First Love

Guest (Male): Welcome to First Love with Dr. Robyn Kassas and Dr. Nathan Kassas, where faith meets real life. In this weekly broadcast, you'll discover practical and spiritual keys to reclaim God's story in your life, deepen your relationship with Jesus, and encounter Him as your first love, whether for the first time or all over again. No topic is off-limits as we make Jesus real, relevant, and relational. Stay with us; your journey back to first love starts now.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Good evening everybody and welcome to First Love. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas and I have the amazing Dr. Robyn Kassas joining me. Dr. Robyn, how are you?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'm doing quite well. I'm getting over something, but I'm fine.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Amen. Praise God for His healing power. We have been on an exciting trajectory of going back and allowing the Lord to take us through the T of trauma. Last week, we talked about the T of timing and its importance. Not allowing God the space sometimes is actually retraumatizing us into another experience of lived trauma.

Today, we want to continue because last week we only skimmed the surface. We only had 25 minutes and we only got to give an introduction. Today, we're going to dive into some deep stuff in understanding the T of timing. There's another T that we want to bring in while that transition takes place from timing to transformation. There's another T that occurs and it's called tension.

It's the tension of not knowing what God's doing, the tension of knowing what God's doing, and the tension of knowing what God's doing and not being able to touch it. There's a godly tension that we go through as we wait for God's story to unfold according to His timing. Wouldn't you say so, Dr. Robyn?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Oh, definitely. It's tied up with timing. Totally tied up with timing.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I want to start us off with a couple of key statements here that I didn't get to mention last time, but I think they're important because they add to the context of what we're saying. We talked about revisiting trauma before God's timing is up. When trauma is revisited before God's timing, the nervous system relives the wound instead of redeeming it.

We have to understand that if we touch something before God is allowing us to touch it, we only have what's been programmed into us and into our nervous system still present. That has to be touched by revelation.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think that if you touch it before its time, it's premature. So much so that there cannot be a healing as a result of that because there is a time and a space for God to bring something to the surface for healing. If you touch that before its time, it becomes premature. It's like a child that's born before its time; it's premature.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: A preconceived birth.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, a preconceived birth. A preconceived birth births something before it's ready to be birthed.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: If we break down that word preconception or preconceive, conceive is to actually birth something that hasn't been there. When you preconceive, you pre-birth something that God is not birthing. We can do this a lot when it comes to our transformation journey.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Or, it's not necessarily that it's not God. It's that God's not ready to reveal it. He's not ready to frame it like we spoke about last week. If we don't frame it in God's timing, then we have ideas and we have things flying in the air everywhere. We need to bring those things—He does—into the frame and into His boundaries where He will move upon that to pour those ingredients in that we need to bring the trauma to an end.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I want to add a little neuroscience here. The limbic system, which is the survival mode of the brain, seeks immediate relief. What that does is it actually competes against the prefrontal cortex, which is the transformation center of the brain. When we don't allow space and time, we're feeding that reptile need: feed me or let me live.

That "feed me" is: give me an answer immediately. We don't realize that when we seek that answer immediately, it actually turns off the brain's ability to deeply investigate. Wait, what was the cause here? What is the pattern? What is the root system that I keep reliving? We don't just seek relief from trauma; we actually seek transformation.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we need to break the cycle. You can't get transformed unless the cycle is broken. This is something that we don't understand. There is a cycle that has to be broken so that the pattern can be formed.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Immediate relief is seeking an immediate resolution. Resolution, the root word is resolve. But when you go to math and you need to solve, you have to find the problem first. You can't solve without first locating the problem. When we go back and we try to resolve things without even knowing the problem, we just fall into what's called a reaction-based medication. We medicate life with reaction rather than response. We don't heal from the trauma; we actually just react differently to the trauma.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: You have to do it God's way because if you don't do it God's way, then it doesn't get resolved and it doesn't get unfolded the way God wants to unfold it. We use words in trauma situations too dramatically. God is in the process of healing; He is not in a process of doing something dramatic.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Dr. Robyn, we talked about time and it being an enemy. Time becomes the enemy only when you forget and begin to despise its purpose. Time is not delay; time is the frame that holds the picture so your story or His story can finally make sense.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And then you will see the solution. You need to see the solution so you could work with the pattern. There's no good just having the pattern revealed if you can't see the solution in that pattern. Only God can show you that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: When God delays the moment, he is not abandoning the story. He is adding ingredients that the enemy cannot see.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And the ingredients that we talk about are not something that's not permanent. It's permanent. So, ingredients of reconciliation, restoration, and self-identification. All of them.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: If you revisit pain before the Holy Spirit reframes it, the memory will trigger survival instead of transformation. It's very important to understand the T of triggers also play a part here. We can get triggered because we revisit things before God is ready to touch them.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That means us opening something up that God's not opening up. Then there's always the situation where God's opening up something and we want to close it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's another trigger. "I can't go back there. It's too painful." We throw that verbiage out: just put it under the rug, keep it in that filing cabinet, and just lock it away. The Holy Spirit says, "No, I want to start opening up that filing cabinet and revisiting it."

