Theo-Psych Project's Podcast
Meet the podcast that doesn’t whisper to culture—it bodly confronts it. We’re not here to preach. We’re here to pull up a chair, crack open the vault of questions that were met with clichés, distance, or outright dismissal—and unearth every fracture back to where truth still stands: unchanged, unbent, and utterly holy. This is the space where doctrine isn’t diluted, where psychology converges with theology, and where the human mind is no threat to divine reality. We’ll go where the church got quiet. We’ll tackle topics the pulpits softened. And we’ll show you that God is not just real—He’s intimately knowable. Even now.
Theo-Psych Project's Podcast
The Warrior's Path to Healing
What does it mean to be a warrior for Christ in today's world? Not just someone who wears a uniform or carries a weapon, but someone divinely commissioned to contend for righteousness in their family, church, and community.
The fight within – our internal battlefield – demands attention before we can effectively engage in external spiritual warfare. Justin and Jennifer Shalow tackle this profound truth as they explore how God consistently calls the wounded, hesitant, and overlooked to become His warriors. Moses questioned his voice, Gideon doubted his worth, David wasn't even invited to his anointing, and Peter denied Christ at His darkest hour. Yet each became mighty warriors not because they were flawless, but because they were willing.
Your wounds don't disqualify you – they're the very pathway God uses to forge your calling. This conversation dives deep into psychological and theological truths about identity formation, emotional regulation, and the critical balance of being both the lion and the lamb. The Shalows unpack the concept of "empathy on a dimmer switch" – knowing when to connect deeply with others' pain while maintaining clear boundaries against sin.
Perhaps most powerfully, this episode dismantles the notion that warriorism is exclusively masculine. Women aren't called to fragility but to fight alongside men with equal fervor though different expressions. Together, they form an unstoppable alliance against darkness – not competing for power but complementing each other's strengths.
Are you living under the weight of perceived disqualification? Have past wounds convinced you that you're unworthy of God's calling? This message will liberate you to embrace your warrior identity. The enemy doesn't fear perfect Christians – he fears healed ones who have allowed God to transform their pain into purpose.
Ready to armor up and engage with intentionality? Tune in to discover how healing isn't weakness – it's spiritual warfare.
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We’re here to walk with you—mind, soul, and spirit.
Welcome to the Theopsych Project the fight within. This is where theology isn't soft and psychology isn't secular. Here we're going to confront trauma, identity and spiritual warfare with clinical clarity and ancient truth. No fluff, no filters, just real stories, real healing and a God who's not afraid of your pain. So head over to revivewolkocom, click the Theopsych Project, send us your questions, share your story or pull up a chair. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Theopsych Project podcast. I'm Justin Shalow, pastor, chaplain and co-author of the book Warriorism. Today I'm joined by my wife, my battle buddy and, honestly, one of the most insightful voices I know, jennifer Shala.
Speaker 2:Thanks, justin. I'm so glad that we're doing this series right. I mean the message, the movement. It's clearly needed right now. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Lord led us to this spiritual recalibration in our world right now. You know, I do think God is summoning us, and you know that is men and women alike to confront, really, the erosion of biblical identity that's happening right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's talk about the foundation for a second Chapter two in the book. It opens with a truth right, and that's every man is called to be a warrior, right, and we understand that to apply not just to men, to entire families, to women as well. But you know, let's be honest, the charge starts with men. Right, we should be leading the example. That doesn't mean that every man wears a uniform, it doesn't even mean that every man carries a rifle for a living right. But every man is divinely commissioned to contend for righteousness. Why? For his family, for his wife, for his church and for the glory of God ultimately.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that truth is so liberating and sobering, you know, because the reality is that many men today live under this weight of this perceived disqualification, and women too, right, I mean, I do counseling for a living, all right, I'm a mental health professional and people come in and they just don't feel like they're enough to be able to do whatever it is and they let that past failure or that past wound whether it's a father wound, a mother wound, a rejection wound, you know really cause emotional fragility and it really excludes them from being able to step into the call that God has for them. Right, because you know they don't feel worthy of that. But Scripture dismantles that narrative and I love that we're talking about this, right, I mean, just, god is consistently calling people who are fractured, who are hesitant, who are wounded, who are overlooked, who feel disqualified, and then he really forges them into the instruments of this divine justice to come up against this spiritual warfare that is present in the world today.
