In this episode of The Good News with Angie Austin, we delve into the heart of discernment with Grace Fox, as she explores stories of overcoming societal pressures and tuning into divine guidance. We revisit the biblical tale of Job and discuss the importance of identifying the right voices amidst the chaos of modern life. With insights from scripture and personal anecdotes, learn how to navigate life’s challenges by staying true to your spiritual compass.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello there, friend, Angie Austin and Grace Fox, and we are talking about her book today, Finding Hope in Crisis, Devotions for Calm in the Chaos, and we are focusing on one devotion in particular today, and that devotion is on page 118, and it’s titled One Voice. Hello, Grace Fox. Hello, good to talk to you again. Good to talk to you as well. All right, so what is One Voice about?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, well, I looked at that Bible story about Job. So when Job fell into all kinds of hard times, a lot of people came alongside him to try to tell him what to do. And even his wife told him to curse God and die, and his friends tried to convince him that God was punishing him in some way. So even though these people met and meant well, Job knew enough not to listen to them. And I’ve thought of times in my life, too, when I’ve experienced people telling me what to do. They’ve known about a certain situation I was in that was maybe a hard thing, and they were like, walk away. Just stop and walk away. But I knew that that’s not what God wanted me to do. And there are so many voices out there today, not just well-meaning friends, but I mean in social media and all, you know, everything. People and voices telling us what we should do. And I think how important it is to have the discernment to know when we need to listen to those voices and when we need to let those voices go and always go back to honing into the God’s voice what is God telling us to do and um when a verse that I’ve fallen back on many times when I’ve thought direction is Isaiah 30 21 which says whether you turn to the right or to the left your ears will hear a voice behind you saying this is the way walk in it I love that um you talk about um
SPEAKER 02 :
having the discernment because some people are so persuasive and I think about all of the peer pressure like that my kids face and the girls are really pretty good at you know not feeling that peer pressure I think more so than my son and oddly enough my husband it’s just so funny that he gives into peer pressure he was with my son and a bunch of the kids you know they’re in their 20s and they were getting ready to go to a football game and And they were all sitting around the table and having shots. And so my husband calls me later. He’s like, yeah, you know, it was in the morning and they’re all sitting around the table having shots. And they’re like, my husband and I barely drink. Like, I really don’t drink, but he doesn’t drink very often either. And he’s like, I told him no, but then, you know, I had a few and I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re like 50 years old and you’re feeling peer pressure from college kids in their twenties to have shots before you go to a game that starts at like noon in the afternoon. I’m like, It’s kind of so silly to me. But, you know, I think that some people are just more apt to not have or to give in to peer pressure or to be manipulated or persuaded. And I think teenagers in particular, you know, are really susceptible to that kind of pressure.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Well, I would say not just teenagers, but people. People, you know, well, husbands, but I’m just thinking about even society as a whole, because look how far we’ve strayed from the truth of God’s word. And so what voices are we listening to? Are we listening to the voice of truth? Are we listening to, you know, whatever’s going on politically or whatever, or whose voices are we listening to? And that is something we just need to come back to because we, Someday, someday God’s going to hold us accountable for the voices that we listen to and followed. And that’s where we really need to have that discernment. Are we listening to the voice of truth? Or are we listening to some voices that are talking to us out of emotion or out of whatever feels good? We can’t do that. We just cannot afford to do that.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, I interviewed a bunch of high school kids. And this is quite a while back, probably 10 years. I mean, now they’re probably like, you know, 27, 28. But one of the kids, I thought two of them had transferred from public schools into this private Christian school. And they were telling me how the peer pressure to be bad in the public school was different than the peer pressure in the Christian school, that they felt peer pressure to make the right decisions. And so they were getting like different types of peer pressure, not to say that there wasn’t any bad peer pressure as well, but they said in general that the tides swayed. And when they went to the Christian school, there was more pressure to like do good and be good. And my daughter, I’ve told you before, goes to a Christian college and she was talking about how strict it is and that some random lady walked up to her and I said, was it a teacher? She goes, no, I don’t even know who she was. She just walked up and said, your skirt is… pushing the fine line of the dress code. She said it was a mid-fi skirt. And my daughter doesn’t like to go against the rules. It made her very anxious and very nervous at this random woman that she’d never met walked up to her and said that her skirt was like bordering on too short for the dress code. And she said, I’m going to let it go this time, but next