Dr. Robyn, you said something last week that was off the actual record, but I'm going to add it here. You said when we revisit something that God isn't or is, but we use a key principle of His work in our life to revisit that, that's not a revelation; that's an illumination.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we don't want to have things illuminated; we want to have them revealed.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Revelation carries with it a change of identity. When you have illumination without God's movement, you have a revelation that turns into illumination. But illumination without God's movement and timing triggers trauma all over again.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Because you don't know how to handle it. Your frame is not ready to receive.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: As we go into the break, just ask the Lord: has He revealed some things or have you illuminated some things? Or are you running from the revelation? We've got to go to a break.

Guest (Male): You're listening to First Love with Dr. Robyn and Dr. Nathan Kassas. The story isn't finished yet, and neither is what Jesus wants to reveal to your heart today. Let's jump back in and pick up right where we left off.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: All right, Dr. Robyn, we're back after the break. That was a very thorough, deep first 10 minutes. Before the break, we talked about an experience that when we have something that God is revealing and when we use it out of God's timing, we actually remove the revelation aspect and it becomes illumination. That means we're using a faculty of human intellect—the tree of knowledge of good and evil—to process something of a revelatory nature.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Of course, we stay away from that tree because we need to eat from the tree of life. I was just thinking about tension. Tension reminds me of a spring that has had enough tension on it to do the work that it needs to do. But if you play around with the tension of that spring, it can be unsprung and it will go haywire.

If you don't allow God to put the tension on what is needed, you will become unsprung. That's why God has to put you in that frame of His and put the boundaries around you so that He can input what is needed to bring a solution. I know it's great to get the pattern, but if you don't have the solution, then the pattern won't mean anything. There's got to be a locating here: locating what God's doing and work with this with the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: A muscle under tension needs tension to stretch. If you know the purpose of the stretch, then that's good tension. But if you don't know the purpose and an overstretch occurs, it's an injury. That's the problem with illumination. The enemy doesn't come as a pitchfork, devil-horned creature; he comes as an angel of light. He comes to say, "This is the problem, look here!" But that is a problem because unless revelation, which is a transformative thing, points out the problem, it doesn't work. When the enemy comes, he points out the problem without pointing out the change in you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But he also will point out something else: accusation. And accusing you, you have to locate the fruit. When you locate the fruit, the fruit will tell you who is speaking.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This ties in to everything we were mentioning last week about this naming something before God is ready to name it. He knows our name, frame, and pain. Corinthians says, "I won't tempt you beyond what you can handle, but in every way I've made a way of escape." We bring that into the integration of understanding. This is not a tempting in sin; this is a tempting in: don't visit something before I'm ready to touch it because you can't handle it yet. Why can't you handle it yet? Because your identity formation has not surpassed what was done.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: If it's negative, if it's something like that, it'll be exposed. I can tell you if you do that, then you can be in a lot of trouble. You must let God frame what He's moving in.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is an important thing to understand. When we go to understanding scripturally, He said to the children of Israel: little by little I will drive them out—those creatures and those foreign inhabitants of the land before you. He says, "And then until you have increased enough to take possession of the land." And we are God's land. We are His kingdom domain.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Little by little I give you back this land. Little by little you take this land because if you can't have it little by little, you won't keep it because the foxes will nip at your heels. That's the wisdom of God. That's exactly why He uses the frame and what He pours into that. We look at the word frame and it becomes too negative. We think, "Oh, my frame, I can't handle this." But if you let God frame it, you'll handle it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: When we look at the frame, when we bring things together and we reassemble them before time is up, the Lord might be ready to bring those pieces together. But here's an important thing: because we go via that illumination, what that does is it brings accusation. Accusation is attached to blame. God doesn't want to name something before it's all brought together.

Look at the pieces in a picture. If there was a puzzle there, all the puzzle pieces have to be connected and then you get the naming of what that picture is. That frame sets up the reasoning, and the reframing sets up the perspective through which I look at that picture.

