The Art of Relationships: Fear vs. Love: What Is Motivating You?

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Fear vs. Love: What Is Motivating You?

Chris Grace: Well, it’s good to be back, Tim, with another podcast. We talk about all things relationships in here. We talk about those relationships that bring joy, bring hope, and bring pain. One of the best things, I think, is when we get an opportunity to have certain guests here. Tim, we brought in Karrie Garcia as a guest. Why don’t you introduce her real quick again, and we’ll …

Tim Muehlhoff: Well, Karrie’s a friend. We were on a church together where we were on the teaching team. It was just a blast. Chris, you’ve got to speak with Karrie Garcia in the audience. She shouts! AMEN! Oh! Oh! I love it! I would like to have somebody in a class like that, a freshman.

Karrie Garcia: Right. I will come any day to a class.

Tim Muehlhoff: Please do that. You would be like a ringer in the back of my class. But she’s awesome. She loves the word of God. She’s a great speaker, author, mother of three, advocate for misfits, and she’s passionate about this thing called Freedom. If you’ve listened to our last podcast with Karrie … If you haven’t, boy go listen to it. She shared her story, and that’s the story of addiction. It’s a story of really coming to the end of yourself in really dramatic ways. Then you shared that God, and this is so encouraging, spoke to you at a stop sign; not a shouting voice, but a small voice, that said simply, “Turn the car around.” You did, and from that you’ve launched this wonderful thing called The Freedom Movement, which is a nonprofit that provides next steps towards freedom for women.

Why don’t you tell us a little bit about The Freedom Movement, and then there’s a wonderful workbook that you have called Exchange: The Journey From Hurting to Hope. We’d like to talk about that. But tell us about The Freedom Movement, how you thought of it, the beginning of it, where it is now.

Karrie Garcia: Yeah. It’s been going for five years. Anyway, hi guys, thanks for having me here.

Chris Grace: Hi, Karrie.

Karrie Garcia: Hi. It started actually in a backyard. I thought what would it look like if we got up and was really honest about what was going on, would that actually start to change people’s lives if they felt less alone? The answer is “yes,” resoundingly.

Chris Grace: Oh good.

Karrie Garcia: Yeah. So it started in a backyard five years ago, and there was like 30 people there, and it was just this event of just coming together. Real stories, real women, just kind of getting up and sharing. I was kind of the main girl giving my story, and then sharing a little bit from the Word of God that’s like, “Hey there’s this Jesus that really loves you, and there’s a Bible full of misfits, and one great God.

That’s kind of the narrative of it, and that has grown now. We’re on a nine-month tour throughout the United States. We only have two stops left. Called the Something New Tour. This is our fourth tour that we’re doing, and just really love going around and helping women as they come in. It’s buy one ticket and you get one free so that you can really bring …

Chris Grace: Nice.

Karrie Garcia: … somebody that’s been hurt by the church, far from God. We really want to create an atmosphere. We’re like look, “We’re not …” There’s no laser lights or anything. It’s just real stories, real women getting up. We have Hosanna Poetry who’s been touring with us, who’s a spoken word artist who has an incredible story. It kind of just all started from there and has snowballed into this tour, and this event. I’m just jaw-dropped all the time by what God’s doing and how passionate He is about loving His children and calling more to Him through this radical grace that God extends.

Chris Grace: What’s your website so people can go and check it out?

Karrie Garcia: You can go to wearefreedommovement.org, wearefreedommovement.org.

Chris Grace: Oh, that’s awesome.

Karrie Garcia: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Grace: One word that jumps out all the time is misfits. Define … What’s a misfit?

Karrie Garcia: I think all of us are misfits. I think we’re just all trying not to be one, but once you just embrace that there is this misfit side of you which is just always wanting to kind of … “Where do I fit? Where do I fit? I’m a misfit. I don’t fit somewhere,” and we’ve all felt that way at some point in our lives. What I love about scripture is that He uses the most misfit people to change the world, and I am the foremost of them. So, that is kind of this advocacy that I am for, and help people to realize, there’s power in your story.

