Welcome to “Coffee with Phil,” the podcast where we dive into life’s musings over a cup of coffee. In this episode, amidst the scorching New Zealand summer, Phil explores the topic of escapism and the subtle ways it creeps into our lives. He delves into the allure of daydreaming, mindless scrolling, and even the fantasy of online shopping, emphasizing the risks of living in alternate realities. Drawing wisdom from the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians, Phil encourages listeners to find contentment, combat anxiety through prayer, and embrace the power of rejoicing. This episode serves as a thoughtful guide on fighting the urge to escape reality and sets the stage for the next installment, promising practical insights on avoiding escapism. So, grab your coffee, join Phil in the studio, and let’s navigate the challenges of the new year together.
BONUS CONTENT
- Previous Episode: Episode 56
- Bible Verses: Philippians 4:11
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Introduction
Well, hi and Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to coffee with Phil. Welcome as it is, for me at least, welcome to 2024. I’m not sure when you are listening to this podcast, but here we are in 2024, walking into a new year and I wonder what the year is going to bring. So why don’t you get into a very interesting topic today, which is… my coffee. Well, man it is hot. We are in the middle of the New Zealand summer, and I still need to have coffee to function, so I’ve been drinking lots of iced coffee lately. I shared with you in the previous podcast, most recently about some beautiful beans that were given to me as a gift by my kids. And over the summer I was enjoying that with my konecs, which is really, really smooth kind of coffee.
I Don’t know if you’ve ever had pour over? But if you haven’t, you need to find a decent coffee or a cafe. You need to find a decent bean. And you need to ask them to make you a key mix or pour over coffee with a V. 60 and just taste how smooth it is. And in my hurry to be with you in the studio this afternoon I made myself an iced espresso. With a long portion of iced water. And several half a dozen lumps of ice. This doesn’t have the same smoothness you often find.
The best way to get the smoothness out of an espresso shot is to partner with the sweetness of the milk. Whether you stretch that with heat or whether you use it for iced coffee as often I do. So, what’s happening in my world this week with coffee?
Yes, here I am. In the heat of the studio with an iced coffee bringing you some thoughts to start the year off in an interesting way. Because the New Years often a time where we set hopes and ambitions or resolutions in place. We set new goals, and we say New year, new me and we set new habits and, we’ll be positive. And we’ll be constructive.
And all that’s really, really good and I’m all for it. But there’s a risk in there and we’ll talk about that today, Coffee with Phil, with episode 57, we’re making faith real.
What might it look like?
Today I want to talk to you about fighting the urge to escape and I’m going to talk about escapism, which is the nature, or the tendency, or the urge we have to escape reality. Now, at the beginning of the year, we do a lot of dreaming. We do a lot of hoping and praying and we think about the year ahead and I’m going to say to you, daydreaming is good. I’m all for dreaming with God, especially in asking the Holy Spirit to inspire our thoughts and our imagination. But we can come to the point where we get into a pattern of daydreaming, and it is a form of escapism, and I want to talk about that.
I would also say, having read and listened to some wisdom on this topic recently for my own personal journey of making sure I don’t avoid reality… that mindless scrolling is a form of escapism. It’s a form of escaping in the world. It’s looking at TikTok videos. Pictures, imagery, things that are other people’s world that you might hope was yours, and mindless scrolling becomes a habit.
Especially when we have got more free time on our hands over the holidays. And it’s escaping reality. I would also say. I confessed to Kathy the other day; I think I became addicted to the Facebook marketplace. You know at night and looking at all these things that you might like to buy or things that people are trying to sell and you’re, you know, laughing and arguing and talking with your family about how much money they think they’re going to get. Saying “you’re rubbish. You know, it’s not worth that. Ohh, don’t need to get that. Tell him he’s dreaming, mate.” You know.
But it’s a fantasy purchase. We imagine what it would be like to have this new film thing that we need to purchase, and if you’re into using online purchasing. You know, Temu, AliExpress, Trade me, Facebook marketplace or other websites and you fill up the shopping cart and it can become a form of escapism. And I want to talk about why that’s not so good for us. I also would like to give you this definition. I just tried to capture it in essence, so you can try and get on the wavelength that I’m getting on.