time I’ll make you go home and change. And I’m like, well, who was she? Did you ever determine that? And she said, no. She goes, those didn’t just make me nervous about going to the school. And I said, well, I don’t think you should walk around being anxious. I mean, the worst case scenario is they’re going to someone is going to tell you to go home and change. But I would ascertain who this individual is before you race home. Is it just somebody like a lot of townspeople? It’s a small town. They eat in the cafeteria. So you might just get some random grandmother that’s like, oh, I know what the stress code is. I’m going to let this girl know she’s really pushing it. You know, and it’s just some busy body that’s harassing my kid. But I said, don’t like go around school being nervous about, you know, getting in trouble because they have a curfew. They have to be in by a certain time and they’re coming back from the city that’s close. Jackson is close and it’s a bigger city where they go to life. you know more fun things like movies and stuff like that and they’re nervous about getting back in time and then there’s no drinking there’s no vaping there’s no drugs there’s no smoking there’s a curfew there’s no boys in the dorm there’s no girls in the boys dorm and then they have a dress code and so she said she’s just nervous all the time about and I said I don’t think that’s the way you should go through school but I like that there’s peer pressure or pressure in general for you to make good decisions because I think that puts her in a better environment to overall make better decisions and my son said mom it’s so different than my school because he goes to University of Colorado Boulder and it’s like I don’t know I think with employees and students it’s maybe 40,000 people it’s huge it’s a whole city you know that basically is the campus and so he said all these random hookups and just trying to meet a nice girl and everybody’s drinking even on you know going there have been frat parties on school nights and his pressure is totally different than my daughter’s pressure yeah so a whole bunch of different voices
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s all these voices coming at us. So they come at us through social media. They come at us through the news. And everybody’s got their own voice. They all want to sway others to listen to their voice. But again, we have to listen to the voice of one. And I had a quoting here from David Jeremiah, just as amid the thousands of shrill voices screaming for our attention, there is but one voice we need to hear. I love that. We need to hear this one, the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s the voice. Isn’t that good? Just by saying in a word every day and by tuning into his voice. If we can’t hear, it’s not his problem. He can communicate to us, but we just need to have our ear tuned to that voice. So that’s what we need to be sure that we’re not tuning into a thousand other different voices that are all screaming for attention, too.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, and that goes so well with Isaiah 30, 21 that you read, whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. And then David Jeremiah says, amid the thousands of shrill voices screaming for our attention, there is but one voice we need to hear, the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then you give us a prayer and a ponder. And the ponder, you said, is what is God’s voice saying about your situation? And then the prayer says… to pray, Lord, speak to me and tune my ear to hear your voice. And I think that that, you know, can be done. I think that when we really do focus on it, I think we do know the right thing to do.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think you’re right on that. Sometimes we don’t want to do it, though. That’s a problem. So then that battle comes in. We know what we’re supposed to do, but we don’t want to do it. And because it’s hard, it might be sacrificial, whatever. But But the only way we’re going to flourish in this life when there are so many voices coming at us telling us what we should do, what we should think, what we should feel, is to, again, tune our ear to that one voice and to just say, God, help me shut out the other ones. Just help me, you know, hone in on your voice. That’s the only way that we are going to flourish when we’ve got all these other voices coming at us.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I want my kids to be respectful. Like, I think the girls are quieter. Like, my son will question people. Like, he’s more willing to, like, let’s say that woman that approached my daughter. She has no idea who it is. Like, she was afraid to say, like, well, who are you? I’ve never met you. Nice to meet you. My name is Hope. Do you work here? She’s so worried about being respectful that she wouldn’t even question who this random bossy person is. Of course, my son would be like, oh, nice to meet you. I’m Riley. Do you work here on campus? Figure out who is this person? Am I even supposed to? Are they legit? Is the skirt really too short? Or is it fine? My daughter thought that it was fine. But what 18-year-olds think is fine to wear may not be what we deem appropriate to wear. So that’s why, obviously, they have the dress codes. So I’m going to send this, actually, today from Grace’s book, Finding Hope in Crisis, Devotions for Calm in the Chaos. I’m going to send this to my kids today about trying to hear the Lord’s voice and knowing when to do the right thing, per se, knowing which voice is the one they should be listening to.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. We will hear that voice behind us saying, this is the way, walk ye in it. If we’re bent on doing what is right and doing what God wants us to do, we will hear that voice.
