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What are you supposed to be doing on an ordinary Tuesday? Plenty of people can answer the big question of purpose. The harder one is the day to day: you get up, make coffee, go to work, come home tired, and wonder if the repetition means anything.

In this episode, licensed marriage and family therapist Eddie Eccker brings Scripture and clinical research to that question. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible tells the story of people made to be with God. Attachment research from John Bowlby and René Spitz, along with Thomas Joiner’s work on thwarted belongingness, shows how much we depend on each other.

Eddie’s answer for daily purpose is to be connected and generative. Connected means actually known, seen and heard, by God first, and by the people you trust with the real you. Generative, a term from Erik Erikson, means bringing your best, to the degree you can, to the people around you. Little by little it grows you and plants seeds that God can grow in those who are willing.

In this episode:

• Finding purpose in ordinary, repetitive days
• Identity and the cost of managing what people see
• Attachment theory, loneliness, and belonging
• Erik Erikson’s generativity and Dan McAdams’s redemption stories
• What Groundhog Day shows about purpose
• Romans 12, worship, and the drummer boy’s offering

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (US).

The Voyage Cast is hosted by Eddie Eccker, MS, LMFT, co-founder of Voyages Counseling in Colorado. [Add your site links]

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What does it take to keep becoming? Eddie Eccker wrestles with that question on The Voyage Cast through interviews, topical discussions, and teachings on emotional health, marriage and family, faith, and the habits and stories that shape a life.

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Website: https://thevoyagecast.com
Eddie Eccker: https://www.eddieeccker.com
Voyages Counseling: https://www.voyagescounseling.com

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“I never thought I would be the one.” It is the sentence people say after an affair, and it points to why affairs happen to people who were sure they were safe.

How do affairs start? Why do good people cheat, including people in happy marriages and committed Christians? In this episode of The Voyage Cast, Eddie Eccker, MS, LMFT, walks through Proverbs 7 as a three-thousand-year-old case study of infidelity and sets it beside what he sees in his counseling office and what the research on affairs shows.

Most affairs do not begin with a stranger. They begin with a coworker, a friend, a neighbor, or someone from church. Eddie explains the four things a person is offered at the start of an affair (being chosen, a clear conscience, pleasure, and secrecy) and why the real decision gets made long before anyone thinks they are deciding.

This episode covers:

• How affairs start, and why most begin as friendships or at work
• Why good people cheat, even in happy marriages
• What arousal and secrecy do to your judgment
• Why the people most confident in their self-control are at higher risk
• The confusion after an affair: “What have I done?” and “Who am I now?”
• What an affair costs: your marriage, your family, your reputation
• How to protect your marriage from infidelity before temptation shows up
• What Proverbs 7 and 1 Corinthians 10:12 say about temptation

If you are the spouse who was betrayed, parts of this episode may be hard to hear. An explanation is not the same thing as an excuse.

Research referenced: Shirley Glass (Not “Just Friends”), Dan Ariely and George Loewenstein, Daniel Wegner, Helen Fisher, Loran Nordgren, and Leon Festinger.

This episode is based on Eddie’s article “I Never Thought I Would Be the One.” Read it, with all the sources and Scripture references, on his website: https://www.eddieeccker.com/post/i-never-thought-i-would-be-the-one

Topics discussed: how affairs start, why people cheat, infidelity, emotional affairs, workplace affairs, affair prevention, protecting your marriage, Christian marriage, temptation, Proverbs 7, marriage counseling.

Support the show

What does it take to keep becoming? Eddie Eccker wrestles with that question on The Voyage Cast through interviews, topical discussions, and teachings on emotional health, marriage and family, faith, and the habits and stories that shape a life.

Connect
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voyagescounselingco/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573649534384
X: https://twitter.com/thevoyagecast
Website: https://thevoyagecast.com
Eddie Eccker: https://www.eddieeccker.com
Voyages Counseling: https://www.voyagescounseling.com

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What do you do when someone in your church tells you they’re thinking about suicide?

For many people in crisis, the first person they tell isn’t a therapist. It’s a pastor, youth leader, small-group leader, friend, or someone else they trust in their church community. That puts churches on the front line of suicide prevention—often without much training for what to do next.

In this episode of The Voyage Cast, Eddie Eccker, MS, LMFT, talks candidly about suicide, faith, mental health, and the role churches can play when someone is in serious emotional distress.

The goal isn’t to turn pastors or church members into therapists. It’s to help them become a bridge to appropriate care.

Eddie explains why suicidal despair can narrow a person’s thinking until death begins to feel like the only available exit, why directly asking someone about suicide matters, and what to do if they say yes.

He also challenges a false choice that sometimes exists within Christian communities: faith or treatment.

Prayer, Scripture, pastoral care, therapy, medication, crisis intervention, and community support do not have to compete with one another. They can work together. The church can also provide something a clinician often cannot: people who notice, bring meals, give rides, sit with someone through a terrible night, and continue showing up during the other 167 hours of the week.

The episode also speaks directly to Christians experiencing suicidal thoughts themselves. Struggling this deeply does not mean you have failed spiritually or that God has abandoned you. Scripture itself contains people of profound faith who experienced extraordinary despair.

If you remember nothing else, remember this:

Ask. Stay. Connect. Keep showing up.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a mental health crisis in the United States, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If there is immediate danger, contact emergency services.

This episode discusses suicide and suicidal thoughts. Please listen with appropriate care.

Topics discussed: suicide prevention, Christian mental health, faith and therapy, pastors and suicide prevention, church mental health, suicidal thoughts, depression, crisis intervention, 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, pastoral care, youth ministry, therapy, and mental health treatment.

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What does it take to keep becoming?

What does it take to keep becoming? Eddie Eccker wrestles with that question on The Voyage Cast through interviews, topical discussions, and teachings on emotional health, marriage and family, faith, and the habits and stories that shape a life.

For more, check out EddieEccker.com & VoyagesCounseling.com