Here I’m seeing that the behaviour, the mindset or the bad practice of escapism is using your imagination to be in search of an alternate reality. And you might say, well, that’s good. That’s what I need because my reality sucks. That’s precisely my point, and I want to get to that today. So, coffee with Phil episode 57. I hope you’re still with me today. We’re fighting the urge to escape. And I want to talk to you a little bit about what this might look like.
Escapism comes to us when we avoid, or we run away from essentially the struggle and all the pain of our current situations. we all know life is difficult, it doesn’t always go easy for us all the time. And so, in the struggle, sometimes we want to find the easy way out. We want to find an easier way to live than the struggle. We’re working through the pain of the journey that we’re on. And so, we look to escape. Now what happens is we create in our mind and imagination an alternate reality, whether it’s for us personally. Or the people around us. Or perhaps it’s what we might look at, or have our life look like, or what we might have in life. We create an alternate reality that we think we would make up; we imagine it and we become almost a little bit possessed by it.
We own it to the point of our in our minds and in the most extreme instance of addiction to fantasy it becomes almost like a false reality that we line in, and we pretend we’re in that space. We act like that in that space for some people. I have a friend who’s written a bit about this lately. She talked about using fantasy novels as a way of escaping her struggles with some health challenges, other people use movies, or you might get into fantasy dreams where you’re living in this false reality and in your mind is playing games with you.
The last thing that I share here is what It might look like is, Spending money that you don’t have. Or pretending to spend money you don’t have by putting things in shopping carts. And putting them on your watch list. You’re spending when you don’t have. And maybe you’re just trying to impress yourself. Alleviate the pain of your reality. Or maybe as I’ve often said in my financial seminars, you know, you obviously spend money.
You don’t have to impress people you don’t even like. That’s a false reality. That’s escapism, and it hurts us in the long run. And today in this episode, I want to talk about how we must fight the urge to escape and in the next episode coffee with Phil episode 58. We’re going to talk about how to avoid escapism, so we’re going to take this in two different parts and see how it comes together. I really do hope and pray that It helps you. Because you know what? I’ve found a struggle. And my struggle. I found a struggle because I’ve been fighting for so long, I’ve been challenged in certain areas and I’m like, man, I’m trying to push through. I’m trying to have faith. I’m trying to be diligent and sometimes it’s just like, man, if I gave up and I found an alternate reality, a different place to live, a different place to work, a different bunch of people to do life with, it would be better for me, and it’s how I think life would go. But it’s just actually not the best for me and I want to get into that.
So, let’s keep talking about what it’s like to escape reality. More importantly, fight the urge to escape reality. And what does the Apostle Paul say about this? I want you to just listen to some of the words from Philippians Chapter 4. I just briefly want to share some things and then talk about a spiritual warning. Because that’s the biggie that we need to get to.
So, let’s jump into the Bible because I think it’s really important that we anchor ourselves in the word of God and let me say I’m preaching to myself here. So let me use the right language. I think it’s really important that I anchor myself in the word of God, I think it’s really important that I am stirring up the faith and I’m encouraging myself as scriptures and I’m professing them out loud, which I’m doing with you today. So that they create strength in me and hope and faith. And as I hear the word of God, I hear the faith. I can sense the faith rising. So, let’s look to Paul the apostle who wrote the letter to the church at Philippi.
This is the book of Philippians and I’m looking in chapter Four and there’s. Just three things I want to highlight on this because really what we’re trying to do is fight the urge to escape and we must combat spiritual things with spiritual solutions. So, I want to talk about that today in this episode. So, hang with me. Hang with me. I want to look at Paul at the end of this letter.
He says in chapter 4. He says in verse 11, he says. “Look, I’m not saying this because I am in need, for I’ve learned how to be content with whatever I have.” And the new King James version, he says. I’ve learned in whatever state I am in to be content. And so, the idea here is that… this idea that we would want to escape to create a false reality is because we’re lacking contentment, which just off the top of my head I would say most of us would not be willing to accept where God has put us.