When we bring all these pieces together and we start to add things that God isn't adding, we attach a wrong name to the actual picture. That wrong name leads to shame. When we look at something about ourselves that is truthful, the definition of shame in the dictionary is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Therefore, we don't get the pattern correct. There's a pattern, but it's not correct. It's going to have to lead to the solution that God wants it to lead to, which is healing and wholeness.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Exactly. When we have all of this in one space and we put a name on it that God isn't putting on through an illumination, that shame begins to overwhelm us. Because we can't handle that shame, what we do internally is we look to place the blame somewhere. How we get rid of shame as human beings is we blame. We either blame ourselves, we blame the circumstance, we blame someone else. Then what that tension is designed to do is literally stopped. The tension is designed to move us from impulse to integration, reaction to regulation. That tension there is actually changing your desires.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So, where do we go with the scriptures with this one?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: When the brain actually releases dopamine, it releases it based on something anticipated, not on something actually received. That means when anticipation is stretched, when tension is added to life and that anticipation is elongated, frustration in us can arise, impatience increases, and impulsivity grows. But when waiting is used under God's mechanism, it actually retrains desire, it purifies motives, and it detaches us from instant gratification.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: There it is. That's the pattern that God wants to use.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And that is the scripture here: James 1:4. Let perseverance and patience finish its work so that you may be mature and complete.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And have its perfect work. Perfect is complete. But people need to see: even complete can be heavy, but perfect can have a softness to it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: If we touch things before the tension has had its time to do its work, it's like a scab. When you get cut in your skin and you have a scab that covers over the bleeding, it's very raw and sensitive. I have a scab on my arm and in maybe two weeks' time it's been healed. But unless the healing is properly solidified from deep within the scar tissue, you could rub up against me and I could react. "Oh, you've touched my arm!" But the scab looks like it's healed. Deep down, the reaction is still there. We have a lot of people walking around all the time reacting to these scabs. People rub up against them and they don't even know why they react.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And they often put a Band-Aid on it and retraumatize that arm again.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: A healed scar remembers the wound without reliving it, but an unhealed scab reacts to every touch. Another important thing that tension is doing is it is grinding down our will. It is removing the need for payback and revenge, even on the Lord. "Why did you let me go through that? Why didn't you give me another sign?" All these questions that we go through. Tension is an exposure. It is an unfolding and an exposure, and it gets rid of the unprocessed anger. People will realize that they're angry and they don't know why, but that waiting and that tension work together.

Time is not delayed; time is the frame that holds the picture so the story can finally make sense.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And He brings the boundaries so that nothing else can enter in while the work is being done.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Romans 12:19. Another important scripture: "Do not take revenge, but leave room for God's wrath." When you get angry, you don't let God get angry about what was done to you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we should realize He feels and weeps more than we do sometimes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Which brings us to an important thing. We talk about a hidden ingredient. Let's go to the account of Jesus and Lazarus. The tension of four days—He waited deliberately four days.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And He loved Lazarus with all His heart. But there was some ingredient there being added that we don't really recognize as Christians. Two words: He had to realize His humanity, and we have to realize the humanity of the Lord.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This humanity was so important because Satan could have got Jesus if He had done the spiritual bypassing even in the garden. But because the Holy Spirit set it up here with recognizing His humanity and weeping for Lazarus—it's John 11:35: "Jesus wept." Without that tension of the delay of four days, He couldn't come to that space in Himself as a human being to weep for His friend.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: There we go. There's the tension.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Because He wept, this set Him up in the garden to be able to acknowledge His humanity and let the Father minister to it, not pretend that it wasn't there and spiritually bypass it, which would have given the enemy a room to move through presumptuous faith. That is what His humanity did for us. Because He did it, now we can do it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And also realize that He was totally qualified to carry it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Because He's qualified. Why is that? Not just because He's the Son of God, Son of Man, Lord of Lords, King of Kings. When He wept, He embraced humanity. Fully God, fully man. In the garden, He says, "If this can be taken from me, then let it be. But nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done." Sometimes we have to face our humanity. Tension is there so that we face our humanity because it's very easy for us to bypass it spiritually. What is He transforming into His identity? Your humanity.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I want to say this, and that is: people don't want to face their humanity. They want to be super spiritual about this whole thing. You don't realize that God wants you healed, delivered, and saved more than you do.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's right. You won't get that without the tension that leads to you as a human being. We've got to go to a break.

Guest (Male): Thanks for spending time with us today on First Love with Dr. Robyn and Dr. Nathan Kassas. If today's message spoke to you, share it with someone. If you're looking for more teachings, visit www.torcc.org. That's T-O-R-C-C dot org for more. We'll be back next week, same time, same truth. As you go, don't forget the one who loved you first is still loving you best.