New Life LIVE

Brian Perez: Welcome to the New Life LIVE podcast. We hope to provide help and hope in your life through God's word, counselors, and psychologists as we answer questions from listeners who call with the challenges of life. Let's go to today's episode.

We're so glad you've joined us today on New Life LIVE. We're here to help as many people as we can, including you this hour. So don't go anywhere. Chris and Jill are on once again. Chris Woods is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and Dr. Jill Hubbard is a clinical psychologist with wisdom to dispense as well. Hello, you guys. How are you doing?

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Yeah, good.

Chris Woods: Great. Good to be here.

Brian Perez: Chris, what's on your mind?

Chris Woods: Okay, here's my confession today. I know I can be very obstinate and prideful. I just don't like people telling me what to do. I don't like people telling me how to run my business. I just don't boss me because I don't respond well to it, which is probably why I work for myself.

We were talking in a previous show about financial stress. I always joke around that I love my boss, but he doesn't pay very well. But the truth of the matter is that oftentimes I'll look at submission as a dirty word or submission as something that we resist. It kind of makes my skin crawl when I hear it. We love it when we want other people to submit, but we hate it when we're asked to submit ourselves.

That's where the pride and the obstinate come in. But the truth of the matter that we all have to face, that I have to face in my pride, is that submission is not an option. It is a constant. I'm going to submit to something, and oftentimes it's submitting to myself.

I look over the course of my life, and if I've submitted to myself without the guidance and wisdom of God and the wise, loving voices that he's put in my life, it usually gets pretty bad results—sometimes catastrophic results. It's this realization that if I'm going to submit to something, I need to submit to something that's good, something that's right, and something that's true, especially when we look at our relationship with God.

I want us to look at submission with fresh eyes. Submitting to something that has our best interest in mind is a submission to love, care, and goodness outside of ourselves that is for us. I think of the verse in Proverbs chapter three where it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

When we look at the love of Christ, that he would rather die than be without us, and we look at all of the promises that he has for us throughout Scripture, we can submit to ourselves, for sure, and we will one way or another. But let's take fresh eyes, a fresh heart, and a fresh perspective on submission and say this is a good and right and true thing. Submission to God leads to the flourishing of our lives, the flourishing of our relationships, and ultimately the flourishing of our eternity, which matters most.

Brian Perez: That might be a reflection that you have. I know when you start to feel your back arch and you feel that defensiveness come over you, look at what this is about right now. What is going on with me? You have to take a step back. Use that as your red flag to then take a step back and examine yourself and say, "Okay, where do I need to have humility and submit?"

Chris Woods: That arching back is typically a fear response inside of me. I try to use that fear as the pathway to submission. Maybe I fear financial scarcity. So, Lord, I submit that to you and entrust that to you and then follow your will today, knowing that you will provide.

Brian Perez: Great wisdom and advice to start off today's episode of New Life LIVE. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back here on New Life LIVE. To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life LIVE.

Brian Perez here with Dr. Jill Hubbard and Chris Woods. Chris confessed about his obstinate personality, his stubborn pride, and being unable to submit sometimes. What do you do when you have an employee, maybe in a workplace situation, and especially at a Christian organization, where you try to set the rules as the manager but somebody comes along and they think they know better? Or they throw that excuse, "Well, the Lord told me to do it this way," and you get that feeling of, "Wait a minute, no, hold on. The Lord wouldn't tell you to do that."

Chris Woods: That's a big question, but here are a couple of things. You had mentioned something critically important. A mistake I learned very early in developing a business was that I wasn't as clear with my employees as I needed to be. When it comes to standards and expectations and when it comes to performance, I learned over time to get clearer and clearer.

Clarity compels; confusion repels. That clarity is also kind. This sounds a little bit harsh, but it really helped me out a lot because my people-pleaser side hated firing people or letting people go. But once I got clear on expectations, roles, and responsibilities, I never had to fire anyone ever again.

The reason why is my hiring got better, but most importantly, people would self-eliminate. It became very clear if you weren't hitting certain standards and procedures along the way. They knew when they signed up that this was the expectation. You don't hit these expectations; it's just not a fit. It's just not going to work out.