And we’ll speak more about that in the next episode. But Paul says, “I’ve learned in whatever state I am to be content.” He says, “I know how to be abased.” Which means to live humbly, he says, “and I know how to abound.” which means to live in prosperity. The new living translations, he says. I know how to live with almost nothing, or with everything I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty with plenty or with little. This failing to find contentment is the one of the challenges we’re going to wrestle with.
Here’s the trump card that Paul gives us in verse 13. I can’t help but just bring it out here because we all need to hear this. But it says, “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me, who gives me strength.” So, we’ve got to recognise the thing I’m calling out. You and me and everyone else that’s struggling with this, I’m calling out the fact that we’ve got to learn to be content like Paul was in all things, whether we have much or little that are in this state, Christ is sufficient for me. Also, I want to point to in this passage earlier Paul talks about anxiety. He talks about being anxious. He talks about the way our mind plays games with us and so I’ve got these two translations in front of me. I just want to work through them with you in this set of courses.
“Don’t worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all that he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace.” Paul says, which exceeds everything you can understand, and his peace will guard your heart and mind as you live in Christ. To see anxiety is an issue of the mind that causes our heart to shift out of faith.
And so, we’ve got to bring them into alignment with the word of God, which is why I’m reading these scriptures to myself and also to you. Paul says be anxious for nothing but in everything seek God. And this idea that anxiety is not faith and being anxious about our circumstances is not faith. And when we get out of faith, we get out of connection with heaven. Which means we get out of the flow that God’s got for us because he’s got us in the palm of his hand. And we like to escape when we think God’s not God in our situation at hand.
And finally, I’m walking my way backwards up the page, but just finally I just want you to note the importance of rejoicing. I want you to notice the importance of rejoicing, and Paul started this whole section in his letters he says, “rejoice in the Lord always.” And he reiterates, he says “again, I will say, rejoice. Let everyone see that you consider it in all that you’re doing and remember the Lord your God is coming soon.” He’s saying, “Hey come on Jesus is in control of all things, and he’s got the world in his hand.” What’s the key to fight the urge to escape in the context of this passage and this passage alone, tell God what you need, but do it with rejoicing. Do it with thankfulness. Give thanks to God for all he has done.
So, you know you might be struggling with a work situation. You’re not enjoying your job, or you’re really challenged in your job, or you can’t quite see the answers in the work that you’re trying to do. And that brings worry because what about my future? What if I have to change jobs? Or what if my boss, you know, fires me or what if I ran out of money? This passage to me says “always be full of joy in the Lord, always rejoicing in the Lord. Start by giving thanks to God because when you position yourself in place of thankfulness. Then that’s going to build the faith you need to stand and stand firm. Because when you’ve done all else the Bible says in Ephesians. Paul, the same author he says, when you’re done all else, you just got to stand and we stand on the attitude of gratitude.
So now this sounds good in theory, and I’m preaching to myself here to fight the urge to escape the challenges. But if we don’t find contentment, if we are anxious and we’ll forget to rejoice, then we’re going to come under… These are the worst guys. Don’t miss this… We’re going to come under attack. And I need to give you a spiritual warning because there’s a layer to this that then leads us into a place of potential and challenge, and I want to talk about it. So here comes the spiritual warning.
Spiritual Warning
When we entertain the urge to escape, we start thinking about an alternate reality. When we start thinking about this idea, we could escape or live life in a new place, or live life with new people, or have those things that we don’t yet have. There’s a risk. This is temptation, that there’s an unclean spirit that is waving thoughts around they’re fiery darts of the enemy are those thoughts that come to tempt you into agreements with what that unclean spirit is tempting you in.
The temptation there’s like, “hey, look at this.” And if you come into agreement with it, that unclean spirit will lead you into a false truth. Now the false truth is the alternate reality. It’s something that’s not true according to what God says, but it becomes your truth. I call that a little T truth, meaning it’s true for you because it’s your new reality. But it’s not God’s reality. Now, here’s my thing. When you come into agreement with a false truth, you are deceived. The Bible is very clear about that. You are deceived practically speaking, though, when we’re deceived, we don’t realise we’re deceived.
