better, seven, whatever, majority rules, they take that to heart. Yeah.

Well, see, the power of... That's basically what the Robertson clan does. Critique it, because if you don't, And you brag on bad cooking or you just shut up and just eat it and throw up later, I mean, you're better off to critique it and say, let's, yeah. You don't have to give a thumbs up or thumbs down if the table immediately starts gagging. Throw it up later. Then that was.

Well, I will say, I got to give you credit, Uncle Phil, because when I got married, that was probably the one piece of advice you gave me that has stuck in I crawl. And you, you said it. If you compliment bad food, then that's what you'll get the rest of your marriage. And so, yeah, we, if you brag on bad food, that guarantees you're going to get, you're going to have it cooked like that. Guarantees. So we implemented early in our, in our marriage, both of us.

We're going to have an open dialogue about, about this. And we're going to, we're going to properly critique. And the cuisine has gotten way better over the years, you know, we, we keep, we keep changing things. Well, I think what happened was, because I asked me to say, I was like, look, Because I could tell you she was kind of nervous about this. Because we were already agreed, good or bad, we're going with it. I mean, if it's not good, it just didn't work out. And she's like, I'm not sure I'm ready to do this on national television.

I was like, well, you need to make that decision. So she said, good or bad, I'll do it. No matter how it turns. Because that is a lofty thing in our family. I mean, it is like part of the top five. holy dishes of the spiritual season. I mean, it is fantastic. Because to Phil's point...

If you would have really wanted to up there, you would have had Dad on as a special guest as the critiqueer. Now, that would have been high drama. Well, they, through the power of editing, you know, they set this thing up because I was nervous for her. And I thought, I'm just going to tell it like it is. And so...

You were going to play the role of dad. I mean, it's drum roll. It's here we're. we go. And the road to fill will be, Jay. You could tell Missy's a little nervous, and it's like, you know, what are we going to have here? It's the ultimate cliffhanger. We had a woman introduced us at an event recently, and I had done their premarital counseling like 15 or 20 years ago. And so when she introduced Lisa and I to come up and speak that she's the one of the guys to come there, she said, you know, Mr. Allen was doing our premarital. We were young. We were so excited. I couldn't wait for his words of wisdom.

And the first thing he said in the counseling was, Austin, whatever you do, if Kelly serves you bad food, don't compliment it because you're going to eat bad food the rest of your life. I gave Dad's line as my oh-ed. She said, I was so disappointed. Oh, it's funny. Yeah, but has it worked out? I mean, you guys have it open. She said, actually, you were right. But, I mean, it was just, I was expecting, like, all these, you know, flowery pearls of wisdom out of a book.

Instead, they got, don't compliment bad food, you'll get it the rest of your life. Which is the truth statement. So what's funny is, Missy's like, well, are you nervous about it? And I was like, well, no. But I'm nervous for you. I said, but they just asked me to do a one-minute speech before we do this meal. And I was like, and I told her what I was thinking. She said, no, that's way too complex, way too deep.

And then she gave me a one-minute speech about not really what I should say, but just, about the season in general, and I was like, well, that's what I need to say. So I really, when you watch this, because two minutes later, I gave that speech. And it was basically because I was moved so much by what my wife said about the way I should been thinking of the simplicity of what we have in Jesus. I want to give her credit for that. Well, I've already decided after this episode airs, we're having Missy on the podcast because I want to get her I want to get her version of it.

Plus, I just like watching Jay Squirm on the podcast with Missy's own, which is fantastic. All right, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we have a special guest. We've been to Louie. He's been listening in to all this, the Big Eater himself, Mr. Trent Langhoeffer is here. So we'll see him and have him set up on this. And let me say, before we break, I'm going to, I'm in a bolt. So tell the man not to bash me when I'm not here since I was throwing him under the bus for,

I'm eating too much. I'm sure. Wait until I get back and then he can throw me under the bus. I'm sure nobody will throw you under the bus. Well, come back and see us, Zach. We'll see you. Y'all never do that when I'm not around. All right, let's take it.