Tim Muehlhoff: Who’s your favorite biblical misfit? What story do you go to when you want to know like-

Karrie Garcia: Oh man, it’s such a good question. Right now I am kind of obsessed with Paul, because I love how loud, and zealot, and uncomfortable, and edgy, and somewhat angry sometimes he is.

Chris Grace: That’s awkward, huh?

Karrie Garcia: Yeah, awkward. I love that God actually when he transformed him and he had that encounter with Jesus that He didn’t actually change who Paul was, He changed his direction and his focus. But, he was still a zealot. He was still loud. He was still passionate beyond belief. That makes me feel so comforted, because so often I felt like if God was going to come in my life that I was supposed to become this gentle, quiet spirit, and I was like, “I can’t do it,” even though we realize now from scripture that is about character and not personality. But, I just love him right now, because I feel better about myself when I read about him. Also Peter, too.

Chris Grace: That’s good. No, that’s a good answer. Tim, you talked a little bit about Karrie’s book out there. Karrie, I just want to start with this quote. “There is an exchange that is being offered to you, your hurts for God’s hope.”

Karrie Garcia: Yes.

Chris Grace: “Your past for a new future.” That’s why you wrote the book, isn’t it? So what does that mean for you when you hear that? Why did you write this, because it’s this very amazing exchange? That’s, in fact, the title of the book.

Karrie Garcia: Yeah, I wrote it because I have lived it, and it is every core fiber of my being that I cannot keep this to myself. That freedom is better than anything I’ve ever experienced. The love of Jesus is better than anything I’ve ever experienced. I want other people to experience that, too.

Chris Grace: That’s the word Exchange. It always brings to mind things like in Colossians when Paul says, “He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of Light.” I always think about the word exchange. He rescued us and transferred us from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light. He had to do that; it’s an exchange. It’s hurt for hope; it’s dark for light. What a hopeful word and book.

Tim Muehlhoff: Karrie, what would you say to people who don’t necessarily feel like a misfit? In other words, so this is funny about my kids. I didn’t grow up in a Christian background, that wasn’t my context, but my kids have. God is like lunch. They’re good kids. They’ve done well in school. They really haven’t gotten in trouble, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. So, my kids would always joke. All three are athletes and we’d watch these ESPN specials about, ‘How did you become the boxing champion of the world?’ Or something like that? They’d say, “Well, it was the deep rage of anger and poverty. It’s parenting, racism.” My kids would be like, “Thanks, Dad. Getting rid of all my motivation to be an elite athlete; I grew up in Brea. We drove a minivan. Thanks a lot!”

So, I guess I feel that for people who do not have dramatic testimonies, and they came to faith at a young age. See, I think that’s interesting. They just feel like, “Yeah, blah, blah, blah. I’m a Christian. Jesus died. I don’t know, that’s fine.” But, they don’t have a dramatic story like you do, so what do you do with people to get them to, “No, no, no Jesus’ death was for you, too, and it had to happen, even though you don’t think it necessarily needed to happen, because you’ve not done anything big, or dramatic,” so what do you do?

Karrie Garcia: Right. Well, I think there’s two things. One, I think that pride is often part of a story of our own sin nature, and what is inside of us. I think of the prodigal son, and we think about … We spend so much time on the Father, obviously, and the son that was prodigal, but we also forget that there was a brother that was there that really struggled with the unfairness of what was happening, and yet he needed grace extended to him because it was his pride that was keeping him from the fullness of his father’s love and really rejoicing. So, we all our sinners. All of us are sinners saved by grace. Stories, in my opinion, can be somewhat irrelevant, the details of them. It’s really the need for God, and we are all in that place. That’s why the playing field is even. In our “goodness” that can really be a place of pride that we sit in, and not allowing the fullness of God to come in. We really relate to the brother.

