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The Biblical Cure for Anxiety Hidden in Philippians 4 · Bible stories

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Bible Stories. As you watch today,
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  Speaker 1: QR code on your screen or clicking the link in
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  Speaker 1: the description. There is a single line in the Bible
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  Speaker 1: that has the power to either comfort you or quietly
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  Speaker 1: frustrate you. It says, do not be anxious about anything.
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  Speaker 1: We have all been told to calm down by people
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  Speaker 1: who have no idea what we are carrying. A friend
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  Speaker 1: who has never lost anyone tells the grieving to stay strong.
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  Speaker 1: A person with money in the bank tells the struggling
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  Speaker 1: not to worry. The words bounce off because the one
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  Speaker 1: speaking them has never stood where we are standing. That
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  Speaker 1: is what makes Paul different when he says... Do not
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  Speaker 1: be anxious. In Philippians chapter 4 verse 6, he is
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  Speaker 1: speaking from the floor of a cell. He has been
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  Speaker 1: beaten with rods. He has been whipped until his back
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  Speaker 1: was torn open. He has been shipwrecked and left floating
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  Speaker 1: in the open sea. He has gone without food and
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  Speaker 1: slept in the cold. He carried a constant weight of
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  Speaker 1: concern for every church he had ever started, a pressure
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  Speaker 1: he once described as pressing on him daily. This is
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  Speaker 1: not a man who avoided suffering and then told others
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  Speaker 1: how to feel calm. This is a man who walked
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  Speaker 1: straight through the fire and came out still trusting God.
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  Speaker 1: So when he writes about peace, the words have weight.
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  Speaker 1: He is like a soldier who has survived the worst
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  Speaker 1: of the battle and is now turning around to show
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  Speaker 1: the frightened recruits exactly where to stand and what to do.
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  Speaker 1: This matters for you because the cure he describes was
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  Speaker 1: tested in conditions far worse than most of our lives.
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  Speaker 1: It kept a man steady while he sat in prison,
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  Speaker 1: not knowing if he would live or die. So it
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  Speaker 1: can keep you steady too, through the news you are dreading,
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  Speaker 1: the bill you cannot pay, the diagnosis you did not expect,
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  Speaker 1: or the long, quiet nights when the fear comes and
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  Speaker 1: will not leave. Paul is not offering a gentle suggestion.
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  Speaker 1: He is handing you something that already passed the hardest
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  Speaker 1: test there is. There is one more thing worth knowing
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  Speaker 1: before we open his words. Paul did not write this
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  Speaker 1: letter to scold the Philippians or to lecture them from
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  Speaker 1: a distance. He loved them. They were the first church
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  Speaker 1: he had ever planted on European soil. And the bond
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  Speaker 1: ran deep. They had heard he was in prison, and
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  Speaker 1: instead of forgetting him, they had gathered what they could
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  Speaker 1: and sent it to him through a man named Epaphroditus,
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  Speaker 1: who became so ill on the journey that he nearly
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  Speaker 1: died delivering the gift. So this is not a cold
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  Speaker 1: theological treatise. It is a thank-you letter written between friends,
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  Speaker 1: soaked in affection. When Paul tells them not to be anxious,
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  Speaker 1: he is sitting beside them, an older brother who has
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  Speaker 1: been through the fire, speaking quietly to people he genuinely
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  Speaker 1: cares for. That is the tone we should hear in
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  Speaker 1: every line that follows. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again
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  Speaker 1: I will say, rejoice. The Lord is at hand. He
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  Speaker 1: calls for joy, and then he gives the reason underneath
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  Speaker 1: it that the Lord is near. Not far off, not distant,
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  Speaker 1: not watching from somewhere beyond reach, but near, close at hand.
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  Speaker 1: Everything he is about to say about anxiety rests on
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  Speaker 1: that quiet fact. The God you are bringing your fear
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  Speaker 1: to is not on the other side of the universe.
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  Speaker 1: He is right here. Now comes the heart of it.