The other aspect of that is creating a culture of collaboration. I'm a big believer in Patrick Lencioni's five functions of a team. I do my best to create a safe environment where we can be vulnerable and we can enter into conflict. But it's organized around our mission, our vision, and our values.

Those keep the boundaries or those keep the guardrails in line so that we can have these conversations. I'm open to hearing your perspective or what you believe that God told you your perspective is, but it doesn't mean because you use God's name that it is the trump card. It's part of a larger discussion that we have towards an aimed objective or goal.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Try redecorating an office with five women where everybody has a different sense of style and they all think that they're very creative, when clearly some of them are not.

Chris Woods: Well, that's where the skill of delegation for me comes in. Having everybody feel heard, finding compromises, and determining a look. You can have a lot of people and realize everybody is trying to hold on to themselves and feel like they matter and they're important and they have value here.

Brian Perez: You have to consider a lot of variables.

Chris Woods: In the development of a business or service-based business, like in my consulting and coaching business on the corporate side of things, I oftentimes don't start with what I want. I start with what the client needs. My focus is outside of myself right from the start. When I design my office, it's about what fits best for the clientele that I see.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't differing opinions and different perspectives that we come to the table and talk through and find some compromises along the way. In my office, I'm pretty fortunate because most of my office mates are just like, "Chris, that's your deal, so you go do it."

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Well, we found a way. We navigated. It worked, but it did highlight that sometimes the simple things highlight deeper dynamics that are going on. We did see and we did have to become clear on who the decision-makers are. We'll consider opinions, but who are the people that are going to make the final decision based on a number of variables?

Chris Woods: In our business, we use this acronym, ACE: A, C, E. A stands for alignment. Are we aligned in our mission, in our vision, in our values? Are we aligned in our ultimate goals and objectives? Then are we clear in our roles and responsibilities? That's the C: clarity. And then the E is execution. Are we executing at the level in which our roles and responsibilities towards the alignment? It just is this framework that allows us to work inside of something that keeps us on rails and moving forward.

Brian Perez: You can apply some of that to family situations too because there are different roles.

Chris Woods: I think you can apply all of it to families. It looks different, absolutely. In so many of our marriages, they're just not aligned and they're not clear. Therefore, they function or disfunction in very specific ways. And there are silent rules that nobody speaks about. That happens in any organization and family.

One of the most powerful experiences that Amber and I ever went through was some life coaching where we were able to really spend a few days working towards our family mission statement. What is our family's core purpose statement? What are our family's core values?

How do we operate well? How do we complement each other? What are our weak spots and strengths? In understanding all of that, we can operate so much better together. Speaking of submission or delegation, my wife has stronger faith in certain areas than I do, and stronger gifting. So I submit to her in a way that says, "Hey, you're stronger here. Let's go with that," or vice versa.

That clarity and understanding of how we're wired and what we're all about doesn't eliminate all the conflicts or struggles that we have to go through relationally, but it just makes the day-to-day so much easier.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Resentments are often those unspoken expectations that we haven't been clear with another person but expected them to meet that need.

Chris Woods: I see marriage as two things. The first thing is that it is life together. It's building a relationship, it's companionship for the rest of your life. The other thing, and that's the related part of marriage, is what we focus on most. What we don't oftentimes focus on is the creative part of marriage. You are making life together for the rest of your lives. Oftentimes in marriages, people come in with very different visions for what they want life to look like and they never talked about it. The conflicts that that can create can be very painful and disappointing. But when we talk about building a common vision together with lots of compromises and where both can work well, it's such an advantage.

Brian Perez: You mentioned creativity and so did you, Jill, being in an office with five creative women. Now we have one guy and we're really grateful for him. In the creative process, I think it's even more difficult because now you're not just insulting what somebody learned in a textbook of how to do a certain thing. Somebody comes up with an idea, or think of a worship team at a church, and somebody wants to sing lead on this song and the worship leader might say, "Actually, I need you to sing backup for this one." It's just that whole process of how we get an alignment with the vision when somebody has authority over us.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Right. How do you submit to that? That's kind of humbling if you think you're going to be singing the lead and the worship director says, "No, you're singing backup." That's where sometimes a private conversation to express your wants and desires is needed. "I'd really like to be singing lead sometime. Do you see me doing that? And if not, why or what can I do to improve? What's your vision and do I fit into this?"