“I did some … I’m hanging out. I’m doing all God wanted me to do. I’m doing what the father wanted me to do,” and yet there isn’t this humility. That’s why I just harp on that scripture from 1 Peter chapter 5 where, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” It is in this sense, so where is it? Everyone has a fragile place, everyone has a prideful place, and everybody has a painful place. No matter what your story is pain is pain, it just comes in different packages. Trauma is powerlessness. Anytime you’re experienced powerlessness you’ve experienced some sense of trauma. So, there are these places that God wants to come in. It just might not be at the forefront of your behaviors; it might be in the depths of your heart.

Chris Grace: Good word.

Tim Muehlhoff: That’s good. Tell us about humility just for a second. Give us your take on it. It’s one of those weird attributes that we’re called to be humble. What are some indicators of false humility compared to …? I have a friend. You can’t compliment him. Anytime you compliment him, it’s like, “Hey, that was awesome.” “You know, that was Jesus.”

Karrie Garcia: No, no, it was you. You were actually …

Tim Muehlhoff: Yes. I saw you at the podium! So, for you what’s true humility and what are some of the danger signs that this is false humility that a person’s exposing?

Karrie Garcia: My, you know, layman’s terms, but I would say that humility is a place of honesty and surrender. So, when I’m getting honest about my need for God … Self-sufficiency can be pride, and it can be very spiritualized. We can see someone like “killing it” for the Kingdom. I’m actually talking about this at the Biola Chapel. But, we can really pride ourselves on grit, but we don’t allow ourselves to understand that grit without grace is really self-sufficiency and pride. Humility is really this place of one, not my will but your will be done, and two, let me honest about where I really am and the need I have for you, and surrender those needs. False humility says, “I really actually don’t need God, like I actually am doing okay.” I think that’s … So, back to the story you said. So often when we haven’t had like just these really crazy stories, we can get sucked into the addiction, or the harmful behavior, thinking of “I’ve got this. I’m doing the tasks. I’m checking the boxes. I’m a good Christian,” and yet God’s like …

Really the Greek word says, “I resist you.” Actually, I can’t even be close to you in that scripture, like I actually am opposed to you in that. That is … I don’t ever want to sit in that place. So, humility kind of comes back to that place of honest, of need, and surrender.

Chris Grace: In some ways, Karrie, even your example of the prodigal son, it was the brother that is most troubling it seems, that is most lost in some respects, because there is something there about his pride, his hurtness of being mistreated, or this idea of deserving more or why does …? You wonder who really was most likely to come to this point of recognizing the hurt, the trauma, the pain in their life; it wasn’t going to be him. I would imagine his journey is going to be a much slower, longer process to get to know God. We don’t even hear whatever happened to him, but it’s an interesting story.

Tim Muehlhoff: I think today we need more … Let me drop a little Kierkegaard on you.

Karrie Garcia: Yes.

Tim Muehlhoff: So Kierkegaard, he’s in a Danish nation that is Christian in name, so they’re all Christians. It’s like America in a sense. At that time everybody would have said, “Yeah, it’s the official State religion, we’re all Christians.” Kierkegaard was like, “You’re not. You’re not. In name only are you,” and his job was to shake people. Sometimes I feel like in Christian higher ed we come across this where people are just like, “Yeah, I’m great. I’m a Christian. I go to a Christian university. I go to chapel. I have all these requirements.” I think Jesus is saying, “Man, I got to get you out of this. This is killing you.” This is the lukewarmness that I think He’s trying to get after.

Karrie Garcia: I was just thinking that.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, so.

Karrie Garcia: That’s so good.

Tim Muehlhoff: So, let’s mention your book. I just love it. It’s called, Exchange: Lessons Tim Muehlhoff Has Taught Me. Thank you for the shout off.

Karrie Garcia: You’re so welcome.

Tim Muehlhoff: I was humbled. I was humbled right.

Karrie Garcia: Yeah, right, right. Good job, good job.