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  Speaker 1: Paul writes, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything,
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  Speaker 1: by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be
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  Speaker 1: made known to God. We tend to stop reading right there,
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  Speaker 1: at the part that feels like a scolding. Do not
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  Speaker 1: be anxious about anything, and because that first half is
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  Speaker 1: all we hear, the verse can feel almost unkind, as
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  Speaker 1: though Paul is blaming us for the very thing we
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  Speaker 1: cannot help. But the sentence does not end there, and
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  Speaker 1: the half we skip is the half that matters. Read
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  Speaker 1: it again, and you will see that Paul is not
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  Speaker 1: really telling us to stop. He is telling us to
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  Speaker 1: do something else instead. He says, Instead of carrying the worry,
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  Speaker 1: take it somewhere. Bring it to God. Every single thing
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  Speaker 1: that is pressing on you, lift it off your own
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  Speaker 1: shoulders and place it into the hands of the one
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  Speaker 1: who can actually hold it. This is the part that
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  Speaker 1: changes everything. Paul never expected you to fight anxiety with willpower.
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  Speaker 1: He never imagined you sitting there clenching your fists, trying
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  Speaker 1: to force calm onto a frightened heart. He knew that
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  Speaker 1: does not work. What he is describing is not suppression.
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  Speaker 1: It is transfer. You are not asked to crush the
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  Speaker 1: fear and bury it deep inside where it will only grow.
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  Speaker 1: You are asked to move it, to carry it out
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  Speaker 1: of your own grip, and set it down in front
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  Speaker 1: of God like a heavy bag you have been dragging
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  Speaker 1: for miles. And notice the small word that he refuses
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  Speaker 1: to leave out. In everything, not in the big things only,
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  Speaker 1: not in the things that seem important enough to bother
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  Speaker 1: God with, In everything, the small worry about tomorrow and
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  Speaker 1: the enormous fear about your whole future are both welcome.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing is too minor and nothing is too large. The
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  Speaker 1: same God who holds the stars together invites you to
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  Speaker 1: bring Him the thing that has been gnawing at your
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  Speaker 1: stomach since this morning. Worry is a kind of work.
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  Speaker 1: You pick the problem up, put it down, then pick
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  Speaker 1: it up again. Before the sun is even up, you
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  Speaker 1: have played out the worst version a hundred times, looking
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  Speaker 1: at every angle, imagining each way it could go wrong.
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  Speaker 1: Morning comes, and nothing is fixed. But you are already tired,
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  Speaker 1: worn out from a battle that never even happened. That
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  Speaker 1: is the cruel trick of worry. It feels like you
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  Speaker 1: are doing something about the problem, but really, you are
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  Speaker 1: just holding it close and feeding it your attention. Worry
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  Speaker 1: is what happens when we try to carry tomorrow's weight
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  Speaker 1: with the strength we have today. It is a load
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  Speaker 1: we were never meant to lift, and our minds bend
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  Speaker 1: under it. Paul's answer is an exchange. He is telling
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  Speaker 1: us to take the energy we spend rehearsing our fears
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  Speaker 1: and spend it talking to God instead. Every anxious thought
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  Speaker 1: becomes a doorway to prayer. The thing you cannot stop
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  Speaker 1: thinking about becomes the very thing you bring to your Father.
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  Speaker 1: You are not asked to think about it less by
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  Speaker 1: sheer force. You are asked to think about it in
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  Speaker 1: His presence, out loud, honestly, until the weight passes from
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  Speaker 1: your hands to His. This is why prayer is not
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  Speaker 1: an escape from reality. It is the most honest thing
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  Speaker 1: a frightened person can do. When you pray about your fear,
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  Speaker 1: you are not pretending it does not exist. You are
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  Speaker 1: admitting that it is too big for you and placing
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  Speaker 1: it in front of someone bigger. The drowning person stops
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  Speaker 1: thrashing and reaches for the hand that can pull them out.
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  Speaker 1: That reach is what prayer is. And here is a
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  Speaker 1: quiet mercy in the way Paul says it. He uses
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  Speaker 1: two words for the talking we do with God. One
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  Speaker 1: is the broad word for prayer, the steady turning of
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  Speaker 1: the heart toward him. The other is a word for
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  Speaker 1: the desperate cry, the specific plea that comes out of
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  Speaker 1: real need. Both belong here. You do not have to
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  Speaker 1: dress up your fear in beautiful language before you bring it.