Welcome back to Unashame. We jettisoned Zach, and we've brought the brain power up some by bringing in Mr. Trent Langhofer. I was going to say Mr. Tratt. We need to get convinced Trent to stay on for another podcast since we're celebrating Thanksgiving. together and have Zach so they can use these words that I've never heard of. So this is, so Trent, so we, uh, Maddie got, Maddie got Alex got Chase this because we

make fun of Zach for using big words all the time. But I just thought about when you sat down because you are a preacher for a few years. And Trent did a lot of like bad pun preacher jokes as part of his stick. And it was really funny because he was like funny by being, not funny. Yeah. So it made you laugh. It's an old... Laughter as a result of pity.

Exactly. It's kind of a Johnny Carson. It always worked. Every time I... Because most of time when I say something that people laugh at, I'm going to have a confession here. I was not trying to be funny. And so I'm shocked that they're laughing.

So I'll say, why are you laughing, which gets another laugh. You're looking all around saying, who are they? What? Well, I'm looking down to make sure, you know, I got my pants zipped up or whatever. You know, I figure I'm doing something stupid. But then when I try to be funny, most of the time, they don't laugh. And so then I say, well, I thought that was funny.

But then they laugh. It's the same concept. It's a pity laughter because my joke was so funny to me, but it wasn't funny. Exactly, which is what I used to. So we play this whenever exactly as a word, but I thought about this. could work well for your jokes. That's about right. It's fitting.

It works. Yeah, I use that from time to time. Like when Zach says, he asked me how a fella viewed dispensationalism and it was just. Crickage. I thought, is that a disease? It sounds too complex for a disease. It sounds like it's pain. Right.

For sure. And the fact that it just rolled off his tongue. He had practiced saying that. Oh, yeah. You could never use that. He had some with more syllables than that. You could never use that in a Scrabble game, which is my limit. So when Trent, if it's seven letters or less.

Seven letters, eight possibly if you made it plural. Because then you could use all your words, I mean, all your letters and get 50 points. But if it's over eight, eight letters, I'm really not interested. I think that's on you. You should have shortened it and made it more simple. So you're saying the Scrabble piece. people had it about right. They got it about right.

That should be the rule for all English vocabulary and interaction. And then Willie spent two years studying the dictionary for all words that had high value numbers on the letter on a scrowable board in short words. See, because you got XI. Because to really score. So he studied, he became, he got to where he won all the time because he had memorized all these short words with the high. numbers on the towel. Because X-I is a Greek letter. Yeah, it's exactly right.

So it was a word. It was in the Scrabble Dictionary. Of course, we had to fight over which dictionary we used. It was quite the child. That sounds intense. Quite this intense childhood. It's why I don't really play games anymore. It's just, it's not any fun if it's not a blood sport, right?

Yeah, see, it's like J.A. Have you ever said that? It's German for yes. But it'll get you to use your J. in multiple ways on a scrabble board. So at the end, you'd run out of places, so you've got to stick that. You see what I mean? So if you can find a place where there's two A's and you can sneak that J right there on a triple

letter, you're going to get that twice. I will be a better Scrabble player as a result of our time. See, you would come in and you'd be pretty good. You have a nice vocabulary and you would think, oh, I'll do pretty well at this. But then you would sit down with us. Somebody plays a jaw. Oh, and then they're just doing all these excise and JAs, and you're like, nope. It's an eight.

So if you get a triple letter, that's eight times three, 24, twice because you went jaja. Ja, ja. So that's 50. Which is more than you get for doing your. Have you ever played Scrabble? Not with guys like you. It humiliates me. I try to.

See, as low IQ as I am, you get me on a Scrabble board and I'll just, I'll disment. Trans played Scrabble at the level of like when you're at a cookout and they say, hey, you want to go play some volleyball until the bird. workers are ready? That's a game. Exactly. And then you've got the game the way we used to play it where people were hurt at the end of it. Like, I want to walk away from every game of Scrabble I play on my own two feet. I was sitting there and Dan came up to me and he said, take a look at this and on the little device y'all carry around these little cell phone things they call them. And on that, it was a picture of me and I was just walking and they said, not woke. I love that

But Phil didn't know what that meant No I said Because dad's like I'm awake I'm awake I'm awake I mean he's awake He's awake he's not woke That's right

He's not woke That's great But I thought Boy now that's the kind of information That's being filled into Young people's heads Just think about it New words are popping up

Each month we live They come up with another word And everybody One of them is computers, cell phones. What in the world does that mean, really? Yeah, and then they changed the meaning of it. So, Trent, since we taught, you were listening, so since we talked about your eating acumen,

which is you've had a long, because you were, you were here, how long were you? Ten years. Ten years. Ten years. Ten years. Ten years. You look. Yeah.