Tim Muehlhoff: But, you break it up into different sections and you take people on a journey. I thought it was fascinating how you chose to start the journey. Let me read you a quote. You said, “When I set out to create this course I was so tempted to jump straight into the healing process. I wanted to throw you into the proverbial deep waters of pursuing freedom in your life, because God wants you free. However, through prayer Jesus took me back to the dark healing days of my journey to the first moment I knew I needed help. In those moments I realized God pursued and loved me recklessly and that is the foundation of healing.” So, the very first thing you have people is you go through love, God’s love. What would you want our listeners to know about God’s love if they haven’t had a time to look at the workbook?

Karrie Garcia: Well, love covers a multitude of sins. So, we sit in that place first. They will never be drawn to behavior modification first. I will always be drawn to love. It’s where I feel safest. So, for me I love to dive deep into kind of the psyche and theology of what’s going on in our brains, and God, and the Word of God. But, as God was just speaking, “Karrie, it wasn’t the theology that turned you around, turned the car around. It wasn’t the psychology that you understood. What it was was me sitting there saying, ‘I’ve seen it all and I love you.'” It was in that that’s like, “Man, if I can understand this place of love and always get back to that then I can always move forward from there.”

I think two emotions kind of are at the root of everything, it’s fear or love. We’re driven through fear; we’re driven through love. In that moment I felt like without the love all the boxes I could have checked … I could have sat and learned how to grieve. I could have sat in theology and doctrine. I could have gone to church. I could have done all the things, but without love then there was no safety and no place of really being seen, like really, “I see it all, Karrie and I love you.” That blew my mind, that I have been disqualified by all human purposes and yet God was like, “Nope, not only do I love you but I choose you. I choose you to sit next to me and be my daughter.”

Chris Grace: I love the connection between love and fear. There are passages that talk about true love casts out this fear. I always think about that the greatest, the most frequent command, we get in scripture it’s “Do not fear.” I always think about whenever Jesus was with somebody and they felt fear, because maybe there was some sort of angelic presence, or they understood it was God, humans responded with fear and Jesus’ response was always so interesting. He would say, “Wait, don’t fear. Why are you anxiously looking about you?” Don’t fear. That idea of taking this … So, it’s an interesting connection because we are motivated by both of those.

Karrie Garcia: Sure.

Chris Grace: We’re afraid to be loved and we’re just afraid that if He sees who I am … It’s just a funny statement, if He sees who I am-

Karrie Garcia: Right. He does.

Tim Muehlhoff: We see this on the human level in different ways. I was in college, Eastern Michigan University, I was on a speech team. My senior year I was nationally ranked. Heading into nationals I went through a really bad stretch. I just was losing and not even breaking in quarter finals. I was just worried what the Head Coach thought. It’s this, “What’s up with Muehlhoff?” Kind of stuff like that. It was spiraling out of control. I just kept doing really bad at small tournaments. People were like, “What the heck is wrong with him?” So, my coach one day calls me into the office and I’m thinking, “Okay, this is it. The shoe’s going to drop. This is the getting yelled at, “You’re on scholarship, what are you doing?” I’ll never forget this. She’s sitting behind the desk. I walk in she goes, “Sit.” I sit. She looks at me and she goes, “Muehlhoff, you’re my guy. Got it? You’re my guy. I have no doubt you’re going to kill it at Nationals. Get out of here.” I remember walking out the weight completely lifted.

Karrie Garcia: I love that.

Tim Muehlhoff: Fear was, “I got to try harder, harder, harder. I got to do better, better, better, and I’m doing horrible. She walked in and said, “Muehlhoff, get out of here. Everybody goes through this. Get out of here. You’re my guy. Walk out of here.”

Karrie Garcia: I love that. “You’re my guy.”

Tim Muehlhoff: Loved it. Yeah, I love that. That’s what Jesus says, “You are my guy, my daughter, my son.” I love that.

Karrie Garcia: Sometimes I think He’s saying, “Karrie, you’re my favorite,” and I know He thinks that about me. I just love that idea.