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  Speaker 1: You can come with the polished prayer, and you can
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  Speaker 1: come with the raw cry that has no shape to
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  Speaker 1: it at all. The mother praying over a sick child
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  Speaker 1: does not need the right words. She needs only to
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  Speaker 1: bring the child to the one who loves him more
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  Speaker 1: than she does. So the first part of the cure
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  Speaker 1: is not a feeling. It is a movement. It is
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  Speaker 1: the daily, hourly, sometimes minute-by-minute choice to take what is
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  Speaker 1: crushing you and hand it over. Not once, but every
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  Speaker 1: time it returns. And it will return. The cure is
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  Speaker 1: not that the worry never comes back. The cure is
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  Speaker 1: that you have somewhere to take it every time it does.
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  Speaker 1: in Paul's sentence that is easy to read right past,
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  Speaker 1: and yet without it, the whole thing does not work
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  Speaker 1: the way he intended. He says, That is a strange
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  Speaker 1: thing to ask of a frightened person. When you are afraid,
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  Speaker 1: gratitude is the last thing on your mind. You are
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  Speaker 1: not counting your blessings, you are counting your problems. Telling
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  Speaker 1: an anxious heart to give thanks can sound almost cruel,
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  Speaker 1: like asking someone in the dark to describe the light.
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  Speaker 1: Yet Paul does not leave it out. Here is why.
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  Speaker 1: Fear has a way of shrinking the world down to
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  Speaker 1: the one thing we are afraid of. The mind locks
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  Speaker 1: onto the threat and stares at it until it fills
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  Speaker 1: the whole sky. We forget everything else. We forget every
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  Speaker 1: prayer God has already answered, every danger He has already
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  Speaker 1: carried us through, every morning that came after a night
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  Speaker 1: we thought we could not survive. Worry has a short memory.
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  Speaker 1: It acts as though God has never once been faithful,
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  Speaker 1: as though this present trouble is the first and the
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  Speaker 1: last word. Thanksgiving breaks that spell. When you stop and
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  Speaker 1: remember what God has already done, the thing you are
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  Speaker 1: afraid of stops looking like the whole sky. It becomes
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  Speaker 1: one cloud in a much larger picture. You are not
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  Speaker 1: denying the trouble. You are simply placing it next to
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  Speaker 1: the long history of God's faithfulness in your own life.
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  Speaker 1: And in that light, it shrinks back down to its
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  Speaker 1: real size. The God who held you last year is
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  Speaker 1: the same God holding you now. Gratitude is how we
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  Speaker 1: remind our forgetful hearts of that. And notice the timing.
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  Speaker 1: Paul does not say give thanks after God answers. He says,
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  Speaker 1: bring your requests with thanksgiving before you know how the
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  Speaker 1: story ends. That is the gratitude of trust. It says,
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  Speaker 1: I do not yet see how this will be resolved,
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  Speaker 1: but I am thankful in advance because I know the
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  Speaker 1: one I am handing it to. It is the thanks
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  Speaker 1: of a child who does not understand the plan but
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  Speaker 1: knows the heart of the Father who is making it.
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  Speaker 1: Now comes the promise. Paul says, And the peace of God,
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  Speaker 1: which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your
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  Speaker 1: minds in Christ Jesus. Most of us think peace will
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  Speaker 1: come when the trouble ends. We tell ourselves that once
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  Speaker 1: the test results are good, once the money comes in,
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  Speaker 1: once the relationship is mended— Then we will finally be
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  Speaker 1: able to breathe. So we wait for our circumstances to
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  Speaker 1: change and our peace stays hostage to things we cannot control.
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  Speaker 1: Paul describes something completely different. This peace does not wait
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  Speaker 1: for the storm to pass. It comes while the storm
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  Speaker 1: is still raging. That is why he says it surpasses
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  Speaker 1: all understanding. This peace makes no sense. It cannot be
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  Speaker 1: reasoned into existence. You cannot think your way to it
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  Speaker 1: by listing reasons everything will be fine, because sometimes you
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  Speaker 1: do not have those reasons. The whole point is that
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  Speaker 1: this calm arrives without an explanation. It settles over a
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  Speaker 1: person whose situation has not improved at all, and even
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  Speaker 1: they cannot tell you how they are still standing. They
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  Speaker 1: only know that something is holding them, that they did
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  Speaker 1: not create themselves. Paul knew this firsthand. The peace he
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  Speaker 1: is describing is the very peace that let him write
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  Speaker 1: a joyful letter from a prison cell. His circumstances did
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  Speaker 1: not explain his calm. The chain was still there. The
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  Speaker 1: trial was still ahead. By all standards, he had nothing
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  Speaker 1: to be at peace about. And yet, peace was exactly
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  Speaker 1: what he had, a peace that did not come from
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  Speaker 1: his situation, and therefore could not be taken away by it.