SPEAKER 02 :
I agree. I agree. Hey, I wanted to touch on, too, interestingly enough, and we’ve done this one before in Finding Hope in Crisis, just the following page after One Voice is to-do list. And I know you have extensive to-do lists. I’ve been reading. trying to do them. I’m not as good as you. I know you take pieces of old computer paper and you write them down and you have like stacks that you keep together with a paper clip. So you have them in order of like what needs to be done. I email myself sometimes or send myself text messages and sometimes I’ll write in a notebook. I’m not the most organized person, but I’ll email myself the updated to-do list. So it comes up when I look in my email and it’s like, oh gosh, I forgot I’ve got to do those three things today. And so I’ve been really trying to do that because I think without a to do list, my life kind of falls apart. And I know you feel the same.
SPEAKER 05 :
I do. And I absolutely just earlier this morning, I was sitting here and going, OK, this one thing I had this morning has been postponed for a week. And so, you know, I’m just reorganizing my calendar and just making sure I’ve got it all right again so I don’t forget. But. Yeah, keeping our to-do list is right. And on that spiritual to-do list, one of those things that God tells us is rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. With that, give thanks in all circumstances. Sometimes we think to-do list, I think, oh, I have to do this. But maybe in a spiritual perspective, we can turn that around and say, it’s not a matter of I have to do this, but it’s, wow, I get to do this. We can do this, these things, because he empowers us to do them, even when they’re hard. Even when I don’t feel like giving thanks still on that to-do list, he’ll give me the strength I need to get it done.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, and I like the idea that we’re even blessed enough that we can do a to-do list. You know what I mean? That we can physically get to the gym. I know you go early morning to the gym and that we can even do those things. I was just watching the last people finishing, I think it was a New York City Marathon finish line. And it was very touching. I mean, people who were walking on crutches, people who had physical disabilities, who can’t walk quickly or well, right? And, you know, older people, people who were really limping at the end, heavy people and crying people. And I thought, wow, like that kind of put I mean, to have a to do list that we can actually accomplish and to do all things joyfully or with joy. You know, I have a new plaque on my bed that says today only happens once. Make it amazing. And just trying to be grateful that we even have the opportunity to do some of these tough things. And we’re even capable of doing these tough things. All right, Rhonda. of time. I always appreciate you. Gracebox.com. Thank you, friend.
SPEAKER 05 :
You bet. Talk to you again.
SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Hello, there is Angie Austin with the good news, along with friend of the show, Kenza Havoc. Her new book is The Three Enemies of Your Mental Health. And Kenza, welcome back and remind everyone about your background, because in the past, we’ve talked about the fact that you left your faith of your childhood to become a Christian, which caused quite a controversy in your family.
SPEAKER 04 :
yes absolutely and thank you so much for having me and you’re welcome i grew up in an islamic household and for the longest time i believed in a god who was a spiritual pharaoh a god who was not relational one who just wanted works works works and so by And about teenage years into my early 20s, I struggled with so much anxiety and depression, which led to even suicidal ideations. And through all of that, the Lord Jesus was just in me and seeking after me. And I had a dream about Jesus, which led me to give my life to him.
SPEAKER 02 :
I think that’s so wild that just like you’re not even in a family that has anything to do with Christianity. And this dream comes to you out of nowhere.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I’ll never. I mean, someone even yesterday, someone asked me what was something that I could I could take away. I took away from that dream. And I just kept saying, I love how personal the Lord is. And he knew that anxiety was my norm. And as I saw that sky open and a man in a white robe descending from heaven, and that man was Jesus, that peace that surpasses understanding came over me. And that’s the peace that I’ll never forget. That’s what, just took me by surprise in what I held on to.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, so if you hadn’t, you know, your family, they want you to stay in the Islamic faith. They want you to, you know, you are definitely not supposed to become a Christian. How do you start learning about Christianity if it’s not something that’s accepted in your household at the time?