Speaker 1:Yep, exactly. So you know. For example, moses questioned his voice, gideon questioned his worth, david wasn't even invited to the anointing ceremony. And then you know, we know the story of Peter. Peter denied Christ in his darkest hour. Yet each of these men became warriors, not because they were flawless, but because they were willing me on here because of the science and I want to speak to that Psychologically.
Speaker 2:You know, identity is not formed in isolation and science shows this right. It's really formed in a response to affirming or affirmation. You know, when the Father declared over Jesus this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased he really wasn't validating performance. We don't have to perform well, he was calling and establishing identity and it talks about in Isaiah like he is summoning us. If he is calling you, he is establishing your identity and it really has nothing to do with performance at all and that's the kind of affirming that we need.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right and, you know, one of the most sobering sections of the book is the exploration of some of the wounds that we've talked about Fatherlessness, moral injury, rejection, sexual brokenness. Like these aren't just emotional bruises, they're spiritual fault lines.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so interesting because really, I mean, everybody has wounds, right, we all have some kind of wound. And if it is left unaddressed, if we don't start operating from, you know, this healing place, then they do become liabilities in our lives and they impact how we see the world. I mean, they are the lens in which we view life, through which we view ourselves through, right, which is why we see ourselves as disqualified. And so those who haven't confronted the wounds in their life will either weaponize their pain they can really be on the defense and or they can retreat into passivity where, you know, maybe they don't want to deal with it at all and so they're kind of just going through life. And I can see that.
Speaker 2:I see that when I do counseling sessions with people right, we really allow our pain to control us, right, and we look through that lens. So the reality is is that you either heal or your pain dominates you, or you begin to disappear in it. And so I love, justin, how, as your book talks about and takes warriorism to a place of reframing that healing in the midst of warfare, and really just talking about how this is a spiritual warfare and how it's not just a detour from strength, but it is a pathway that we have to move through. Hear me say that because it's so important, guys. You cannot go around your pain. That is not how you heal. You have to move through it and that's the pathway to becoming the warrior that God has called all of us to be. In this spiritual battlefield, the things that have happened to us, we have to learn to move through it to be able to take our place that God has called us to.
Speaker 1:And this, in part, is why I love the story of Peter so much. On the outside he can look impulsive or passionate. Listen, he was ready to fight. You know, in the garden we see that he drew his sword and was ready to go. And here's the thing is and I've always found this interesting about this passage is Jesus didn't rebuke his instinct, right? He didn't rebuke his willingness to fight, but he refined it. Peter willingness to fight, but he refined it. Peter wasn't disqualified by this failure. He was recommissioned through restoration.
Speaker 2:I love that you talk about Peter, so he's like one of my favorites, and you know the restoration that has to happen. It is deeply psychological, but if you look at the word psyche, it really means soul, and so it's so interesting, right? Because the reality is is that restoration is deeply soulful, right, psychological, but it's soulful, and that is originally where the word psyche comes from. And our wounds, you know, they don't just affect our behavior, they distort our psyche, they distort our soul, they prevent us from seeing the true identity that is within us. And so, as you're talking about Peter, really the shadows and the wounds that we see in him, right, and how that impacted him. But I love how you're talking about how Jesus he's not rebuking that, he's refining him. Even when he told Peter that he would deny him, right, he called that truth out.
Speaker 2:And so the reality is is that many of us live under these unhealed wounds, and you know a lot of young men specifically.
Speaker 2:I want to speak to you right now.
Speaker 2:You grew up in a way that emotions were not acceptable, right, we stuff them, we don't feel them, and then also this chronic rejection, and so we can see how we can compensate.
Speaker 2:Specifically, men can compensate for that in today's world and really lose the identity that God has called them to right, being both the lion and the lamb, where you can see some men kind of are unable to have that place where they can be meek and soft and loving, but also strong and bold and warrioristic as we look at God's word and I love, justin, I love how you always point to Jesus being this type of warrior, how he entered those spaces, how you know he was that embodiment of a true warrior and that he's not just there to soothe us, right, but he's there to redefine us, to allow those wounds not to be weaponized for self-protection or even to dehumanize other people, but to use them as weapons against the spiritual warfare that exists today.