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  Speaker 1: This is the kind of peace your soul is actually
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  Speaker 1: starving for. Not a calm that depends on everything going right,
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  Speaker 1: because everything will not always go right. You need a
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  Speaker 1: peace that can survive the worst news, that can sit
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  Speaker 1: with you in the hospital room, that can stay beside
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  Speaker 1: you when the house is quiet and empty and the
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  Speaker 1: fear comes back. That peace does not come from understanding.
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  Speaker 1: It comes from God, and it is given, not earned.
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  Speaker 1: It is a gift placed into the open hands of
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  Speaker 1: the one who has learned to bring their fears to him.
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  Speaker 1: When Paul says, the peace of God will guard your
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  Speaker 1: hearts and minds, the word he chose for guard is
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  Speaker 1: a soldier's word. It does not mean a soft, gentle covering.
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  Speaker 1: It means a sentry standing watch. It is the image
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  Speaker 1: of armed soldiers posted at the gate of a city,
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  Speaker 1: alert through the night, keeping out anything that tries to
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  Speaker 1: break in. The people Paul was writing to lived in
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  Speaker 1: a Roman colony with a military backbone. They knew exactly
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  Speaker 1: what it looked like to have a garrison stationed around them,
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  Speaker 1: protecting them while they slept. And Paul says that this
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  Speaker 1: is what God's peace does inside you. Think about how
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  Speaker 1: fitting that image is, coming from where he was. Paul
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  Speaker 1: himself was being guarded day and night by Roman soldiers.
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  Speaker 1: He could see the guard on duty every time he
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  Speaker 1: looked up. And he takes that very picture, the thing
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  Speaker 1: that symbolized his imprisonment, and turns it into a picture
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  Speaker 1: of freedom. The soldiers guard his body, but the peace
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  Speaker 1: of God guards something they cannot reach. They stand watch
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  Speaker 1: over his cell. Peace stands watch over his heart. This
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  Speaker 1: tells you something important about how the cure works. Your
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  Speaker 1: heart and your mind are under attack. That is simply true.
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  Speaker 1: Fear comes at the gate. Anxious thoughts press in, trying
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  Speaker 1: to climb over the wall and take the city. You
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  Speaker 1: cannot always stop them from coming. But Paul promises that
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  Speaker 1: when you have handed your worries to God, his peace
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  Speaker 1: takes up a position at the gate of your inner
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  Speaker 1: life and stands guard. It does not always end the war.
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  Speaker 1: It holds the line. So picture it the next time
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  Speaker 1: the fear comes at three in the morning. the anxious
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  Speaker 1: thought approaches the gate. And there, standing in the way,
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  Speaker 1: is a peace you did not put there, a peace
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  Speaker 1: that surpasses your understanding, posted like a soldier who does
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  Speaker 1: not sleep. You do not have to defend yourself by
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  Speaker 1: sheer effort. The guard is already on duty. Your job
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  Speaker 1: was to bring the worry to God. His promise is
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  Speaker 1: to stand watch over what you could not protect on
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  Speaker 1: your own. Once the worry has been handed over and
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  Speaker 1: peace is standing guard, a question remains. What does the
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  Speaker 1: mind do now? An anxious mind that has nothing to
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  Speaker 1: chew on does not simply go quiet. It goes looking
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  Speaker 1: for the next thing to fear. Paul knew this, and
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  Speaker 1: so he does not leave us with an empty room.
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  Speaker 1: He gives the mind somewhere good to go. He writes,
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  Speaker 1: whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever
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  Speaker 1: is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there
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  Speaker 1: is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise,
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  Speaker 1: think about these things. This is not a command to
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  Speaker 1: think positive thoughts as a way of fooling yourself. It
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  Speaker 1: is far more grounded than that. Fear feeds on what
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  Speaker 1: is false, on the disasters we imagine that have not
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  Speaker 1: happened and usually never will. The anxious mind is a
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  Speaker 1: master of fiction, writing terrible stories about a future it
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  Speaker 1: cannot actually see. Paul tells us to turn our attention
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  Speaker 1: away from those imagined horrors and fix it on what
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  Speaker 1: is real and good and true. He is teaching us
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  Speaker 1: to feed the mind something nourishing instead of letting it
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  Speaker 1: starve on its own fears. Notice that he lists what
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  Speaker 1: is true first. Truth is the enemy of anxiety because
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  Speaker 1: so much of what we fear is not even real yet.