Chris Grace: It is your favorite. Another one is when sometimes it drives us if we don’t get this, to maybe dishonesty or lies. You have another chapter early on that talks about this victim mentality that, “I am not lovable. I am ugly. I am worthless.” We oftentimes tell ourselves these things. I love some of the passages that you talk about in 2 Corinthians 10:5, of course, to destroy speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. The knowledge is, “I am loved by Him. He is my God. I am His.” I love that idea that we are who He says we are. We are His children, and we lie to ourselves about that. So, you have a whole chapter on identity, because it’s so easy for us to fall into that.

Karrie Garcia: Right, right. We have to really take every thought captive. This is hard when you’ve experienced a lot of trauma. There’s things that we experience, and they really feel like truth, and sometimes they are. So, things like I say, “I am rejected.” I was rejected. That is actually true. I was abandoned. That’s actually true. But, if I take that on and own that provocation then it becomes … Especially over time, I become bitter, I become slanderous, I become malicious. I become what has happened to me. So, when we have to take those thoughts captive it’s hard work, but we have to do that in order to rewire the way our brain thinks.

I want to give freedom to people. Like, “Hey, this is not just something that you just think really hard and hopefully you’ll get better.” It’s going to take work. It’s going to take time to rewire what has been said, and it’s going to take time to actually take what was true maybe of your earthly parents, or relationships, and really start to understand what God says and that He trumps all of that, and that He needs to come in and supernaturally begin to heal what has happened there. It’s a very important chapter because we do believe lies.

Chris Grace: So, when that lie is based upon my standing … I’m thinking about a person right now that I talked with recently who is struggling in a particular scenario. He keeps messing up. It’s in the area of pornography. He cannot grasp then how to get out of this. He knows God loves him. He knows he has messed up and needs help, but he finds himself at that moment unable to prevent himself from going there. He’s starting to believe almost a lie, but he’s also believing about worthless, or hopelessness. What do you say to someone like that that’s in the middle of this who just simply believes to themselves, “I won’t ever get out of this. I can’t, I don’t have the reserves?” I think that’s right where he needs to be, as he doesn’t have the ability, but what would you say and how would you walk with him?

Karrie Garcia: Well, I … Again, this is my personal opinion, but I think we spend a lot of time on behavior modification and not really dealing with the core of our problems. So, a lot of times people come into my office and they have an eating disorder, or they are in pornography, or whatever; they want to have an affair, all these things. I’m like, “Okay.” I’m like, “Well, we’re just not going to talk about that right now. I want to talk about something a little deeper.” I want to like … “Tell me the last time you ever felt actually seen by somebody. Just tell me something about that.” We start to kind of dive into going, “What is it …?” There’s things that drive us to do what we’re doing. We are wired for connection. It is hardwired in us from the beginning of time; Jesus, God, and Holy Spirit never alone, always together. So, we are driven for this, and when something has happened that kind of, like Dan Allender talks about Shalom being shattered. Whenever that kind of state of peace and rightness has been shattered something happens in us.

So, we can spend so much time focusing on, “Hey, stop watching porn, and I don’t think it’s healthy for you. I don’t think you should be watching porn, because it’s just not healthy for you, and it’s not good.” But, let’s figure out why and see where God wants to go first, and then see what starts to fall off there. Because, usually we attack the behaviors but never get to the core of why we’re doing those behaviors.

Chris Grace: What does it mean for people to misunderstand that? What is the greatest thing they’re missing when it comes to who their identity in Christ, that they are loved, that they are forgiven, that they are His, that …?

Karrie Garcia: Yes, yes.

Chris Grace: Each of us kind of may be in a different area. I might know deep down I’m loved by God, but I don’t know really if He can forgive this or-

Karrie Garcia: I think it’s really shame. I think shame … Shame’s never from God, never, never, never, never. So, I think shame keeps us hiding, and it keeps us disconnected from the love of the Father, even loving ourselves and seeing ourselves as forgiven. But, shame is really a powerful motivator. You know, it’s a powerful tool that the enemy uses, in my opinion, to silence us, keep us stuck, keep us motivated to look at something that feeds for a moment but destroys over time. It’s really breaking down shame of understanding how loved we are in the midst of our dysfunction, and hurt.