Speaker 2:Our scars really are part of our story. But I think one of the things that I love about your book as I am reading but I think one of the things that I love about your book as I am reading because, guys, I get to read it before it gets out there is that it really turns pain into a purpose.
Speaker 1:It really allows you to see how this is ultimately, how God is using this to define your calling, and I think that aligns perfectly with the idea that the enemy doesn't fear perfect men, right, he fears healed men. Right, and I even I personally I come to this, to the table here, with a testimony, just riddled with wounds that I had to heal from. Let Christ help me heal through, and that has become my springboard for this. You know, warrioristic Christianity that embraces the idea of being dangerous but being disciplined, you know. So in warriorism, like, we want to train men to heal their wounds, not just suppress them. Right, to confront them, heal through them and fight from them, because that's important. Right, your wounds are your testimony and there is power in your testimony.
Speaker 1:I want to bring up a little story here. I learned this, actually, from a Green Beret, and he talked about this idea of empathy on a dimmer switch, right, and it really encompasses the fact that the warrior has to know when to dial empathy up high and then when to dial it down. You see this in the gospels, right, jesus is, you know, massively comforting to the wounded and to the children and to the crowds, but he's also, you know, able to dial that empathy down and go flip tables and directly confront people that were doing evil in his father's house. Right, and the fact of the matter is that that's not just a tactical truth. Right Now, this Green Beret, he explained it in a way that you know, you've got to be able to dial up empathy and build relationships and partner forces. Right, you also have to be able to dial it down and plant your flag. But the thing is, is that that's a tactical truth? But it's not just a tactical truth, it's also a theological truth.
Speaker 2:You know it's so interesting because, as I'm sitting here listening to you share about, you know this Green Beret, and what he talked to you about empathy is you know. Let's look at the science behind empathy. Yes, I understand that empathy was developed in the early 1900s as language that we would use and it is secular. But if you want to understand the compassion of Christ, you have to understand that Jesus empathized with people and that moved him to compassion. Now, I'm not talking about toxic empathy that leads you into sin right, we're not talking about that. But Jesus wept, he had empathy, he related to people and I think that's very, very important.
Speaker 2:As Christians, we have to empathize with who people are and what they're going through, even if we don't agree with them. That does not mean when you empathize with someone, that you necessarily agree with their stance on it. It means that you see through that and I have to say, like, as a therapist, I have to look at people and I have to understand and empathize with people who don't feel like they are in the right body. Right, I don't agree with that. I mean, I have this theological worldview that there is. You know, if God made you a man, you're a man. If God made you a woman, you're a woman. But I have to empathize and understand that what's really happening behind this might be something more. There might be a deep, deep wound there, right, there could be something else going on biologically there, and so I think empathy pushes us to say, okay, I want to have a compassion for this person so that I can point them to Christ. And so a lot of people get lost in churches or theological speakers who I've heard sometimes say that, you know, empathy is not biblical, and I don't think that's true.
Speaker 2:Empathy moves us to compassion, which is action, but toxic empathy can be where you are connecting with the sin and not the person right in a fallen and broken world, and so I love that you're kind of talking about this, because the reality is and, justin, you've told me this, I had to learn this early, early on in life, and that is when I'm sitting with someone who is wounded, I have to hold their jacket for a moment and listen and empathize with what I can connect, and that is, if they're feeling pain you've felt pain before you can empathize with the pain that they're feeling and you can hold that jacket with them for a second. But when they get back up and they move on, you've got to give them their jacket back right and that means that you don't follow them into the sin. We're not empathizing toxically into this is what will make you feel better is to continue in this sinful pattern. We're not doing that, okay.
Speaker 1:Not enabling them.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, we're not, we're not enabling them, we're giving them that jacket back and saying, okay, I'm not going to go there with you, but I understand your pain and compassion is going to move me. To tell you the truth in love right To be theologically sound in love. And so I love how you're saying, kind of, he has this dimmer switch where it's kind of the basic thing that me and you've talked about A lot of times. You know we don't really understand empathy and compassion and what that really looks like here, and I think that's so important as you're talking about the warrior. You have to know when to have empathy and then you have to know where that compassion is going to move you and it's not going to move you on the side of sin. I want to jump in here. Going to move you on the side of sin. I want to jump in here.