People may have different ideas of what they're wanting to do with their practice. It's having clear purpose and agreed-upon purpose or mission. We're about this, and everyone has a role towards what that is. It doesn't mean that there aren't those sort of decisions and negotiations that are happening all the time.

Chris Woods: In the work of recovery, in the recovery rooms, they say this: principles before personalities. I just think that's so genius. We submit to principles before we submit to personalities. We follow principles. When our principles are clear, the decisions become so much easier. It's less personality-driven and more principle-driven.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: But there's also that idea of people first in terms of making people a priority versus relationship over rules. We have to first make sure the relationship is okay. Prioritizing people is a principle. If we're about people first, things second, then we have a clear principle in place.

Chris Woods: There's a lot of figuring out and readjusting along the way. I've wanted to sing lead at my church for a while, but they say, "Backup, Brian. Keep backing up." Wait, I'm not even on the stage! That was very humbling. No, I'm joking. That hasn't happened because they know better than to ask me to sing.

But good conversation here on New Life LIVE. It's what we're about. We love conversing with you when we're here in the studio. You can see our recording schedule on our website, newlife.com/radio. It shows you when we're going to be here in the studio and when you can leave us a voicemail or send us an email.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Which did I say? I'm going on vacation in two days. So you won't be hearing from me much in the month of May. I'll be back at the end of May, so don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I will be back.

But this whole negotiating thing, going on vacation with my husband, is going to be very interesting—how we navigate so much free time. We work all the time, but how are we going to navigate this? I'm super excited about it, but there may have to be some conversations and negotiating and compromise of what we want to do.

Chris Woods: I just see over and over, if people are able to find the art of safe conflict—and there's a lot that has to happen underneath safe conflict: a lot of trust and safety work going on with that—the bonding, the connection, and the strength of the relationship increase because it builds so much resiliency. It starts to eliminate so much fear. I'm a people pleaser and I'm so scared to bring up hard conversations because I don't want to offend somebody else and I don't want to be misunderstood myself. Those are two primary fears that stop critical conversations from happening. If I can work through those and enter into critical conversations and work through resolution, the strength on the backside of that is so powerful.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: True. However, apparently with my family, I am not afraid of entering into hard conversations. My children have let me know that. "Mom, sometimes you're a little too direct. Sometimes you need to do a soft sell better than coming so directly." And then we negotiate it, we talk it through, and I have to apologize.

Understanding your attachment style is where Mark's book is so good. If you're out there listening, get the book because it will really help you enter into safe conversation and be a safer person.

Brian Perez: What's your cell phone policy while you're on vacation? Are you going to be carrying it around with you or are you going to enjoy the moment? Have you guys talked about that?

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Well, when I'm going for an extended period of time, I usually have someone covering for me, which will be on my voicemail. I do have a text line, which is the best way to get a hold of me. Texts can still come in without the expectation that I will be responding.

Brian Perez: Very good. All right, we've got to take a break. We'll be back here on New Life LIVE. Thanks for watching and listening. To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life LIVE.

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All right, so there are several ways that you can get your question to us when we're here in the studio. We love talking to you and dialoguing with you. You can also send us an email with your question or you can leave us a voicemail. All the instructions for our email address and the voicemail number you can find at newlife.com/radio. And here's a voicemail now from Pam.

Pam: Hi, my name is Pam. My question is I want to know if it's normal for a husband to be spending significant amounts of time with his friends. I'm 62; he is going on 61. They do golf; the game takes a lot of time. He planned a trip to Ireland with his friends. He paid for it and he did not tell me about it.

I saw it on his phone accidentally and I waited for two months for him to tell me about it, and he did not. They are in Ireland right now. It's a group of four men golfing and I feel very hurt and offended by it. He doesn't understand; he thinks that I'm yelling at him. I would like to get your advice on what I should do and how I should be feeling and if this is a normal situation.

Brian Perez: Wow. What would you guys say?

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Pam, I think there are a couple of things that stand out. First of all, having a husband that has friends is a good thing. You want men to have male friends and have some interests. You're right, golfing though takes a lot of time. But good that he has some interests.

The part that I heard though that was a little unsettling was that he planned this trip and that he didn't tell you about it. That's confusing to me. Did he not tell you about it because he knew you would object? And that he's also spending money. I don't know if he paid for himself or he paid for everybody that maybe you would want to allocate somewhere else.

