Latest / #Faith4TodayPodcast / #Faith4Today Episode 71 - Worry(Less)

Transcript

#Faith4Today Episode 71 - Worry(Less) · #Faith4TodayPodcast

0:00
This episode is all about strong care, worry, anxiety, and the
0:03
goodness of God that we see in Psalm 65.
0:06
We're going to talk about how creation points us to God, who
0:09
is deeply involved in our lives, not just distant or detached,
0:13
but sustains everything. We're also going to unpack the
0:16
difference between stress, worry, and anxiety, why so many
0:21
people feel overwhelmed, and how Jesus really invites us to slow
0:24
down. Notice the birds, the flowers,
0:27
and to relinquish trust yet again.
0:30
If your mind's been racing or your soul feels really heavy, I
0:33
think this conversation is going to encourage you all today.
0:36
Are you ready? Let's get going.
0:42
Hey, welcome to episode 71 of the Faith for Today podcast.
0:47
We're talking about worry less, worry less as we keep looking at
0:53
the resistance that our faith takes as as we experience the
0:58
redemption, the renewal of of Christ on the Faith for Today
1:01
podcast, man, I am hoping to help you to not just be inspired
1:06
from a Sunday message, but to live a life of faithfulness,
1:10
integrating those truths and how you live think, how you work,
1:13
how you parent, how you live your everyday life.
1:17
We want faith today and we want to bring it into our lives.
1:21
So I'm going to recap Sunday's message.
1:23
I'm going to share a bunch of bonus content today and then
1:27
respond to some questions. We got a ton to get into today.
1:31
Let's jump in as we talk about how to worry less.
1:35
We looked at Psalm 65 on Mother's Day and I talked about
1:39
how creation points us beyond itself to the goodness and the
1:43
care and the love of God. We see and hear phrases like
1:46
Mother Earth because the earth feels nurturing, life giving.
1:50
But Scripture tells like a really rich, deeper story that
1:54
the earth is not the source of life, but God is.
1:57
And in the same way that the nurturing, attentive, resilient
2:01
strength that we often celebrate on on Mother's Day in our moms
2:05
is actually a reflection of the image of God himself in them.
2:10
Psalm 65 points. This paints this incredible
2:13
picture of, of God watering the earth of him calming the chaos
2:18
of providing abundantly and, and having a caring space to help
2:23
people and help the earth kind of roll through through life.
2:27
How he rescues us from things that just feel overwhelming and
2:32
a sense of drowning that we might have.
2:34
So when we see this reality about God, we see those same
2:38
things and often moms at work in our lives.
2:41
So we see moms carry caring for us that we see them holding
2:45
burdens. We we see them creating
2:47
environments where we can flourish and families can grow
2:51
and thrive. We're really catching a glimpse
2:53
of God's own heart on display in front of us.
2:57
Yeah, I really wanted wanted us to see that God is not distant
3:02
or detached, right? We that he's deeply involved
3:04
sustaining both creation and sustaining us, has created
3:09
beings that are our lives. He sustains those things.
3:13
We then kind of connected this idea of worry and anxiety in
3:17
Matthew 625 through 34 because we, we see how God cares for the
3:21
earth and Jesus correlates that. If God cares for the earth, the
3:25
birds, the flowers, and he's going to care for us too.
3:28
I, I mentioned how stress, worry and anxiety are related, but
3:32
they're actually different. They're distinct.
3:34
How stress is the body reacting to pressure, how worry is the
3:38
mind spinning scenarios and anxiety is when that fear
3:42
settles into US physically and, and emotionally.
3:47
Jesus tells us to look at the birds and flowers because that
3:50
interrupts the spiral and it kind of gives us an ability to
3:55
to, to, to anchor us to something true, physical and
3:59
present here and and now. Instead of ruminating on worst
4:03
case scenarios, Jesus invites us to replace worry with God's word
4:07
and in his very presence. I also wanted people to hear
4:10
this clearly that struggling with worry doesn't make you weak
4:14
or bad. Often the same wiring that makes
4:17
someone deeply caring and attentive can tilt us towards
4:20
overthinking when we feel the pressure that that's why we need
4:24
a practical help. We need healthy rhythms.