So. When you were 15. Yeah. Went by like lightning. Well, I all have to lose. Look at his son and I realized that because age. His son is 14. And it's just a beast.

He's taller than all of us. And continues the Langhofer eating tradition from what I hear. Because he's not sure what he's eating because he told me y'all had pork chops last night. Pork chops, meatloaf. And if you said meatloaf, but I was like, hey, Adrian, that's a whole different genre. Not even. Because I was like, did James fry them up? And he said, no, Miss Missy made them.

I said, huh? Missy made pork chops. She does. She does make those pork chops like Kay does. But I think when you're 14, It really, it's more about the quantity than exactly what it is. My favorite, Trent, of course, I mentioned that the lasagna, at least I made lasagna one night. And he just...

Best lasagna I've ever had to this day. And he destroyed it. It was so good. And Lisa does make a good one. But my favorite one is we were having a staff meeting back when we worked together. We only worked together a little while because then I left and Trent took over. But we were having this meeting and it was a lunch meeting. And so, you know, we were 30 minutes an hour away from the lunch getting there.

But we're talking. And so Trent starts breaking out Tupperware containers. And I'm watching him. And people are just talking, you know. And I said, I saw him getting it out. And, I mean, he had a big old huge, like, ribby steak in there and some others, a big old potato. And I was like, Trent, did they not tell you we ordered food? It'll be here in about 30 or 40 minutes.

He said, oh, yeah, I know. This is called the undercard. This is the warm. It was an appetizer. It was a 22-ounce ribby steak with all the trimmings. And he ate the whole thing. The food shows up 45 minutes later, and he does the full deal again. Got to lock in.

Power through. But you told me something one time because we got to be good friends in your 10 years. And not that we have a whole lot in common, Trent. Right. You didn't hunt much back then. I guess we got awesome wives, and we love Jesus. And so Trent would pose as my bodyguard at some events that we did because he's got the look. And now the skills, you were actually.

He was an MMA fighter for one fight, right? I did fight in one professional cage fight. The way that I tell the story is... You ended a champion. You can tell based on how that fight turned out. You can tell based on my career choice or my profession how that fight turned out. So I got beat up for three rounds. So it wasn't a knockout.

It didn't get knocked out. Yep. Thankfully, apparently I really do have a hard head. But got beat up really bad for three rounds. And my beautiful bride, Kirsten, said it's either this or me, easiest decision I've ever made in my whole life. hung up the MMA gloves for a life of ministry. If she thought if I hang around and you take these sort of beatings, you're not going to be good for much. I don't have that many more beatings left.

You never really think about that in the movies. What is the wife thinking where you're just being pumped? She's like, you know, come on, there's got to be another way to humiliate yourself. So he did have that. Yep. So he did know how to fight. But he wasn't really, he didn't have, did he have a weapon? I did not have a weapon.

but I would have jumped in front of you and someone else. I could have at least bought you some time. I could have bought you some time. He was going to practice the. That's right. He's a large, but he told me one thing, you know,

and you can tell us your story that I've heard. And we were talking about it in the duck blind as I just randomly. But he said something one time that when you were not with the Lord and own drugs and all, you were real skinny. Yeah. You said, if you ever see me real skinny, come talk to me.

Yeah. Every time I see you, I'm like, yes, he's doing, he's doing great. A little bit on that. He's still thick. Let's take another break. So I want to tell before, because I want Trent to tell the story, we did a little bit. He was on before, but you were zooming in, and we talked about a lot of other stuff. So I want you to tell your story today because it's amazing.