Instead of this being a partnership where you guys decide and discuss things together, he just bypassed that. I understand your hurt. It's good to look back and see is there a pattern though of you being negative about any time that he spends away. Sometimes too that comes about because a husband doesn't plan things with the wife.

If that isn't happening, then all the times away are seen and resented, I think, by a spouse. A man taking a trip with his friends isn't necessarily a bad thing, but is there balance in your marriage? Is there time for the two of you? Does he make you a priority? If not, what has broken down?

That needs to be looked at. Do you guys need to do some marital therapy or go to our marriage intensive to look at and for him to be able to hear you? Can you approach him in a way that doesn't cause him to be defensive and that isn't about you necessarily taking something away from him, but looking at the relationship between you?

Instead of approaching "How could you go on a trip with friends?", it's really about "I'm feeling a lacking between us and I desire to spend time with you." Great that you have these friends, I'm all for it, but where is our time to enrich our relationship and to make that a priority so that there's a balance in our lives? Then you go off with girlfriends too, but there needs to be a balance.

Chris Woods: I wrote down "avoidance." There is an avoidance of critical conversations that we're talking about before. I want to know why. Usually, I'm going to follow the fear. If the husband was in front of me, what are you afraid of? Are you afraid of being criticized or being told no or that doesn't work? You really have your heart and desire set on this trip, like it's your bucket list thing, and you don't want anything in the way of it? Overall, the pattern of avoidance and the driving of fear as a wedge in between is not going to work. This does require coming back to the table and understanding how do we create a safer connection where we can have conversations that may be difficult and may have things to work through, but also where the relational needs are put on the table. Pam, you have relational needs that are not being met and that's just not going to work. I'd love for you guys to get in some couples work that allows you to revision your future but also make sure that it works for both of you and address the negative patterns that are present.

Brian Perez: I wonder how he would feel if she did the same thing. You had mentioned it'd be good for her to do the same thing, but how would he feel if she didn't tell him?

Dr. Jill Hubbard: But if she didn't tell him and if she took the money. Some men feel like if he's making the money, then he gets to spend it. But this is a partnership. You may be the one out there making the money, but who's keeping the home? That's shared. That's shared employment, really.

Brian Perez: We'll be back here on New Life LIVE with Chris Woods and Dr. Jill Hubbard.

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You've heard the calls that have come in this week to New Life LIVE. Many people struggling with addictions or trying to resolve conflict in their family. Some are emotionally frozen from trauma and just living on autopilot, living for nothing more than to self-medicate and go back to sleep.

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Right before the break, we ended by talking about finances in a marriage. There are people that might be getting married this summer—the season is upon us, wedding season. Maybe these are people that have always had control of their own finances and now the thought of sharing with somebody is new. What do you mean not being able to plan trips with my friends? What's this whole thing about shared finances? What advice would you give to people who are maybe getting married or have been married for a while and there's still that conflict?

Chris Woods: It comes down to there's a lot. Is it a first marriage or a second marriage? Because I think there are different rules. Money means something different to us. It is meaningful. If money is power, if money is safety, if money is security, what is it?

There are some people that can operate just fine without much of a savings and they're just kind of going through life and they don't want to be bogged down by that. There are other people where if there's not a significant savings, they just feel this constant sense of anxiety and insecurity, like they need that buffer of security.

I think having conversations about what people need and how they function best and what money means to them and then how they see it moving forward together is important. That goes back to what does your vision of a common life created together look like? And how are you going to finance that and who does what to what degree?

Dr. Jill Hubbard: In navigating this after having been single for such a long time, I really better understood what men go through in bearing the burden of the finances. In being a single mom and managing all of that, the thought of going into marriage and handing that over was really hard for me. We each kind of have our own way and so we're not necessarily doing it in a conventional way, but it's a way that works so that we both have a say-so, we both have some control, we both acknowledge we each have been doing this a long time. There's a respect for that.

Chris Woods: That's really important, Jill, because we want to come at this with a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all and it just doesn't work that way. When you're young and getting married, you probably have nothing, so you're both creating together and the roles get developed. But later in life, it is a little different. Then we come up with spending habits and desires and all the things that get mixed up into this ingredients of either great creative life together or a lot of conflict or something that looks like both. Money is a great way to enter into the deeper conversations about fears, about needs, about insecurities or desires.