SPEAKER 04 :
I needed to leave. It took me a couple of months. It took about eight to ten months for me to leave my blood relatives, and I moved from Virginia to South Carolina because for a Muslim, it’s not as easy as saying, hey, I’m switching beliefs or I’m choosing to believe in Jesus now. That’s seen as becoming a traitor, and that’s a violation of apostasy law, which in Islam, that’s punishable by death. even in the United States. I mean, the latest case was in 2021 when someone in Texas was sentenced for killing his daughters, for honor killing. And so I moved to South Carolina and started a new life. And the thing, the greatest difficulty I faced, Angie, was my whole identity was wrapped up in my family. And so now, not only did I leave them, I needed to figure out who I was apart from them And while trying to learn who this God that I don’t know is.
SPEAKER 02 :
So the first book that we talked about, you and I, Kenza Haddock, The Ex-Muslim’s Guide to Christianity, and now the new one that we’ll discuss today, but I wanted people to know about your background because it’s so fascinating to me, is The Three Enemies of Your Mental Health. And so this one, gain lasting victory over the devil, the flesh, and the world with the three enemies of your mental health. And Kenza, one more thing that I want to ask about your family. You had mentioned to me in the past, because now you’re married, you have children, that your family, your parents in particular, had tried to plan kind of like kidnappings to try to get you back in the past and kind of snuck up on you per se. Is that still a concern or now have you been, you know, gone long enough and with your own family, do you feel safer?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, no, it’s still a concern because in the Muslim faith, they’re supposed to never stop because they look at it like their eternity is at stake. And so, I mean, they have made multiple attempts. They’ve shown up in my home, at my home, They have shown up and posed at my practice in different locations and posed as patients, trying to act like they’re one of my patients coming to see me. But every time I’ve found that the Lord has protected me through it and grown my faith through it. Now, is it scary? Absolutely. But over time, I have seen and I’ve had to just… believe that even when i don’t know that they’re coming and they’re going to show up the lord does because he is ever present and he’s he knows when they’re coming and he protects us wow that talk about anxiety so let’s talk about the three enemies of your mental health what are you teaching us in your new book That’s the thing. And when the Lord called me into the field of counseling, I was like, are you sure me? Because of everything I’m going through.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it’s a lot.
SPEAKER 04 :
But, I mean, it’s been an experience. And, you know, as I started treating patients from both a clinical and biblical perspective, as a counselor, I noticed that Even brothers and sisters in the faith struggle with the same issues that non-believers struggle with. And it comes down to the three enemies that the Bible talks about, and that is the devil, the flesh, and the world. And through research, I was able to link these three enemies to the top three diagnoses in the United States. Like plaguing our nation right now, that’s clinical anxiety, clinical depression, and And then mood fluctuation, mood disorders, when we feel like our moods are up and down. And so the first one is the devil. And that’s, you know, I mean, that’s the accuser of the brother. And that’s Satan. And we can go through each one of them.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, let’s do it. Because you’ve broken up the book, part one, enemy one, the devil. And then you talk about dealing with it and claiming your victory in part two, enemy number two, the flesh. and just so many temptations. And then part three, enemy number three, the world. And then at part four, you have weapons of warfare. And so let’s start with part one, the enemy, the devil.