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  Speaker 1: When you train your mind to dwell on what is
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  Speaker 1: actually true, on what God has actually said, on what
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  Speaker 1: is actually good in front of you right now, the
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  Speaker 1: imagined catastrophes lose their grip. You are not pretending the
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  Speaker 1: hard things do not exist. You are simply refusing to
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  Speaker 1: let your mind live in a future that has not
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  Speaker 1: arrived and choosing instead to live in the goodness that
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  Speaker 1: is real today. This is the daily work that keeps
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  Speaker 1: the peace in place. It is not enough to hand
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  Speaker 1: over the worry once and then let the mind wander
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  Speaker 1: back into dark places. The mind must be filled, not
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  Speaker 1: just emptied, so we fill it with what is true
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  Speaker 1: and honourable and lovely, with the goodness of God and
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  Speaker 1: the gifts he has actually given, and there is simply
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  Speaker 1: less room for the fear to move back in. There
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  Speaker 1: is a part of this chapter that lifts it from
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  Speaker 1: a beautiful idea into something deeply human, and it comes
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  Speaker 1: when Paul stops giving instructions and starts telling the truth
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  Speaker 1: about himself. He writes, I have learned in whatever situation
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  Speaker 1: I am to be content. And then he says something
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  Speaker 1: even more striking. I know how to be brought low,
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  Speaker 1: and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance,
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  Speaker 1: I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger,
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  Speaker 1: abundance and need. Paul says he learned to be content.
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  Speaker 1: That means there was a time when he was not.
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  Speaker 1: The man who wrote The Cure for Anxiety did not
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  Speaker 1: come out of the womb at peace. He had to
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  Speaker 1: learn this, and learning always means there were days he
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  Speaker 1: got it wrong. There were seasons when the hunger frightened him,
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  Speaker 1: when the need pressed on him, when the calm he
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  Speaker 1: later wrote about was nowhere to be found. Contentment was
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  Speaker 1: not his natural state. It was a skill, hard-won, learned
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  Speaker 1: in the very places that tried to take it from him.
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  Speaker 1: That should be enormously freeing for anyone who has felt
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  Speaker 1: like a failure at faith. If you have brought your
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  Speaker 1: worries to God and the peace did not come instantly,
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  Speaker 1: you are not doing it wrong. You are learning. Paul
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  Speaker 1: learned it the same way, slowly, through being brought low
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  Speaker 1: again and again, until he discovered, in the lowest places,
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  Speaker 1: that God was still enough. The peace he describes is
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  Speaker 1: not a switch you flip. It is a secret you
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  Speaker 1: grow into, often through the hardest experiences of your life.