Brian Perez: And not just spending but saving as well. Jack in Indianapolis who watches us on YouTube. Welcome to New Life LIVE. How can we help you today, Jack?

Jack: Hey there, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I've got an interesting scenario with a longtime friend of mine who I met way back in the seventh grade. She is transitioning from male to female. She has just started this transition, still probably less than a year in, but she has gone ahead and moved to Colorado and is doing the full thing.

Here's where my question comes in. Chris, you were talking earlier about personality versus principles. Here's a personality versus principle question for you. I'm on the other end of my friend hearing how depressed she is, hearing the bouts she's having with gender dysphoria.

She doesn't like the way that her face looks. She doesn't like the way that her Adam's apple looks. She doesn't like her facial hair. It's just a continuing list. She kind of talks about her hope in surgery or we're talking about upstairs surgery, we're talking about downstairs surgery.

I guess my question is, as a believer and someone that is praying a lot for my friend just to come to know the Lord, my initial thought is aren't we all trying to fill a God-shaped hole that we've got in our lives? If we're trying to fill it any other way, it's going to fall short.

But my friend is at the point where she needs to do this because she needs—these are her words—she needs to find out what is on the other end of this, what's on the other end of surgery, so that she can really feel what it's like to be a female.

Brian Perez: But you're seeing her as very depressed in the process. So even as far as she's gone, there hasn't been a lift in that depression.

Jack: Initially, when she started on estrogen, she described it as she felt stronger emotions in every direction: stronger in happiness, stronger in sadness. That coupled with some antidepressants has put her in a better head space. But it seems like there are these moments or nights where the gender dysphoria kind of takes over and it's almost a deeper depression than I've ever seen in the way she's describing it.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Does she recognize it as gender dysphoria? Big time. Okay, she sees that. While I know this is very deep for people experiencing this, that she is trying to change herself externally for something that's actually happening internally.

Jack: That's my thought too, Jill, but that's not something I almost feel like I'm allowed to say. I'm sitting on the other end of my friend and I don't deal with gender dysphoria. I don't know what this is like. But what happens when facial reconstruction surgery goes in and comes out and we aren't happy with the face that we have after that? Is the hope in another surgery that's after that?

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Right. Look at somebody like Michael Jackson who kept altering his appearance, maybe not changing gender, but kept altering his appearance and it was never quite enough until there was so much despair. He ended up overdosing. He didn't want to feel. Obviously this friend is trusting you, Jack.

I'm sure you have readily acknowledged you have no idea what it's like to be in her shoes. But that you're trying to understand, so that some of your questions may not be trying to be insensitive, you're actually trying to understand. "What if the changes are made? What if that doesn't do it for you, friend? What if you come out the other end and you've done all this body mutilation, shortened your life, have to be on drugs forever?" Does this friend have any concept of God?

Jack: It's been a long time talking through concepts like this and it is kind of a refusal to get into anything spiritual right now.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Jack, you should look up some of Preston Sprinkle's work because he deals with this community in a very sensitive but Christian way. He has a book, *Embodied*. I think he's got a few books out. I would look him and his work up to get some more information.

Brian Perez: We'll continue the conversation when we come back because it is break time. So stay right where you are, Jack. Thank you so much for calling in today and thank you for being a friend to this friend during this time. We'll be back. To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life LIVE. And back to Jack in Indianapolis. You still with us, Jack?

Jack: Yes, good.

Chris Woods: Jack, before you ask anything, I just want you to know that I am very impressed with your ability to love your friend well, to see her in this transition and show a genuine concern and desire to understand. You're showing up with great love and humility that I think is profound.

I think it's even a profound example of God's light and truth. There's a reason why she's going to you and having these conversations, because she finds you a safe person knowing that your belief system is different than what she's doing in this process. So I want to affirm you in that, mostly to say keep going.

Principles before personalities—this is a great example of that because there could be a thousand different reasons why people enter into this process. I like that she's getting specific into what her process is like. For you, Jack, the principle here is, "I'm going to love you well without sacrificing the honesty of my experience." Because if her experience matters, which it does, yours does too.

