In this soul-baring episode, join Phil Strong in a “work from home afternoon” filled with introspection and a caffeine boost. Episode 62 delves into the question: Is self-help bad help? Phil Strong shares personal reflections on past roles as a business and church leader, acknowledging the pitfalls of seeking breakthroughs in the wrong places. Drawing insights from Scripture, anecdotes from a Welsh retreat, and recent struggles, the episode challenges the notion of self-help and highlights the dangers of misplaced trust. Phil Strong explores the roots of personal striving, exposing the risks of pride, lies, isolation, and wrong expectations. The journey concludes with a call to surrender to God, seeking His grace for true salvation and a fuller, richer life. Tune in for a raw and authentic exploration of faith and self-discovery.
BONUS CONTENT
- Bible Reference: 1 Sam: 13 | Psalm 103 | Acts 19: 13-16
- Roy Godwin: Grace Outpouring
- Previous Episode: Episode 61
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Introduction
Welcome to the podcast. It’s great to be with you wherever you are. I’m not sure what you’re doing this afternoon, but I’m enjoying a “work from home afternoon”, me and the dog. The dog is sleeping on the floor at my feet, and I’m having a caffeine shot. You can imagine what that might include wherever you are. I hope you’ve had a great coffee today.
I hope you’ve had a great day. I hope you’re having a great day. I hope you are enjoying the opportunity to spend some time pondering life and thinking about how we live our life of faith. Well, we’re trying to make faith real. We’re trying to make it raw. We’re trying to make it applicable. And so, I’m just going on a journey, and I’ve decided in this season of the podcast that I’m just going to share that with you.
So, for the listeners that are enjoying that, thanks for following. Make sure you subscribe and make sure you share this with someone. I often talk to people now. They’re close to me obviously, but they say hey, “you said this on the podcast the other day” or just even this morning one of my team who’s been helping with the editing said. Oh well look, this is what Phil is saying at the end of I think it was one of the recent episodes about the arm of God. You can find that out, but here we are today episode 62 rocking into 2024. To put a time stamp on this.
Today I want to ask the question is self-help bad. Is self-help bad help? And I’ve got to say too often people, believers, those of faith would seek a breakthrough by looking in the wrong place. Often you get what you look for, but I would say you get what you look for based on where you’re looking and as a husband in a home. I confess I often can’t find things, and usually it’s because I’m looking in the wrong place her indoors the wife, guides me carefully, lovingly, respectfully, without any chastisement whatsoever. That’s not true. She mocks me because I look with boy eyes, and I look with a bit of a struggle.
And so, when we’re looking for a breakthrough, when we’re trying to break into a new space or break out of a space, sometimes we look in the wrong place and I know look you can get online and look at a whole bunch of messages, sermons from churches, and they’re just like self-help messages. They’re like here’s seven steps for you to make sure that you live a prosperous life, and they don’t bother looking at the Bible.
They give you some self-help mindset, and there’s some popular preachers around that. And the reason they’re popular is because their messages don’t challenge. They tickle their ears, they encourage their personality, and they do little for transformation, in my opinion. So, if you’re looking for a breakthrough, make sure you’re looking in the right place.
And look, I’ve got a confession in this area. What I’m going to share about my journey, looking for breakthrough. But before I do, I just want to set the scene. I used to be part of this problem because in a season of life when I… Well, in the season of my business life, I was a business coach. I was a personal coach. I worked with business owners and business leaders, and we’d get down and dirty into the nitty gritty of the challenges they were facing. And as a coach, I was there to help bring them to a place where they could find a solution. Sometimes we would develop the solution together. Sometimes we would just start by asking the right questions. We would find ourselves going in a different direction and in that there was a change that could be affected.
But what I’m saying is I was the provider of self-help and I’m like now I’m looking at this podcast episode and what I’ve got to map out before you today and share with you. And I’m thinking, man, I was part of the problem but also in this season of life as a church leader, I can absolutely tell you that I have a valid confession, current confession that I could also be part of this problem. As a pastor. Because I can be the one that people come to when they’ve got challenges or problems or, you know, we just can’t seem to find the answer here and they look to me as the one who can fix it. And I’m not smart enough, clever enough, holy enough, good enough or wise enough to be able to do that for you. I’m sorry to let you down.