But I want to tell Trent, how I met Trent. He was here in school to get his doctorate in counseling. And so I didn't know him well, but I kept hearing good things about him. in his family. They kept saying, there was this young family, and they were here. And so you were actually now just a few months away from finishing. So you'd been around for a year or two. And so I had not met you, or maybe we had met, but I didn't know you very well. And so we did this marriage class. And it was some of the same people we did marriage retreat with, Joe Neal and Tommy Eminemann, and, you know, all of our marriage crew. And so they said, you need to get Trent to speak. And I said,

oh, really? And they said, oh, yeah, yeah, I think he'll do a good job. So, so I'm, I'm, setting up the class so i have trint in the lineup so trink gets up well i'm blown away i mean he is talented speaker and it just shot me because i didn't know him so i was like how's this guy like he's been around here like so i'm just you know curious and so he speaks does a great job and so tommy enman is sitting next to me and Tommy was supposed to teach the next week well i wanted to see if like this was just a he was a one-hit wonder yeah or he could pull it all so i'm in i'm always in talent search, you know, I was working for the church. I leaned over and told him and I said, you're out next week.

And I was like, what? What happened? I said, we're going to have to see if this guy can pull it off on short notice. So that was your first test, which you never knew was would he say yes? Yeah. To next week. He did. Got back up the next week, even better.

So after that one, I told Trent, I said, Trim, I said, why don't you come by my office one day this week? I'd like to visit with you, find out what your plans are. And you came by. Yep. You told me a little bit about your. story then, and then I heard more about that later from Bonnie Phillips, which is kind of amazing because she was your counselor. And, you know, you told me you were going to Kansas. You kind of had

lined up. You were going to be associate pastor under Kierston's grandpa. That's right. Because you had a job set up, and I was like, well, that's all great because I said, I would never want to keep you from doing what guys leading you to do. But after you being here and finding out a little bit more about your story, if something ever happens, you know, you decide to make a change somewhere down the road, I said, just, I would love it if you call me and say, hey, where are you guys at? Because I said, I just think you would be an amazing fit with our church. And so a few months later, before you ever left, things changed with that situation. And you said, were you serious about that? I was like, yeah, I was serious. Hustin, now, look, this is just me. We got a whole leadership here.

I said, but I would love to work something out. Yeah. Well, we did. And Trent wound up coming on our staff, and he wound up being our pastor and preaching for several years. So what y'all didn't, know either one of you is that after he spoke that son because i didn't know y'all were doing the marriage thing yeah i wrote a note to every pastor who who wasn't currently speaking yeah because i didn't want to hurt their feelings and he's my brother and the other guy and uh i said y'all need to hire this guy man there you go wow so i guess it worked there were a lot of things working in your favor too god showed me so much favor down here one of the when i called when we were good going to hire you and when you, you know, came to work for us, I called Bonnie because she was the only

person, and this is Bill Phillips, my best man in my wedding. It's his wife. He's now known as W.E. That's right. And so, um, I call Bonnie and I said, tell me about Trent Langhofer because we're thinking about hiring him. I said, do you think that's a good call? And she, she just, she didn't say anything. She was just silent for like an awkward minute. And I thought, uh-oh, this is something bad. I'm thinking bad. And then she starts talking and her voice is breaking. And, you know, she's in tears. And then I'm like, are you okay? And she said, I just, the fact we're having this conversation is such an amazing gift

from God. Yeah, miracle. Yeah, miracle. And she said, this man. And then she went to tell me all the great things about what God's done your life. So that's my setup for you to tell us what got you to the point where then you would be with us for this. Yeah.

It's a cool story. If I break in for a break, just keep doing. That's great. Yeah, so, Alan, my story is really a modern day miracle. I think for your audience, my hope would be that if anybody out there is still struggling in addiction or with a mental health issue or really any other thing imaginable, there really is hope in Jesus Christ. and if Jesus Christ can transform my life, any life on the planet can be transformed. I was definitely the definition of a hopeless case. And so I'm thankful. You know, and God has consistently, I'm excited to get to share this with you guys today, but God has really consistently just shown me

favor time and time and time again. And so even if you're not struggling, you know, for some people in your guys' audience, you're a Christian, you've been serving Christ for years, and you just feel beat up and road weary. Hold on, you know, keep fighting, keep the faith, stay hopeful. Galatian 6-9, I have had come to pass in my life time and time again. Do not grow weary in doing good for at just the right time. You will reap a harvest if you don't give up. So please, if you're out there and just back,

through anything, do not give up. God is faithful, and you will reap a harvest if you don't give up. I'll share some of my story. So my early childhood experience was traumatic. I could get into, you know, specific details. But so I'll mention this. My current vocation right now, I'm a professor at Colorado Christian University in their graduate counseling program. And I oversee a counseling agency that Colorado Christian University started to provide students in their graduate counseling program with the opportunity to get their direct contact with client experience that they're required to get before they graduate. They brought you in.