Chris Grace: Shame is broken when it is spoken, right? You speak it …

Karrie Garcia: Come on, that’s a Tweet-able quote right there, brother.

Chris Grace: Drop the mic.

Tim Muehlhoff: See what I mean. You have to give a talk.

Chris Grace: Shaming.

Tim Muehlhoff: Amen.

Karrie Garcia: Amen.

Chris Grace: Shame is broken when it’s spoken, right? That’s what you’re getting at also in this book. Speak it. Say it. Be honest, who you are, where you are. When someone’s sitting in your office like, “Let’s go to the heart of this. Speak about your shame…” because God knows this. God knows everything and He still holds you and surrounds you and says, “You are mine. Nothing you can do is going to change that.”

Karrie Garcia: Right, right.

Tim Muehlhoff: I remember … It’s so funny. Think of all the sermons we’ve heard. It would be interesting just to list them out, how many hours we have spent reading Christian books or listening to sermons. I was honestly dozing off in a sermon one time, and the guy said something I just absolutely shot up. He said, “God will never love you any more, or any less, than He does right now.” I was sitting there, “What! What?” I went up to him afterwards and said, “Okay, so wait a minute. If I never get rid of this; if I never …” He said, “Yeah, it isn’t like that. He loves you because you’re in Christ.” That was so liberating to me, so I shared it with a Bible study I did with some of my kids and their friends, and I said that. One kid named, we’ll call him Tommy, goes, “Well, then I can do whatever the blankety-blank I want to do.” I was like, “You’re right. You’re right, but what a horrible response, but you’re right. If you’re in Christ you’re right.” That’s liberating.

Karrie Garcia: It is liberating.

Tim Muehlhoff: Because then I don’t … Okay, I’m not getting rid of porn so God will love me more and accept me more. I’m getting rid of it because it’s keeping me from fully experiencing the love that’s coming towards me 24/7.

Karrie Garcia: Right, and the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. It’s keeping you from the fullness. That’s actually our inheritance. We don’t get a golden ticket and go to Heaven and that’s when everything’s great. God says that He will bring Heaven here, that our inheritance is not when we get to heaven, it’s here on Earth. That is the fruit of the Spirit. It’s His gift to you, but you don’t get to have that in its fullness when sin is keeping you from that.

There’s no one I sit with that are like, “You know I used to love being in sin and shame.” They don’t love it. It’s actually not bringing freedom to them. It’s bringing destruction for them. That’s where it’s like, “This is why God is saying, ‘Look, this is not good for you. You’re going to have to allow me to be Lord over this area.'” I do want to say that there is shame when it comes to the sin that they’re sitting in. There is that feeling of so much shame. But, what I see happen when we start to talk about the core of what’s going on, they begin to experience freedom and have empathy for themselves and be able to go, “Yeah, I’m not just doing this because I’m a terrible person. There are reasons why I’m stepping into this. Maybe I need to grieve.”

That’s one of the biggest chapters that I did was on grieving was because I don’t feel like the church teaches grieving well. We’re always grieving something. I believe that the Bible talks so much about grieving, and it’s so beautiful the way it’s seen and done. That’s where I was thinking. “There is time to be kind to yourself, kind to the little girl or little boy inside of you that has been wounded.

Tim Muehlhoff: Let me summarize this section. This just came to me. Try this on. Shame is brokenness.

Karrie Garcia: He can’t even get it out!

Tim Muehlhoff: I can’t even get it out. No, shame is broken-ness. That’s what shame is.

Karrie Garcia: Yeah, I should put that in my next book. I’ll give you credit.

Chris Grace: So, Karrie, when you have ideas …

Tim Muehlhoff: Just go on I’m just going to sit here.