And I’ll talk about that in a minute. I’ll point you in the right direction, but also on reflection. Sharing a story with someone the other day. I love the concept, the mindset of the ministry team at a place called Felder Brennan in Wales, and now I must tell you some stories about our visit to Ffayld-y-Brennin in 2022, as part of a sabbatical time away, Kathy and myself, we planned some retreat time. Some travel time, some spending time with God, spending time with each other, and spending time in the sun.
One of the places that was on our radar was a retreat center called Felder Brennan. It’s on the West Coast of Wales, miles from anywhere, I reckon. Even Google Maps wasn’t sure where we were, but lo and behold, we turned up. And we had a great time there. And I’ll tell you the story of that on another day, but I love the mindset of the team there. I read a book. One of the books regarding Ffald y Brennin before I went. It’s a book called the Grace Outpouring. It’s written by one of the previous executive directors of the Retreat Centre. A man called Roy Godwin.
And we’ll make sure we put the link to that book in the show notes. It’s well worth the read. It’s full of testimonies. And even if you never go to Ffayld-y-Brennin, you can reproduce some of the mindsets at home, which is what I’m telling you we’re doing. I love the mindset, they would say in the book, Roy would write “we would often see people led by God to a place on the property where he wanted to encounter them, and we would witness as the Holy Spirit come upon them. A deep conviction or a grief, or a hunger or a moment of encounter.” And he said this is what I love.
Catch this. Don’t miss this point, he said. “We as a team would withdraw into the shade. Confident that the spirit of Jesus Christ could do ministry far more effectively, lovingly, and completely than we ever could.” And ohh my gosh, I just love that mindset because what it says to me that we need to take leadership from that and in that we must understand that we can lead people to an opportunity for an encounter, but we should leave the encounter to Jesus, to the spirit of Jesus.
And so, I find that encouraging, and it’s where my mindset’s gone for this. We’ve started doing this a lot in our church gatherings, small and large. It doesn’t matter where we are, we’ve kind of gone away from the altar call come to the front of the bishop, can pray for you kind of mindset. I love that and I don’t mind doing that. And I’ll do that any day of the week. But what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to turn people back toward Jesus with each other that in that they would discover the spirit of Jesus ministering to them in the moment they’re in.
And when we learn how to do that, when we’re confident to do that, when we find a familiarity with the spirit of God, then we can allow him to Minister to us when we’re in our car. When we’re in our kitchen, when we’re, lying face down on the floor crying our eyes out, we can find Jesus in that place.
I want to just answer a question here because the question I asked at the beginning in the title of the podcast “is self-help bad help?” I’m going to really answer that by saying so why is self-help bad help and I’m just going to set this up and then I’m going to talk about what I’ve been doing. And leave it with you. But here’s what I’d say. When you put the power or hope for an answer, or an outcome or a breakthrough when you put the power of that hope in the hands of men or woman, you will by default dethrone God in the process. I love it. A.W. Tozer said either he’s Lord of all or not Lord at all. And so, when we trust in man, when we trust in the strength of others, when we come to them, we create this default and I want to speak about that.
But we create a default that God has been dethroned. And just lately we’ve had a whole bunch of prayer time that’s been based in Scripture. And so, what I’m reminded of is King Saul. We looked at that recently, and King Saul took things into his own hands with the sacrifice. And as a result of that, he disempowered God’s prophet and the spirit of God and action, and he took it upon himself to make the sacrifice by his own hand and as a result of that, the Favour of God came off him. He lost his crown and God went looking for a new king.
Earlier this week, we were praying through second Chronicles 26, and the story of King Uzziah, and in that story, King Uziah took things into his own hand, went into the most holy place of the temple, which was sacred, and not for him to enter into, and as a result of that. He was covered with leprosy. He was cast out of the palace, lived by himself in isolation as a leper until the day of his death. And then you’ll all know the story in Acts 19 of the seven sons of Sceva. That tried to by the name of Jesus that’s preached by Paul, they tried to cast out a demon who then turned around, beat them up, stripped them naked, and sent them running down the road.