Right. Literally hired you to begin this whole thing. To launch that agency. You were their guy. Let's take another break. So yeah, Colorado Christian University hired me to launch an agency. My family and I moved to Colorado Springs in March of 2020, a really convenient time to relocate a family. In case you've forgotten, that's when the pandemic began.

That's exactly right. So you basically moved to Colorado and just stayed at the house. That's exactly right. You started working from you. It was crazy. I've been in counseling for over a decade at that point, and I knew how to launch a counseling agency, but I had no idea how to do that during COVID. COVID. And so I'm praying and terrified and developed this little elevator pitch that I sent to

every church and parachurch organization in my local community. And what was really interesting is that every leader of every church and parochurch organization was doing what I was doing. They're sitting at home, not really sure what they should be doing, kind of cruise in social media. And so I slid into the DMs of people who had time to talk and they wanted to meet via Zoom. And, and I was a lot. And, And so again, God's timing really is perfect. There wasn't a better time in recent history to launch an agency like the Community Counseling Center at CCU just because of how inflamed underlying mental health issues became and how available people were for the first six months of COVID. So I launched that agency. We now have 27 providers.

We see about 200 families a week. And I would like to think I'm not the worst counselor on the planet. but God really does show favor to his people. And there really are not that many Christ-centered people-loving counseling agencies on the planet. So we try to really, really love Jesus in everything we do and really love people. And those are the people that changed my life. People that really love Jesus and were unapologetically committed to the gospel. And people that really loved the group of people on the planet that are tough to love.

Yeah, that's how we got to be friends. That's right. We share that. Yeah. So I think God puts you in that situation, too, just because now we have this identity crisis in our country. And that's starting, you know, younger and younger as we go along. Maybe the cell phones are contributing to it or, you know, whatever. But, I mean, there's definitely a need when you have gotten that many people involved in such a short period of time.

No question. Well, and I do think, and this is just anecdotal. have any, you know, data to back this up, but from two guys I know, you've been one, Trent, Kevin Neiman is another one, who came through the same program you did, worked with us, worked in our Christian Counseling Center in West Monroe, and now has an amazing practice in Tulsa. You bet. And is doing great things. But both of you guys, for two of the best I know, who I, you know, recommend highly.

And, but you both went through experiences that made you want to do this because of your own rescue. And it was the same with him. You know, he went through a traumatic divorce and had never, you know, knew how he was going to survive that. And that led him to want to help people and especially a couple. So, you know, I think it is interesting that your life experiences and your rescue and restoration seem to have a lot to lead you into what you're doing now. No question. Yeah. So I'll back up, you know, my early life, I have some traumatic experience. And in mental health counseling, which this is what caused me to kind of chase that rabbit trail and share with everybody what I'm up to now, in mental health counseling, when people go through early life adversity, the result is what we would call the vulnerable host phenomenon. There's some of those seven-letter scrabble.

Vulnerable host phenomenon. So in everyday Jace language, that means you're vulnerable. That's right. And something happened kind of out of your control. That's exactly right. There you go. All right. Well, I got it.

Yeah. Yeah. So human beings are designed by God to compulsively seek relief from pain. And we understand that instinctively, right? You touch a hot stove and what do you do? You pull your hand away from the stove. You don't have to think consciously about the transfer of kinetic energy through the phospholipid bilayer of my skin, making contact with the nerve endings in my finger.

that transmits an action potential to the pain sensing region of our brain. If you do think about that. That means, let me translate that. Can you translate that? Yes. That's what I don't know. Yes. Because I heard phospholite.

No. You ready? Phospholipid bilayer. You ready for the translation? Ow. That's exactly right. That's right. That's what I meant to say.

Like when I was telling you my story, we had an interesting conversation. Because, you know, when you go duck hunting, you get up at 355. And legal shooting hours is not. not till 6-11. Yeah. Because it takes us literally that long to get there and get set up. But we're talking along the way. And I was telling him, you know, something that, because Trent and I come from two totally

different backgrounds. That's right. And we're, you know, I consider him one of my closest friends for what we have in Jesus and our love for people. But I was saying, you know, when I was a kid and Phil, which the movie's well documented now, so I don't have to tell you all that story. But, you know, when you're looking at it. looking around and there's chaos.