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  Speaker 1: and consider the kind of experiences Paul was talking about
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  Speaker 1: when he spoke of being brought low. This was a
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  Speaker 1: man who had been hungry not as a figure of speech,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: but truly without food. He had been cold and without
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: enough to keep warm. He had been beaten until his
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: body was broken, more than once. He had been adrift
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: in the open sea after a shipwreck, not knowing if
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: he would be pulled under. He had known days of
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: plenty and days of nothing, and he's telling us that
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: he learned to be steady in both. That is what
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: makes his contentment believable. He is not a comfortable man
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: who never wanted for anything telling the poor to cheer up.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: He is someone who knew exactly what it was to
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: have the floor drop out from under his life, and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: who found in the falling that there was a hand
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: underneath he had not seen before. This is how the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: secret gets learned. Not in the easy seasons, but in
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the seasons when everything we leaned on is taken away
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and we discover that God was the flaw all along.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: You may be in such a season right now, feeling
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: like everything stable has been pulled out from under you.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Paul would tell you that this very place, as painful
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: as it is, is the classroom where contentment is learned.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: It is not learned by reading about it. It is
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: learned by living through the hard thing and finding God
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: faithful on the other side. And then comes the line
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that everyone knows and almost everyone misreads.' I can do
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: all things through him who strengthens me.' It has been
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: printed on coffee mugs and worn on the shirts of
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: athletes as though it means God will help you win
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the game or land the job or accomplish any dream
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: you set your heart on. But look at what Paul
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: is actually talking about. He has just spoken about being hungry,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: about being brought low, about facing need. The all things
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: he can do through Christ are not great triumphs. They
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: are the quiet, brutal things, the surviving of hunger, the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: enduring of loss, the staying steady when everything is stripped away.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: This is far better news than the version on the mug.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Paul is not promising you will conquer every challenge. He
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: is promising something your soul needs much more. He is
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: saying that whatever you have to face, even if you
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: cannot fix it, even if it does not get better,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: you will be given the strength to endure it. Not
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: your strength, his strength. The secret Paul learned is that
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the power to keep going does not come from inside
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: us at all. It is borrowed day by day from
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the one who strengthens us. When you have nothing left,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that is not the end. That is exactly where Christ's
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: strength begins to carry you. As the chapter draws toward
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: its close, Paul makes one last promise, and it pulls
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the whole cure together. he had been thanking the Philippians
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: for the gift they sent him in prison. And out
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: of that gratitude, he writes, Much of our anxiety is
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: really the fear that there will not be enough. Not
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: enough money, not enough time, not enough strength, not enough love,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: not enough of us to go around. We lie awake
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: doing the math and the numbers never seem to add up.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Paul takes that fear and answers it at the root.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: The supply does not depend on your account. It depends
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: on his. And notice that he says need, not greed.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: He does not promise that God will hand you everything
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: you want. He promises that God will meet what you
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: actually need, which is often very different from what we
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: think we need. Sometimes what we need is not the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: thing we are praying for at all, but the strength
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: to live without it, or the peace to wait, or
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the presence of God Himself in the middle of the lack.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: The God who supplies knows the difference between our wants
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: and our needs better than we do, and He commits
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Himself to the second. This is where the cure becomes
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: more than a method. It rests on a person. Paul
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: does not say peace will supply your needs, or that
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: prayer will, or that positive thinking will. He says, my
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: God will. The whole weight of the cure leans on
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the character of the one we are bringing our worries to.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: We can hand over our fears because the hands receiving
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: them belong to a Father who has promised to provide.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: The peace stands guard because the God of peace stands
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: behind it. It would be easy to hear all of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: this and imagine that Paul is describing a calm, untroubled
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: kind of person who simply never feels the weight of fear.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: But the deepest comfort in this whole chapter is that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the path Paul describes was first walked by Jesus himself,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and he walked it through real agony. On the night
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: before he was killed, Jesus went into a garden called Gethsemane.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: He knew what was coming. He knew the cross was
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: hours away, and the dread of it pressed on him
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: so heavily that he fell to the ground. He was
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: not calm and untouched. The weight on him was so
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: great that he sweat as though he were bleeding, and
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: he said that his soul was sorrowful even to death.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: If anyone has ever felt the full crushing force of anxiety,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: it was the Son of God in that garden. And
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: what did he do with it? He did not pretend
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: it was not there. He did not bury it or
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: hide it behind a brave face. He fell on his
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: face in the dirt of that garden, under the olive
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: trees in the dark, and he brought it to his
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: father in prayer. He poured out exactly what he felt,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: asking if there were any other way the cup could
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: pass from him, and then, in the same breath, he surrendered,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: placing himself into his father's hands. He prayed it once,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: and the weight did not lift. He rose, found his
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: closest friends asleep, and went back and prayed it again.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: And then a third time. This is worth seeing clearly.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Even for the Son of God, the peace did not
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: come on the first prayer. He kept returning to the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: same place with the same burden until the strength came