And so, none of us want to be naked and beaten. Running down the road, but the risk is when we move outside of our attention on what God’s doing and what he wants to do and allow him to do it, then we move into this place of self-help. And I’m just speaking out against it because I’ve noticed, and I’ll share in a minute. I’ve noticed a tendency for me, it’s kind of a rut that I fall back into. It’s a habit or a pattern and I’m calling myself out on it.
But I also see it in others as well. You know when it becomes a default? Here’s the real risk. If you want to know the real reason why you want to avoid this in your life, this becomes a default that invites an unclean spirit into your world. It becomes a default that invites an unclean spirit and when an unclean spirit comes in and you’re not aware of it. It becomes familiar to you. That unclean spirit starts leading you down the garden path in the wrong direction and leading you away from the things of God.
Now, if you don’t believe me, then look at first Samuel 16 and see what happened to Saul. I just said to you in first Samuel 13, and in fact also in 15, Saul makes mistakes and God says this man is not for me. What you’ll read is then David comes on the stage. David’s a musician and it says here that God sent a tormenting spirit to Saul, and Saul was recognised as having this lying spirit that would deceive him and that’s the risk of living a life of self-help is you’re most likely going to be misled. By a familiar spirit that’s in and you’re in the middle of something.
But any you got the point with regards to us. Let’s talk about the prayer of King David, though, because that is completely different. And this morning, just this morning and our prayer time, we have a Thursday morning prayer time online, and we prayed psalm 62 and again I won’t preach a sermon on this podcast, but I just want to read you a scripture.
King David’s Prayer
Scripture is always good to read. Truly, my soul silently waits for God. From him, writes David. Comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He only is my defence. I shall not be greatly moved. And then down in verse five, he says my soul wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from him. And I noticed this morning when I was reading it. It says my soul… comma…wait silently for God alone. It’s like he’s speaking to his soul. David was known as a guy who would command his soul.
And I reckon that’s probably the best way we could do self-help is command our soul to focus on God, he says. My soul… comma… wait silently for God alone. It’s like he’s saying, come on, soul. Come on emotions come on heart wait for God and wait for him alone.
So, I looked up a little bit more about David commanding his soul and look at Psalm 103 and look, that would be good reading for you if you got access to a Bible. On your phone or Bible at home, when you get a chance, get some 103 into you, David writes. “Bless the Lord, Oh my soul and all that was within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh, my soul and forget not all his benefits.” He’s commanding himself. He’s telling himself. Come on. Stir myself up. And I will bless the Lord. I will exalt the Lord. I’ll focus my attention on the Lord.
And that’s really, I suppose, the answer to the question is self-help bad help. The answer is yes. What is better than self-help is blessing the Lord, focusing on the Lord, commanding your soul to focus on him. Now, I don’t want to study this with you now. But look, I just I made a list, forget not all the benefits of God and look, it says he forgives, he heals, he redeems. He crowns you; he satisfies you. And he brings renewal. All of that is just in the beginning of Psalm 103.
So, is self-help bad help? Yes, my friends it is because what it does is it tricks us into thinking that we can be the master of our own destiny or someone else. Our coach, our helper or our counsellor, our spouse, our friend, our dad, whatever. They can be the master of our own destiny which is not true as per Saul, King Uzziah, and the seven sons of Sceva
When I try and Work for Salvation
So, what I recognise in me because look, I’m the worst one at this, you know, I get myself into trouble. There’s no problem as I was just saying to my board the other day. Look, I’ve got a problem here and I created it. Everything around me is the product of the vision and the working of the team over the last, you know, season we’ve been in we’ve created this world and I’m looking at it going Oh, this is creating more problems than I anticipated, and it’s by my own doing.