And of course, this was before y'all were Christians. You know, I guess that was my phenomenon, vulnerable phenomenon. So I just said, basically to heck with all them, I'll just do my own thing. And so it kind of made me real shy. I was telling you, my biggest problem, what to overcome was being really shy and kind of self-righteous, you know. Right. So which it comes to you in various forms. It plays out in different ways.

I tell Lisa's been on our podcast and told she was sexually abused as a child. And what that built into her with her vulnerable host situation was a dis, but one is a dishonesty, keeping of secrets because you couldn't. And the second one was how she thought her purpose was with men, as opposed to her real purpose who God made her, who she was. And so she didn't figure that out until she was 33 years old. So obviously we went through a long time Of trying to figure that out

Before she understood that So yeah, we can speak directly Well Trent and I were talking And I basically said, you know, I was counseled Because Trent was kind of questioning me Like well, when did you come to realize that? You know, and really I thought about I didn't say this this morning, but I want to say it now

I thought about and for what you do I thought about John 14 When Jesus said in verse 16 This is right before. It's kind of the same place we're at in Luke, which he's fixed to go, die and be buried and resurrect. He had just predicted Peter's betrayal. But it says, I will ask the father,

because he was saying, I'm going away. And he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth. Somewhere, you know, I told you about two years after I came to Christ when I was 14, I kind of had that conclusion that I thought, being a Christian was not doing wrong. And I was kind of bitter and had a chip on my shoulder and exalted myself.

Where in every time I didn't do something wrong, I thought, well, I'm better. I'm better than these other weeks. But that's a million miles away from the grace of Jesus Christ. And it was only setting myself up for a miserable life. Right. And I talked about that in my sermon Sunday because I did the parable of the signs. Yeah. And Jason and I, him be, I'm the older brother and he's the younger brother, but in the story, we're flipped.

We actually were. That's what the point I was getting. Yeah. But I didn't want to hijack your story. So when did that, going back to your childhood. Yeah. So before we do that, let's take our last one. Yeah. So that vulnerable host phenomenon thing, sometimes when I'm talking about that concept to our students at CCU, I reference.

you know, are pain relief seeking compulsion, like human beings are designed to seek relief from pain. And like we were saying, I think most of us understand that regarding physical pain, but much less intuitive and much more difficult to understand is how we seek relief from emotional pain. And you were talking about Lisa's experience or J.C., even some of yours. And so if I'm in a church and I ask the audience, how do you seek relief from emotional pain? I get answers like most of your audience is thinking about right now. They say, oh, Trent, you pray about it or you talk with somebody you love and trust about it. You dig into God's word. And those are all great answers. And they're right. That's exactly how you relieve emotional pain. But what if something hurts you emotionally when

you're five years old, you know, or seven years old or 12 years old? Or 12 years old. that early in life, praying about or studying the Bible, about or talking to a trusted other about what hurts me, none of us had developed our way, developed ourselves to that point yet. Yeah. And so the answer to how you relieve emotional pain is you don't know until you learn. And that makes you vulnerable to learning things that ease the pain that actually cause more of it long term. And so that's the vulnerable host phenomenon. I do want to tell the story about the guys that developed this theory.

So there were two surgeons, bariatric surgeons, about 40 years ago in the late 1980s. And they were running the San Diego Department of Preventive Medicine's Weight Loss Program. And these doctors realized that the patients they were treating who were most, successful in their weight loss program were also the most likely to drop out. And so it was this paradoxical discovery and these doctors could not understand why in the world are the people who are the best performers in our weight loss program also the most likely to drop out. So they interviewed 200 of the patients that had dropped out. And what they discovered is that of those 200 patients, like 95% had endured at least one adverse experience in childhood.

Most had endured two or more. And so the way this works, I sometimes tell this fictional story. Let's say I was raised in a family and both my parents worked. And let's say I'm 10 years old. And when I get home from school, I'm by myself. And so I'm kind of snacking around, you know, just passing the time before my parents get home. But let's say one day I'm in the fourth grade and I get bullied really, really badly that day. And I am watching the clock tick just desperate to get on the bus and head home. And finally,

after what feels like an eternity, the end of the school day, bell rings, I get on the bus. Some kids are bullying me on the bus. Finally, I get off the bus. I get to my house. I slam the front door behind me and I take a deep breath feeling peace for the first time that day. And like every fourth grader when he gets home from school, I'm a little bit hungry. So let's say I go to the cupboard and I open it up and I find one of Dr. T's favorite indulgence is a honey bun. I used to eat them by the box. They're good.

