Story Matters Podcast

Ryan and Emily Baker
  • 5.0 (23)
  • Christianity
  • Weekly

In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss life at the intersection of Theology and Psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their life stories have shaped them.

  1. Oct 20

    60. Strive or Rest? (S5 E8 Paradox 5)

    The push to achieve can feel like obedience, and the pull to rest can feel like faith, but being called to both feels confusing.  We sit in the paradox of Christian contentment and righteous striving, and we talk about why one-sided advice and spiritual platitudes leave people stuck, ashamed, or exhausted. We ground the conversation in two popular verses by Paul from his letter to the Philippians, where he names a learned, practiced contentment in plenty and in hunger, and we connect it to the other side of the tension: straining forward, praying “your kingdom come,” and hungering and thirsting for righteousness. From money goals to packed schedules, from singleness to church leadership pressure, we explore how ambition and peace can each become a cover story for what’s happening underneath. Then we go beneath behavior into the body. We name hypervigilance, anxiety, shutdown, and the limbic reactions that can make rest feel unsafe or make striving feel unavoidable. We ask a counseling-style question that gets honest fast: what does it cost you to consider the other side? Finally, we offer a “human-sized” framework, drawing on circles of influence and concern, the Serenity Prayer’s wisdom, and the “already but not yet” tension of redemption and the kingdom of God. Send us Fan Mail

  2. Oct 13

    59. Are You Being Generous or A Good Steward? (S5 E7 Paradox 4)

    Generosity gets complicated fast when the need is real, the ask is specific, and the cost lands on your marriage, your family, or your mental and financial health. Ryan and Emily wrestle with a paradox many Christians feel: Jesus calls us to sacrificial giving, and wisdom literature warns us not to overextend, go into unwise debt, or enable someone else’s dysfunction. We walk through what we call “the bind,” that moment of ambivalence where both options feel true at the same time. We bring Scripture into the tension instead of using it to shut the conversation down, from Proverbs’ competing instructions to Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 8 about giving beyond your means while still giving according to what you actually have. We also pull in Galatians 6, where “bear one another’s burdens” sits right next to “each will have to bear his own load,” and we ask what that looks like in real decisions with money, time, and responsibility. Along the way, we share personal stories from our marriage and stories we’ve been entrusted with, including what happens when “generosity” spends someone else’s resources, or when spiritual language becomes a form of pressure and shame. We talk about being human-sized, resisting a savior complex, and finding a third way we call generous stewardship: open-handed love that stays rooted in wisdom, agency, and clear limits. If this conversation helps you name your own bind, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one situation right now where you need both generosity and a boundary? Send us Fan Mail

  3. Oct 6

    58. Called to Love: With Boundaries or By Remaining? (S5 E6 Paradox 3)

    Wise as serpents and innocent as doves: we explore why love gets confusing when Jesus calls us to be both at the same time. We sit with one of Jesus’ most challenging tensions and ask what that actually looks like when someone is undermining you, harming you, or simply wearing you down. Loving your enemies, honoring parents, forgiving again and again, avoiding toxic people, confronting sin, turning the other cheek. Scripture refuses to give us a simplistic script.  We talk through a pastor who’s told to go on a “love offensive” with divisive elders, and why that kind of counsel can land differently depending on your predispositions from your story. Then we move into the practical markers of a bind: non-negotiable language, anxiety, exhaustion, dread, anger, and the mental replay that will not stop.  We also unpack how our particular survival mechanisms: fight, flight, freeze, fawn lead us to baptize ours with Bible verses or biblical phrases as a cover. Say something! Walk away! Turn the Cheek! Don't let it bother you! Finally, we wrestle with what happens to the “other side” of the paradox after you make a choice. We argue that even when behaviorally you choose one path, spiritually you keep both values present: you can set boundaries while still honoring, create distance while still longing for reconciliation, or stay present while remaining honest about danger. If this gives you language for a relationship you’re carrying right now, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Send us Fan Mail

  4. Sep 29

    57. Is It Them or Is It Me? (S5 E5 Paradox 2)

    The quickest way to get stuck in healing is to force a simple answer onto a complex story. We keep meeting people who hesitate to look at childhood wounds because it feels like blaming parents, excusing bad choices, or losing agency. At the same time, we’ve also seen the “whiplash” where new awareness turns into contempt and everything becomes someone else’s fault. Neither path tells the whole truth, and both leave us trapped. We walk through a core paradox of trauma-informed Christian story work: things happened to us that should not have happened, and we also learned ways of surviving that can become harmful patterns later. You’ll hear us connect the language of protectors, coping mechanisms, and attachment theory with a thicker biblical understanding of sin as anything that is not the way it’s supposed to be. We name two common distortions, self-contempt and others’ contempt, and why both often chase certainty instead of wisdom. From there we move into the felt reality beneath the paradox: ambivalence, the push-pull of two emotions at once. We talk candidly about shame, the body, and why healing requires naming what we’d rather avoid, without ever confusing bodily responses with consent or responsibility for abuse.  We also offer practical questions that help you hold space for your own story and for others, without platitudes or quick fixes. Here are a series of questions we give as a framework of engaging stories with more strength:  1. So, what really happened?  2. What did it cost you?  3. How did you respond?  4. How did that response protect you?  5. What has that response become now in your adulthood?  6. And how are you now invited to live differently?  Understanding what these questions are unpacking AND the answers to them will be a healing process for any of our listeners. We hope these are helpful also for anyone in friendships, care-giving, ministry, or parenting. Send us Fan Mail