We are living in this false reality. But it gets worse. Folks. Friends, you need to listen to this when we are on the deception and we are deceived, we go to another layer of deception, which means we begin to deceive other people because we’re presenting, you know, ourselves to our family, loved ones or our friends or our workplace, our employer, or our church family, we’re presented to them, but inside we’re desperately hoping and seeking, or in fact, living in the false reality that we’ve created that we’ve been tempted into by the unclean spirit. And the danger here is you start to live almost like a double life. This is the most extreme form of it. And I I’m happy to say I have not fallen into like addiction, you know, gambling or other forms.
But I know this is the best way I could explain it. An addict literally lives two lives. They are living the life of addiction, but they’re hiding their addiction from their family or their workplace and so on. They are living a double life and that can just as much be true for someone who’s living in a false reality in an alternate reality, in something that God has not ordained for them. But they’re living a false life in their world and their imagination, and their heart is given over to this false reality.
And here’s the layer. So, first layer you’re deceived, second layer, you begin to deceive others, third layer is this deception causes you to hide away from God. And Adam and Eve in the garden. Best example of this. iThe serpent, who tempted them with the question. Did God really say no? You could eat the apple. They ate the apple, and in doing so took God off the throne and put themselves on the throne, which is what we do when we entertain temptation from unclean spirit to move into false room, when we do that and we move what they do, they head in the garden and God’s walking in the garden. He’s like, hey, where are you? Come out. You know, he wasn’t asking because he didn’t know where they were. He was asking because he wanted them to reveal themselves.
And the risk is we hide from God long enough our heart becomes hard, and we don’t allow him to deal with what’s going on inside of us. So, the first layer of our deception is we become deceived because we listen to temptation, and we come into agreement with it. We say I want that, and we begin to fantasise about it. Escapism is like partnering with fantasy. You know, a new job, a new place to live, a new friend, or maybe even a new spouse.
The second layer of deception, as you begin to deceive others by living a false life and presenting a false self. Your true self and then finally, you hide from God. And so, this is why I come back to the whole point I’m trying to share: this is, you know, life is tough. We get the urge, the temptation to escape it’s the devil’s trick, you know he comes, and he sees us in our struggle and he says. “Well, look, if you’re not going to sin and you’re not going to deny or defy God. Then I’m going to tempt you away from his truth and his process.”
And I definitely want to dig into that, and coffee with Phil Episode #58 It’s going to come up shortly. So, I’m probably going to record this afternoon. The point I’m making is that if we don’t fight the urge to escape, we get sucked into the temptation black hole and it goes from bad to worse.
Sorry friends, I just want to wrap this up and I really want to… I suppose I’ll come back to a positive finish if I can. Because I’m feeling like the Lord’s asking me to share this because there’s people out there that are struggling with this. And if that’s you, then don’t do this by yourself, I want you to reach out to someone I want you to talk through your challenges and find a safe friend that is willing to listen First, Pray 2nd Journey with you third. But remember this, the importance of rejoicing if you’re stuck in this place. and you’re really finding, how do I start my journey out of this? Then come back to the importance of rejoicing.
Paul says, rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say rejoice. How do we find ourselves rejoicing? We stop by giving thanks to God for all that he has done, and we may give thanks to God for all that he has done. The Peace of God which overcomes and surpasses all understanding will come and will begin to guard our hearts and begin to guide our minds. And wrap it up in Christ Jesus, who is our Prince of peace. This is going to everyone, so I’m not going to drag it out. I’m going to close it off here and just let you know that I’m praying for you. I’m praying with you.
I’m really doing this because I feel like the Lord is calling us each into a place of submitting our challenges to him in order that we would find the new levels of freedom, so May God richly bless you if this is something that’s really, really challenging you. reach out. I don’t know where you are, but maybe we can find someone that can help you. Don’t forget to share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast and I look forward to journeying this year with you and seeing where the Lord leads us as we enjoy coffee together, my iced coffee is gone. So maybe it’s time for another. But in the meantime. May you travel well. And I look forward to being back in your ear pods soon. Take care.