Speaker 2:The reason why we're talking about empathy is the first victory is within. No one is mission ready without healing inside first, with Christ. In men, unhealed wounds often show up as low emotional awareness, which research links to empathy problems, more impulsivity, aggressive anger reactions and emotional numbing. So empathy gets mis-aimed and boundaries get super messy. And with women, unhealed wounds more often tilt. The other way, we're over-absorbing other people's pain, which raises exhaustion and boundary issues, and that goes into the toxic empathy we're talking about. So, biblically, the spirit forms both. Right, we've got the lion, the ferocity, and we've got the lamb, we've got the meekness, but we bring them together with clear limits so we are not collapsing under one or the other. And that is what we're talking about with the empathy dimmer that can turn up for the presence and down for the sin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really. What we're talking about is social finesse, emotional reconnaissance, if you will. You know the capability to assess spiritual terrain and respond with calibration right, because it's not about being emotionless, it's about being ready for the mission at hand. You know knowing when to speak and when to listen and when to take action and when to just be still right. And that echoes, you know, what James taught to you know be quick to hear and slow to speak, right, slow to anger that we should engage only to the level that the spirit is leading right, and being quick to listen to what's going on, being quick to understand the situation and empathize with a person, rather than quick to react or jump to response.
Speaker 2:I love that and psychologically right it is the ability to regulate your own emotions and have that wisdom right. One of the things that Justin and I teach and we talk about is being able to read the room right. We are really good at behavioral analysis right, and Justin and I have talked a lot to you know, our military and our warriors about the importance of being able to read the room, really practicing that emotional regulation to a point that it becomes this discernment and you can respond with a calibrated response that is appropriate for that timing. But it is so important that we are practicing empathy that leads to compassion that is not towards sin but is towards a biblical response.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like I said earlier, you know I kind of correlated all of this to the life of Christ. You know, again, he overturned tables in righteous fury, yet he welcomes children with tenderness. Tables in righteous fury, yet he welcomes children with tenderness. Right, he has legions of angels at his disposal, but he chose to take on the cross, right, it was precision, not passivity, right, and it was really the embodiment of meekness, strength under control. And you know I talk about this a little bit in the book. You know I use a stallion metaphor to talk about it.
Speaker 1:And you know I talk about this a little bit in the book. You know I use a stallion metaphor to talk about it. Untamed power is beautiful, like a wild stallion is beautiful, but it's so unpredictable. Meanwhile, you take that same stallion and you apply some training. You apply, like, the understanding that he has to submit that power and he's lethal in the hands of the master. Right, that power and he's lethal in the hands of the master right, you can walk the same stallion that's capable of destruction, with his reins in an open hand, and that's the kind of man that God uses, not the wild untamed, but the wielded, you know, the one that is anchored to the.
Speaker 2:You know being submissive to the authority of God a husband that isn't intimidating to us but is so safe for us to be vulnerable but also dangerous to anything that could come in to harm us. As you know. You know this doesn't just apply to marriage, but, you know, to the church. Right, we want strong, dangerous and disciplined men in our churches, we want them in our schools, we want them in our police officers, we want them in, you know, the places where the enemy could come in and try to attack. We need those kinds of men.
Speaker 1:There's so much warriorism that applies to the entire family right, To spouses or to women in general, unmarried or married to families, right, but really, like men, have to lead the charge in teaching this to the cultures that we live in, teaching this to the sub-communities that they are cultivating, right, you know? So let's talk about that broader application. For a second, Like for people that think that warriorism is just for men or that we're only speaking to men here, but you and I know like this is for the entire church.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. So we're talking about the men's responsibility here, but where are the women? Well, women, you are called to be warriors beside let me say that, beside your men. Okay, we just engage differently. That's warrior allyship. That is where we come in, and we become this dynamic duo, right, this dynamic team, the lion and the lioness.
Speaker 2:And we're not in competition. We're not in the enemy would have us believe that we are in competition with men. We are not in competition. The men carry the weight of accountability under Christ and the women carry the strategic insight and intercession and the courage as well beside Him. So together we form that team.