  5. Sep 21

    56. To Judge or Not To Judge (S5 E4 Paradox 1)

    “Don’t judge” sounds simple until someone gets hurt, a leader falls, or a friend drops a one-sided story in your lap. We wrestle with the real-world paradox Scripture puts in front of us: Jesus warns against judging others, and yet also says to “judge with right judgment” and Paul also talks about discernment inside the church. We need wisdom that can take-on complexity. We dig into the moment where judgment usually starts: information. Gossip, group chats, news clips, and even documentaries can quietly recruit us into a verdict before we’ve asked a single question. We continue the concept of Season 5 - the practical tool we call a “bind alert” the internal signal that you’re being positioned to take a side. From there we name the next step: choice awareness. Will I seek the other side of the story, set a boundary with the person talking, or pretend I’m neutral while my heart is already forming a sentence? It is so costly to judge rightly. Shame, belonging, and loyalty structures can make silence feel safer. We explore how our early stories shape whether we lean toward harsh judgment or total avoidance, and how “extending grace” can become enabling when harm has been afflicted. We close with Paul in 2 Timothy 4 as a startling picture of maturity: he names evil of someone by name, warns others, and still gives mercy for people who failed him. If this conversation helps you think more clearly, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it. Where do you most need wisdom right now: judging too quickly or refusing to judge at all? Send us Fan Mail

  6. Sep 15

    55. Feeling Stuck? A Conversation Worth Revisiting 30: Intensifying Your Binds! (S5 E3)

    We step back into an older conversation that sets the foundation for our Season 5 on Paradoxes, starting with how to recognize a bind when neither option feels like a true way out.  This is a re-release of Episode 30 "Intensifying Your Binds"  from our 4 part Series on Shame.  We use Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” as an image for how badly we want certainty. Pop culture turns the poem into a pep talk about taking the harder path, but the actual text is full of ambivalence, regret, and that haunting phrase “with a sigh.” We give practical thoughts about decision-making, nostalgia, and why suffering can make us second-guess everything. Instead of bungee-cording out of sadness with quick reassurance, we talk about intensifying the bind and staying with it long enough to find what’s underneath. For us, that leads straight into shame, feeling stuck, the longing for Eden, and the deep need for rescue. If this resonates, please share it with others and subscribe to help others find hope and healing! Send us Fan Mail

  7. Sep 8

    54. "It is what it is" or Do We Have a Choice? (S5 E2)

    That flat feeling behind “it is what it is” usually isn’t wisdom or maturity. It’s often a clue that we’ve slowly lost agency and think there is no choice in the matter. Ryan and Emily share a three-step practice that helps us notice choice points earlier, hold paradox with clarity, and make decisions with more honesty before God. We offer a simple, practical framework you can use right away: bind alert (notice the internal bell), choice awareness (admit you have options), and paradox acceptance (hold complexity long enough to choose with wisdom). We also connect this to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and the “choice point,” then move into Romans 7 and 8 to name the tension between flesh and Spirit without pretending it isn’t there. The gospel doesn’t promise a struggle-free life; it promises grace, clarity, and freedom to choose in love, even when the choice is costly. If you’ve been stuck in patterns you can’t explain, start by following the symptoms back to the bind, then practice naming the options out loud.  Subscribe, share this with a friend and leave a review so more people can find the path from autopilot to wisdom! Send us Fan Mail

  8. Sep 1

    53. You are in a Bind! (Season 5 Intro)

    Burnout you can’t explain, people pleasing you can’t stop, co-existing with anxiety, resentment that keeps leaking into your closest relationships, or habits that numb you just enough to get through the week. We start Season Five by naming a common root under all of it: the binds that exist in your life that you have not fully named. We talk about how our “non-negotiables” in decision-making moments are actually unexamined survival strategies. Story work becomes very practical as we trace our reasoning to our hatred of uncertainty and the patterns we adopted in order to feel sure. Then we introduce the shift that changes everything: moving from bind to paradox. A bind says you have no good options. A paradox says both sides may hold truth, and wisdom is required. We also anchor this in Scripture, including the famously uncomfortable tension in Proverbs 26 about whether to answer a fool, and we connect it to real moments like conflict, online arguments, and choosing when to speak or stay quiet. Along the way, we frame this as an invitation into agency and humanness - yet not independence as we need the Holy Spirit’s guidance to live wisely inside complexity.  If you care about Christian healing, emotional health, and the practical overlap of theology and psychology, this conversation sets the foundation for the whole season. Subscribe for the rest of Season Five, share with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. Send us Fan Mail

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5
out of 5
23 Ratings

About

In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss life at the intersection of Theology and Psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their life stories have shaped them.

Information

  • Creator
    Ryan and Emily Baker
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    60
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Story Matters Podcast
  • Show Website
    Story Matters Podcast

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