So, I’m right in the midst of this, but when I try and work for salvation, no. Sorry. Let me explain what I mean in my mind when I think about, you know, in the way that I’ve studied scripture and understand the way God makes himself available to be the hero in our story. I call that salvation and so that could be deliverance from suffering. It could be deliverance from pain, healing it could be your eternal salvation, meaning being reborn, born again as a son or daughter of God. And clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and seeded alongside Christ and the heavenlies, it could just mean winning in the in the business that you’re in, or the work you’re in. It could mean in finding the love of your life and moving into the future family and raising children and raising future generations that all of that is included when I say salvation.
But when I try and work for my salvation. I miss the fullness of the salvation. Let me say it again, when I try and work for salvation, I miss the fullness of salvation. It just means I get less. I don’t get what God’s designed for me. I’m going to get, you know, instead of a gold trophy, I’m just going to get some plastic Chrome. Coated tiny little thing, which is really not what I’m interested in as far as this life is concerned. So, what I’m saying to myself is self-help is false salvation, self-help is false salvation. We’re going to get something that’s no good because it’s not from God. And again, I’m reminded of the Bible. Ephesians chapter … And verse eight and nine says this. “For by grace, by grace, by the work of grace. You are saved. Truths. Faith.”
So, by grace you are saved. You receive salvation by faith. And this is not from yourself. It is the gift of God. It is not from your works, so that you cannot boast. Paul’s writing to us, saying guys, guys, guys, you can’t attain the salvation that God has made for you. And so again, if you’re looking for something to read, that would be a good place to head back to.
Lately I’ve Been Striving
So, as I kind of promised, I wanted to talk about what’s going on and I’ve been striving, I’ve been struggling, but I think I’m struggling cause I’m striving, striving means to reach for… it means to work energetically, to run fast toward it means to exert oneself. Under one strength, striving means to push beyond limits or attempt to push beyond limits. And I’ve been striving, you know, I’ve got some challenges in front of me, and I’ve been working. With energy that I can’t sustain. And it’s wearing me out and it’s probably why I’m sitting on my bum, looking at my world going. Can I help myself, or do I need a greater kind of help than what I can offer myself?
Hence this episode. So lately I’ve been striving because I’ve set myself some ambitious goals. I’ve considered myself worthy for the task, not that I’m believing fully in myself. But I do believe God’s with me on the journey, and so I would say God says, go for it. God says let’s do it together. But I think often I forget that he wants to be in the driver’s seat and I’m like, you know, I said this to you guys before once, I say it all the time, as you know, we often pray. Lord, would you bless what I want to have happen? Lord, bless me so I can be blessed. Instead of… the right response should be not my will, Lord, but thy be done.
And so, what I’ve written down here is I think my goals and my strength led to my failure. And I said to you before, like I have this tendency, maybe I’m like King Saul, just dumb. You know, I’m stubborn. I’m used to a pattern. You know, I’ve relied on past success to build a pathway for future success and the Lord’s saying. That’s not what I want you to do, Phil. That’s not the path for you this time. Less is more, you know, like I’ve had 1 2 3 prophetic words in the last three months that have. Said to me, you need to do less. And it’s going to be countercultural and the cost of you doing this is you’re going to look lazy or stupid, but that’s where God wants you for him to work through your life.
So, like I’m confessing. I’ve heard it. Now I’ve got to live it, but I was thinking about… You know, the bigger picture of my life and why am I reverting to the flesh so often? And again, I’ve just made a list. There are seven things on this list. So why do I revert to the flesh? Well, pride. I’m prideful. I want to experience the accomplishment and the accolades that come from Acco Management.
One of the reasons that I often fail is I listen to the lies that are around me, that would say that I need to get better help. I need to get a better coach. I need to have self-help that that you know that I just need to work harder and get on with it.
Sometimes I get myself into trouble because of isolation. and I’ve watched a couple of people lately that I’m a bit worried about, try and isolate themselves and so I’ve gone after them and I’ve spent time with them and I’ve encouraged them and I’ve pointed them to the truth and I know the same thing with me, isolation. Is a good thing, but separation is not.