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: to stand and walk toward the cross. He did the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: very thing Paul would later write to us. He took
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the unbearable weight and, in everything by prayer, he made
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: his request known to God. This means that when you
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: bring your fear to God, you are not coming to
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: someone who cannot understand. You are coming to a Savior
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: who has knelt in the dirt under a weight heavier
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: than yours and prayed through it. The peace that guards
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: your heart was bought by the one who had no
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: peace in that garden so that you could have it now.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: He faced the dread you cannot face, and he came
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: through it so that when your own dark night comes,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: you are never facing it alone. That is why all
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: of it, the peace, the strength, the supply, is found
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: in Christ Jesus. Paul keeps saying those words, in Christ Jesus,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: again and again, because the cure was never a technique.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: It was always a person. He is the one who
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: prayed in the garden so that he could stand watch
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: at your gate. Perhaps you are the one this whole
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: letter was written for. Perhaps you know exactly what it
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: is to lie awake while the rest of the house sleeps,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: turning a fear over and over, unable to put it down.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Perhaps the worry is about your health, and every small
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: pain feels like the beginning of something terrible. Perhaps it
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: is about money, and you cannot see how the month
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: will end. Perhaps it is loneliness, the ache of a
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: house grown quiet, of friends who have passed on, of
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: days where no one calls and you wonder if anyone
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: would notice. Perhaps you are growing older and afraid of
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: what is coming, or simply tired in a way that
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: sleep does not fix. If that is you, hear this gently.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Paul was not writing to people who had it all together.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: He was writing from a prison to a church full
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: of ordinary, frightened, struggling people, two of whom could not
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: even get along with each other. And into that very
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: real mess, he wrote the cure, not as a scolding,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: but as an open hand. He was not telling them
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to be stronger. He was showing them where to put
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: the weight they could not carry. So you do not
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: have to fix your fear tonight. You only have to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: move it. Take the thing that is sitting on your chest,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the worry you have been carrying alone, and bring it
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to God exactly as you are, with no fine words required.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: tell him the truth of it. And as you do,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: look back even a little at the times he has
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: already carried you, and let a small thanks rise up
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: alongside the request. You are not facing the rest of
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: your life all at once. You are handing over one night,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: this night, to the one who does not sleep. And
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: do not wait until you feel strong enough or holy
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: enough to come and That is the very mistake that
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: keeps so many people trapped. We imagine we have to
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: calm ourselves down before we are allowed to pray, to
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: get the fear under control first, and then approach God
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: as though we have our act together. But that is backward.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: You come with the shaking still in your hands. You
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: come in the middle of the panic, not after it.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: The whole point is that you are bringing him the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: very thing you cannot manage on your own. If you
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: could manage it, you would not need him. So bring
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the mess as it is. Bring the half-formed words, the tears,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the questions you are ashamed to ask. He is not
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: waiting for you to be impressive. He is waiting for
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you to come. And it may help to remember that
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: you are not the first to be afraid, and you
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: are not the only one tonight. The man who wrote
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: these words was afraid in a prison. The Savior who
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: makes them possible was afraid in a garden. Down through
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: every century since, frightened people have done this same small
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: brave thing in the dark, handing their fear to God
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and finding that they were held, You are joining a
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: long line of the weary and the worried who discovered
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: that the one they reached for was already reaching back.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: You are not strange for being afraid. You are human,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: and there is room for you here. The peace may
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: not come the way you expect. It rarely does. It
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: will probably not be loud or sudden. It will more
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: likely be a quiet steadiness that you cannot quite explain,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: a sense that you are held even though nothing about
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: your situation has changed. That is the guard taking his
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: post at the gate. That is the peace that surpasses understanding,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: settling over a heart that finally let go. You were
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: never meant to carry it alone. The man in the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: chains learned that, and he spent the rest of his
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: life telling everyone he could. The saviour in the garden
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: made it possible, kneeling under your dread, before you ever
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: felt it. And the God who supplies every need is waiting,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: even now, in the middle of your sleepless night, with
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: hands wide open and a peace already prepared for the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: moment you decide to let him hold what you were
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: never strong enough to hold. Bring it to him, tonight
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and tomorrow and every time the fear comes back. That
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: is not weakness. That is the cure. If this video
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: helped you grow deeper in God's Word, I want to
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: personally invite you to be part of what we are
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: building here. Every video on this channel takes many hours
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: of study and careful research to make sure we bring
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: you content that is faithful to Scripture and worthy of
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: your time. If you would like to support this mission
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: and help us keep making these videos, you can find
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: a link in the description below to give a one-time
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: gift or become a monthly supporter. Every gift, no matter
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the size, goes directly toward creating more content like this.
• 35:12
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• 35:14
  Speaker 1: right now, that is completely fine. The best thing you
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: can do is subscribe, share this video with someone who
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: needs to hear it, and keep studying God's Word with us.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here, and may God bless you richly.