They're good. They're bad. They're so good. They're bad. That's right. And so let's say I eat one. Okay. So in that moment, I get the expected primary benefit.

of satisfaction of my hunger. But in that moment, I get an unexpected, much more powerful secondary benefit. And as my body metabolizes the simple sugar and the honey bun and releases it into my bloodstream, it crosses the blood-brain barrier. My brain releases the neurochemicals dopamine and serotonin. And as my brain releases those chemicals, the secondary benefit I, get that's really pronounced is a little bit of an easing of the emotional pain I felt that day because of the bullying.

Yeah. And so this particular day, I don't just eat one honey bun. I blow through the whole box. Yeah. I've had those moments. And you guys know me well. You know, I've had a lot of those moments. But in this specific example, the reason that I eat all those honey buns is not because I'm

that hungry. It's because I'm hurt that bad. Yeah. And my brain in that moment has learned. eating a honey bun eases the emotional pain. So my parents get home. I go to bed.

I wake up the next day kind of dreading school and I walk in the door to my school building and all those bullies are standing right there and they start saying mean, hurtful things to me again.

And I re-experience that familiar emotional pain that I had lived through the day before. But this day, something really strange happens is they're bullying me all of a sudden

I feel a little bit hungry. and I get the taste of something in my mouth. A honey bun. And so what happened in this example is that my brain learned, a honey bun, eased emotional pain. And so when I feel emotional pain again, my brain triggers me to crave the thing that it knows

eases emotional pain, which in this specific example is a honey bun. And this is what Dr. Felidi and Dr. Anda, those two doctors, who were working in the San Diego Department of Preventive Medicine's weight loss clinic discovered that the people they were treating were using food to ease the pain of adverse experiences that they had lived through. And as people in their weight loss program lost weight and improved, their pain became inflamed and they dropped out of the program. So these guys started treating underlying emotional pain and stopped treating weight gain.

and almost spontaneously healed people's obesity and in so doing also healed their underlying emotional. You could probably apply that same principle to so much of what people show. Where it's pornography. I mean, because when you said that about releasing those in the brain. Well, the order you get, it goes on from honey buns to drugs and porn. You're exactly right. Whatever it is. Exactly right.

That is linked to that. Your story was one thing. there are so many struggling with that, but you could apply that to any struggle. That's exactly right. I've worked with so many people that just hate themselves because they just can't find the strength of will to stop eating or stop using drugs or stop looking at pornography. And it really isn't about the power of will. It's about healing the underlying pain that causes my brain to seek pain relief in those methods to begin with. And so for sure, the most transformational, most healing, most life-giving growth-promoting force in the universe is Jesus Christ, which is why what we're

talking about today is so important for people who are really locked in a compulsive pain relief seeking cycle. Jesus Christ is where we really need to look to heal our underlying pain. And so that's that's my story you know in a nutshell is i went through some childhood trauma and first the first time i used drugs was in the fourth grade i was 10 years old and because of the trauma i lived through when i use drugs for the first time i get the primary anticipated benefit of euphoria because of the psychoactive substance and the drug yeah but i get a far more powerful unexpected secondary benefit, which is the easing of the emotional pain that I felt. And so my brain, from that moment on, every time I thought about something that hurt me, I endured pain,

or even the pain I experienced because of the drugs I was using themselves. Drug use is a very pain-inducing, shame-inducing lifestyle. And so they, in and of themselves, become the thing that hurts me that influences me to want to seek pain relief. So, unfortunately, man, that went fast. We're out of time for this podcast. We are going to be Trent back for the next podcast as well. So we'll continue with not only his story, but also some of the things that he's learned from that

and from what he's also doing his professional career. But I want to hear more about where the drugs led you in your life. So we'll talk about that a little bit in our overtime. So if you want to hear more about Trent Story, blazedtv.com slash unashamed, is where you go to get that. So we'll see you on the other side. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast.

Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV at blazedv.com slash Unashamed.