Chris Grace: … and people sit with you and they read this book, what is the most heartening response for you from people who read this? You hear … Listeners write back …

Karrie Garcia: Oh, yeah.

Chris Grace: … and people who have read your book contact you. What do you think is making up the biggest impact out there that you’re just grateful for?

Karrie Garcia: I think it’s allowing them to get honest and safe to do. Probably what I hear the most is … I do hear, “This is the hardest book I’ve ever done.” I do hear that and I’m okay with it. For a little while my own little trigger of like, “You’re too much,” and all that stuff. I was like, “Well, this is a too much book.” But, the reality is I’m really determined, like hell-bent, on helping people see that freedom is for them but they have to get honest. So, I don’t really waste a lot of time.

But, the best compliment I ever got … I actually went into a group, a large group was going through it, and a girl sat … It was just Monday night. I decided to go and visit this group that I knew was finishing up The Exchange, and she said, “I shared with complete strangers in my group that are now not strangers things that I’ve never spoken outside of my therapy office. I went and told my therapist and he said, ‘What has happened to you in nine weeks I have been trying to do in 10 years.'” I said, “That has nothing to do with this book. That’s Jesus. That’s the heart of God for you when you step into honesty.” It’s beautiful, and tears in her eyes, tears in my eyes, and just watching as she felt the sense of hope. She said, “Now I want to share my story. I want to take some other girls through The Exchange,” because it’s really just a tool to show how big and beautiful God’s Word is and making complex things out of the Bible a little more simple and digestible for us to understand and walk through.

Chris Grace: That’s great. Boy, check out Karrie’s website. It is, one more time?

Karrie Garcia: Yeah, you can go to wearefreedommovement.org. I’m also running, what’s called Freedom Academy. It’s a three-day training where it’s 50% leadership development, 50% personal development on, “How do I sit with messy people? How do I have conversations? How do I have guardrails? How do I know what’s going on in my own personal life to be able to sit with someone?” We’re doing that here in Orange County. You can go to wearefreedommovement.org to look that up, as well. I will be doing most of the training. It’s three days and you get to have dinner at my house.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, sign us up.

Karrie Garcia: There you go. Yeah, we’re only taking 30, but if you’re in any kind of … If you’re a parent and just want to know how to talk to your kid, if you’re in ministry, if you’re in the marketplace and you go, “Man, I have all these people coming to me. How do I share faith without trying to fix people?” We need to stop trying to fix people. The Holy Spirit does a good job at that. But, “How do I ask powerful questions to help them understand they’re loved and seen?”

Tim Muehlhoff: Gosh, Karrie, thank you so much. Karrie is on campus. She is going to speak in our chapel. Students love her. Even the president came last time you spoke. He was very much impressed and loved that you’re sharing God’s Word with people and …

Karrie Garcia: Thank you, guys, so much for having me. It’s such an honor to be here with you smartypants.

Tim Muehlhoff: Karrie, just remember, when spoken shame is broken.

Karrie Garcia: Shame is broken. Yeah, it’s profound. Moment of silence for that.

Tim Muehlhoff: It just came to me. I’m writing it down.

Karrie Garcia: It just came to me.

Chris Grace: Tim is the poster boy for messy.

Karrie Garcia: You can have my book for free, Tim.

Tim Muehlhoff: Thank you.

Chris Grace: Thanks for stopping by. We appreciate it.

Karrie Garcia: Thank you, guys, so much.

Chris Grace serves as the director of the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships and teaches psychology at Rosemead School of Psychology. He and his wife, Alisa, speak regularly to married couples, churches, singles and college students on the topic of relationships, dating and marriage. Grace earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from Colorado State University.

Tim Muehlhoff is a professor of communication at Biola University and author of several books, including I Beg to Differ and Marriage Forecasting. For the past 18 years, he and his wife, Noreen, have been frequent speakers at FamilyLife marriage conferences. Muehlhoff regularly writes and speaks for the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships. Follow Dr. Muehlhoff on Twitter.

By the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships. Discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.