And so yes, I do have time by myself. Yes, I do have a quiet space of solitude and silence before God. But to disconnect myself is the real danger there. The other night I had a wrestling match with my thoughts because I found that I was listening to lies or accusations and fear was trying to overtake me and my definition of fear or explanation or fear is just. Faith in the wrong thing. My problem is, you know when I have fear, I believe that my problem is bigger than God or God is smaller than my problem.
And that’s what fear is. And that’s a lack of faith. And so, the only cry that I can have at that time in the middle of the night is God help me to have faith.
One of the other things I struggle with is being impatient. Lord. It would be great if you could help me in line with my timing and the deadline that I’ve set. I don’t like feeling uncomfortable or out of control or exposed or vulnerable, so I become impatient and the Lord’s like. Look, I’m with you, bro. But it’s my timing and the fullness of my timing is perfect not yours.
So, impatience is another thing that takes me out. Number six on my list was wrong expectations, and Kathy and I talk about this a lot in the season we’re in. Like we believe in God for breakthrough, and we focus on what we think that breakthrough should look like and God’s like, “hey, I asked you to have faith in me and not faith in an outcome.” And I was like, ohh, we’ve got such the wrong expectation here.
And so, we’ve got to put our expectations down. We’ve got to put them on the altar. We’ve got to repent for believing in an outcome instead of believing in the deliverer. And that’s wrong expectations and yeah, I coach people well… Coach is the wrong word. Now that I’ve said this, I support people and help them to see that sometimes wrong expectations are what limits us for God to move in our world.
And the last one I’m going to speak about this soon with a group of people I’m going to spend time with is, previous disappointments. Previous disappointments become a filter through which we look at life and therefore see things inaccurately and therefore make inaccurate judgments about our life. So previous disappointments people let me down, or God let me down or I’m not good enough, or I’m not worthy to be loved. Those are all previous disappointments.
They become like a set of glasses or filters that we wear that then when we look to a new situation, we’re actually looking in that situation where filters with like wrong-coloured lenses over our eyes and that means we totally messed up on what we’re seeing, which means we can’t see what’s actually happening. We’re seeing it through our filters, which means we’re seeing the wrong picture, which means we actually make wrong judgments about what’s happening. And then we miss ourselves up.
And I’ve been noticing that I did that lately. So, I’m trying to correct that. So why do I revert to the flesh? It’s because of pride. It’s because of listening to lies. It’s because I isolate myself to disconnect, which is the problem. It means sometimes I move into a lack of faith, and I’ve got to correct myself. I’m impatient because I think my timing is better than God’s timing. I have the wrong expectations because I’ve misinterpreted what God said or I’m applying filters because of previous disappointments.
Maybe you might find some of those applicable to your journey, and I’d encourage you to check out the transcript that we offer for this podcast, because you’ll be able to see those listed in the text. You have to copy them from the description below and you’ll be able to put them into your diary or your journal or your notebook or on your phone.
And you’ll be able to work through them with God and say God, if I have been prideful. Then I repent and ask for forgiveness. So, I’m going to kind of just… I don’t have the answer for you. But I’m just saying that what I’ve got to do with all of these things is I need to surrender to the Lord and seek repentance and ask his forgiveness and then ask that he would help me move forward beyond these things. So, it’s kind of what I’m wanting to finish with is I’m going to be like, David, where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord.
I turn my eyes unto the hills and my help comes from God. My hope is in him and him alone. And my prayer for you at the end of this podcast would be that the Lord would really shine his light on your circumstances, particularly into the dark corners of your heart, as he’s done for me.
And that as he shines his light into your world, you would begin to give him your brokenness you can’t fix yourself. That’s called control, and that means you’re saying that you’re better than the God who created the universe. And I’m sure you don’t think that’s actually true.
So, the answer to all of these challenges is for me to surrender them to God. Walk with him and allow his grace to wash over me and save me so that I might experience the fullness of salvation and all that God has for me, so I’ll leave it there. God bless you. I look forward to spending time with you soon. Come back and have coffee with Phil until next time. Take care.
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