SPEAKER 04 :
So the devil, he always tries to split our faith. And what I tell people is even if he comes in and tries to instill doubt in us, and split our faith, even if it’s 90% in Jesus and 10% in another object of our faith, he has his foot in the door, and he puts us through a cycle. And the first step is doubt. He’ll instill doubt in our minds, whether that’s doubting God’s goodness or doubting God’s sovereignty in our lives. I mean, think about something that you are waiting for, or think about something that you are praying for or hoping for. The enemy will come and whisper doubt about either God’s goodness or in your life see God is trying to withhold from you God doesn’t want you to have it or about God’s sovereignty see you need to act on it see God’s not acting in your in your timing to so that he can get you to act on something before the Lord wants you to or at least before God’s timing and so that’s One way. Another way is I have seen so many people engage in socially acceptable new age practices. And, oh, yes. And unfortunately, they lead them, these practices lead them into mood disorders, into schizoactive, schizoaffective, excuse me, I mean, symptoms. These are issues like, I would say chakras. Ricky, I have seen people literally come see me on a Monday and go see a medium on a Wednesday and not understand that that’s not biblically okay. We’re not supposed to do something like that. We’re not supposed to seek wisdom outside of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, we’ve got a few more minutes left, so I want to make sure we get into a few more of these. Enemy number two, and again, we’re talking about the three enemies of your mental health. Number two, the flesh.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s one thing to tell someone to blame the devil. It’s another to tell someone to look in the mirror. And the flesh is any time we try to exert our will above God’s will. And so the flesh starts from a place of insecurity. And the flesh always leads to a state of internal torment and anxiety. And so I link those in the book.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. All right, let’s move on to number three then as we move through these. Enemy number three, the world.
SPEAKER 04 :
The world is basically anytime we have people in our lives who try to get us away from God’s will for our lives or try to get us to behave in a way that is contradictory to who we are in Jesus. And so I use King Solomon, for example. That person doesn’t necessarily have to lead us completely away from the lord but as long as they lead us from being fully committed to god that’s one step away from god and and it just takes small steps and that can lead us to depression yes i can imagine that all right and then last but not least in part four you talk about weapons of warfare and there’s kind of a target on our back Oh, yes. People always ask, is this going to get any better? And here’s the thing. As long as we live on this side of eternity and as long as we are walking with Jesus, we’re always going to have a target on our back, and that is from the enemy. And so we have to leave no room for Satan to wiggle his way into our lives. That’s why we have to surrender every aspect of our lives to God and ask him, ask God to reorganize your life. according to how He wants it to be. You know, obedience is key to our relationship with Christ.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, so in writing this book, what is the feedback been for you? Because you do speak and you do counsel people. And obviously you wanted to lend your area of expertise to a book somewhere people would have access to it. Gain lasting victory over the devil, the flesh and the world, the three enemies of your mental health. What’s the feedback been for you?
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, this has been the best. feedback I have received in the books I’ve written, and it has, in this short amount of time, it’s been out. And I think it’s because we as a nation are at a crisis in our mental health, and we have to just remember that there is hope in Jesus. Listen, the Lord wants us to seek counsel, right? I am for therapy. We also need to seek wise counsel. And so we have to spend time with God, and He is the great counselor, and so we have to remember that. But the feedback has been incredible.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, I was reading one of your reviews on Amazon and talking about Kenza knows our spiritual condition has a huge effect on how we feel, how we relate, how we live every minute of every day. Without Jesus in your heart, everyone experiences a shortfall of joy and peace. So I thought that was nice because I think that when you really are in touch, you know, and your relationship with the Lord is in a good place, you do feel that joy and peace more readily and you don’t feel disconnected and kind of a mess.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, yes. We have a minute left. Where do you suggest people start when they come in to see you? Where’s the best place to start feeling better?
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, examine your life. I mean, first things first. You want to surrender your life to Jesus. Salvation is a free gift. And so give your life to Jesus first. Don’t wait to try to get better and then give your life to him. No, give your life to him, and then he will make it better. He will organize it. Then try to get to know him. Spend time with him. A relationship with the Lord takes time to cultivate. And then take inventory of your life. And that’s what I use in the book. It’s like an inventory that we go through on each chapter, every part of your life, so that we can see what the root of the problem is.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, yeah. Well, Kenza, it’s always such a pleasure to have you in the program. I really enjoy you and what you do. Give us a website.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s www.KenzaHaddock.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
And again, the book is The Three Enemies of Your Mental Health. Thank you, Kenza. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
In this episode of The Good News with Angie Austin, we delve into the heart of discernment with Grace Fox, as she explores stories of overcoming societal pressures and tuning into divine guidance. We revisit the biblical tale of Job and discuss the importance of identifying the right voices amidst the chaos of modern life. With insights from scripture and personal anecdotes, learn how to navigate life’s challenges by staying true to your spiritual compass.