That's the thing that I find oftentimes is that in these issues, we have to sacrifice our own experience or our own understanding and truth because somehow it is we don't understand or it's less than. No, both can occur and we can work through this.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Both of you are having an experience. For you, you have lost a friend. You are being with your friend, but she has killed off who you used to know. We were talking a little bit at the break about the self-hatred. What did she so hate about the male version of her, the male that she was?

What is that hatred about? And what does she think this female version of herself is going to give her that her male self could never give her besides just the experience of being female? Because it's more than that. For men, wait until you're in your eighties and then the emotion that starts occurring as testosterone decreases starting in your fifties, you'll get more and more feelings like a female. But she's wanting that now. So what is it that she hated about him?

Jack: It's a good question. My friend has gone through the loss of her dad in high school and divorce from a marriage that lasted less than a year just after COVID. Two pretty big losses here. I suspect that she deals with a little bit of autism on the side as well. A lot of complicated things going on. Jill, I appreciate your suggestion with Preston Sprinkle. I'm actually halfway through his *Embodied* book. Chris, I realize that number one in our principle is to love God well, love people well. That's what I'm trying to do. I do have enough in the bank to make a big withdrawal.

Chris Woods: Jesus came in the fullness of truth and grace. Typically, we pit those things against each other as if they're fighting against each other. No, they're holding hands. They're working together. You've built the trust to have this conversation, to ask these questions from a place of genuine curiosity and concern.

If the question is offensive, I honestly don't know why it would be in the sense that if it's coming from a genuine place, what if the change doesn't produce the result that you want it to? That's a legit question. I think that's a question for all of us as we're trying to make decisions in life. If there's a significant life-altering decision, that is one of the most loving questions you can ask.

There is nothing more torturous than when we achieve the thing that we thought would do it and it doesn't do it. My office is full of 50- and 60-year-old men who achieved everything that they thought would do it and it didn't do it, and it can get suicidal quick.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: And this is really permanent. When you start talking about bottom surgery, that's very permanent. So the questions need to be asked beforehand.

Chris Woods: The presence of God goes with us and it's a constant thing, but it doesn't mean that it just cosigns everything that we're about or what we're going. There is a loving challenge that's necessary to all of our lives. The challenge isn't an expression of unlove or of rejection. It could just be curiosity or it could be concern or a combination of both.

Dr. Jill Hubbard: Right. And it's more of opening up conversation, not trying to convince her otherwise. It's more like, "Talk to me. I'm curious with you about this. Can we explore everything?" So there isn't that anxious, urgent energy, "I've got to convince her." No, it's calm and it's over multiple conversations. Being a good friend is supporting and loving even when you disagree, but then being able to ask the hard questions.

Even let's say this friend isn't into God or spiritual life, I would even put that out there. "Friend, I know you're not into this, but what if that made a difference in how you felt? What if there was a more meaningful life that is available to you than this life you're trying to carve out and piece together by your own means and will? What if there was a bigger picture here, a bigger story?"

Jack, I'm so heartened, I'm so encouraged by your process here because I think, especially for us Christians, it's too easy to hide behind general principles and not get into proximity. Proximity matters. That's what Jesus did. He went straight into the heart of people's lives, their real lived experiences, and met them there with the fullness of his grace and truth. That's going to be messy; it's going to be difficult. We are going to be misunderstood or mischaracterized. But underneath that, driven by the truth and grace of Christ, it provides such a sense of security and trust that we can rely on.

Brian Perez: Elephant in the room question when it comes to somebody transitioning—in this case, Jack's friend's case, from male to female. Referring to them as their chosen sex, is that the best approach? Because some people would say, "No, Jack's friend, you should continue calling him a 'him' and not a 'her'."

Chris Woods: That is a good question and I've gone back and forth on that. I don't know right now. I know families that choose to say, "We're going to call you by what you were born even though we see what you're doing." But I also know that so that doesn't become a sticking point, to call them by what they desire is just saying, "Okay, I'm loving you where you're at, even though I don't agree with it."

Brian Perez: We'll talk next time on New Life LIVE. Thank you so much for listening. We hope something you heard will help you live in freedom today. If this content was helpful for you, we would love it if you'd take a minute, leave a review, post about it, and rate it.

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