Speaker 2:And so the last thing I would say is you know, one provides directional authority here and the other provides perceptive clarity, and when they align man, we are unstoppable. As a church, as the universal church, as in our marriage, we are an unstoppable unit, and the dangerous lies that the world tells us would have us convinced that we're competing for power. But we're not right. And picture that, like in the ancient battle, a shield is strong but vulnerable at the edges, and so the shield, interlocked, creates a force that can continue to advance, and that is a man and a woman aligned under Christ. Make no mistake it is warfare. We are at war right now. We are in a spiritual war zone and we need godly men to step up and we need godly women to step up and we need that warriorism of the two coming together to fight spiritual warfare around us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love it that you talked about that and I love your attunement to the Spirit when it comes to discernment. There have been several times when I've tapped into your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and had to default to your leadership in that, because, as men, sometimes we need to do that. We need to tap into the strengths that our wives bring to the fight, because, let's just be honest, I'm not good at everything all the time and, jen, I've seen that in you so many times. You fight in prayer, through leadership, through discernment, and you do it with the same ferocity and gentleness that it's exactly what warriorism calls for.
Speaker 2:I believe the church has to stop conflating femininity with fragility and I'm not hating on churches here, because not all churches do this, you know. I think that sometimes this just happens. Jesus is the lion and the lamb, and we are all called to reflect both. It doesn't matter if you're a male or a female. If you look at Isaiah, you've been summoned to be a threat against hell and a refuge for the hurting. Though that may look different, you are called together. Right, we are called as the church. The church is not a building, it is us, it is the community of believers coming together with the gifts and the calling that God has given us, that he has summoned us to be a threat to hell and a refuge for the hurting, together.
Speaker 1:Yep, and that's exactly why this message is so urgent, because there are so many times when good men are doing exactly what Adam did. They're kind of side-eyeing the situation, waiting on someone else to take action, right, somebody else to step up. If this is what it is, if this is sin, if this is evil, then surely somebody else is going to say something. And guys, hear me say this that's passive faith. Passivity, it's not just a male issue. Listen, hear me loud and clear. It is a church-wide issue. That's exactly what we're trying to do through Warriorism is call the church to awaken. Listen, guys, armor up and get ready to engage with intentionality. So if you're listening right now and you feel disqualified, maybe because of your past right, I certainly did at one time or your pain, or even your personality, I want you to hear something loud and clear you were made for this. You were made to fight for righteousness, to protect what is holy and to lead with love.
Speaker 2:I love this so much because I think we're speaking so much truth right now. Healing is not weakness Hear me say this because a lot of the times, you guys don't want to go to counseling which, by the way, if you're going to go to counseling, go to a Christian therapist that really stands on the values of God. That's very important because the reality is, healing is spiritual warfare, and you need someone that is insightful and attuned so much to God's word that they can walk you through that. The wounds that you carry every day. They're going to be used by God to forge your calling.
Speaker 2:God's going to repurpose that pain, he's going to retrain those instincts, those core beliefs, if you let him, if you let him restore your identity. But the reality is, is that on this side of things, I see it and I've been there I feel it right we are so protective, we are so defensive that we will not allow ourselves to be the lamb, because that means being vulnerable. But the reality is is that we cannot be the most dangerous warriors that God has called to lead the armies? We're not leaning into hypervigilance or into anger or into maladaptive behaviors that are shallow fixes. We're leaning into cultivating.
Speaker 1:The reality is is that the enemy doesn't want you to heal. He wants to keep you focused on that pain. He wants to keep you focused on something that is going to distract you from the mission at hand and continue to be a passive Christian. But here's the reality.
Speaker 1:The world doesn't need more passive Christians. We need Christians that will step into this warrior Christianity, putting on the armor of God daily, aligning themselves with truth and operating under authority, who know how to fight, who know how to fight but choose to lead with love. And then the last thing I'd like to add is Jen talked a little bit about the importance of counseling and the importance of seeing the right counselor. Hey, listen, wherever you are in the world, if you need a lifeline, if you need someone to help you find that person, to plug into the right counselor that is going to lead you, both biblically and spiritually, in a right way and psychologically in a right way, hey, reach out to us at info at revivewalcocom, and we'll be glad to do what we can to help you find that right person for you.
Speaker 2:And until next time. This is so important. Suit with the armor of God, stay aligned with God's word. Stay dangerous to darkness. Remember why you are here. You cannot forget your why, why you are here.
Speaker 1:You cannot forget your why.