4:26
We need supportive people. We sometimes we need counseling
4:29
or even medical assistance through through medications.
4:33
But but ultimately, we really do need the the real presence of
4:37
God. Anxiety grows when I live like
4:40
everything depends on me, but peace begins when I trust the
4:44
God who actually sustains everything.
4:48
All right, I got a bunch of bonus content to share with you
4:50
today. I I mentioned in the message how
4:54
like worry and anxiety and stress isn't unique to just the
4:58
the female body, the female humanity.
5:01
It's not not just a woman's issue, but but neuroscience does
5:05
show that there are some patterns and how worry does tend
5:08
to show up in women more often. It's it's important to say kind
5:12
of that up upfront that even in what neuroscience presents in
5:16
data about this, that it's about averages, not absolutes.
5:20
In other words, it's kind of individual personality, life
5:23
experience and environment matters just as much as biology
5:27
does to how we or how often we worry or experience anxiety or,
5:31
or physical stress. One of the reasons that it does
5:36
tend, on average, to show up in women more often is because
5:40
women tend to score higher in rumination.
5:43
Their mind tends to race more often than than than perhaps the
5:47
male mind does to. Neuroscience says that there's a
5:51
stronger connectivity between emotion and reflection centers
5:54
in a woman's brain. Brain imaging shows more
5:58
crosstalk between the amygdala, which is your emotional
6:01
processing space and areas of the prefrontal cortex that the
6:05
reflection meaning making in women in average.
6:07
So brain imaging in women shows that that crosstalk between the
6:11
amygdala and the prefrontal questions happens way more
6:13
frequently. That just simply means that
6:15
emotions are processed more deeply and thoughtfully by women
6:19
on average, but also that concern, but also that concerns
6:23
can feel more vivid and persistent in a woman's brain as
6:28
well. Also neuroscience kind of
6:30
mentions that on average, it's got women have a more heightened
6:33
sensitivity to social and relational cues.
6:35
So again, women's brains often show a stronger activation in
6:39
networks tied to reading, facial expressions, tone and relational
6:43
dynamics. I kind of from an evolutionary
6:45
standpoint, that's incredibly valuable for caregiving
6:49
community building, But it also means that there are more inputs
6:52
to process in real time for often women's brains, which can
6:57
translate into more things to worry about, especially around
7:00
relationships, safety and well-being of others.
7:03
Like like late women, especially moms are carrying this mental
7:07
load in that direction so often and then often times a stress
7:13
response. There's a difference in how
7:17
women respond to stress. See, men are often described as
7:20
having more of a fight or flight stress response.
7:23
Women tend to be influenced by by by things like oxytocin and
7:28
and more often show a tend and be friend kind of a response.
7:31
In other words, they move towards connection and care when
7:34
under stress. I think it's really powerful,
7:37
but it also can mean that they are carrying emotional weight of
7:42
others and for others, which can fuel concern and worry and
7:46
stress and anxiety even more often on average in, in, in
7:51
women. And so I wanted to share some of
7:52
the, the, the science behind the statement that I made in the
7:55
message that it, it seems that on average that the women can
7:59
tend to be more worrisome than perhaps their, their male
8:03
counterparts. And, and part of that is by
8:05
design. You know, I, I just finished a
8:08
book recently reading a book, not writing one, just reading a
8:10
book that was called I'm Only Human.
8:15
And it really was a theological exploration of around the idea
8:20
of a theology of finitude, meaning we are all finite.
8:24
In other words, it's learning that that the limits that we
8:27
have on being human are by design by God.
8:30
In other words, that there's a reality that we have to learn to
8:33
accept that we are finite, that we are not infinite in this
8:37
moment. We are finite human beings.
8:39
We have limits, we have capacities and there those
8:42
limits need to be embraced rather than trying to reject the
8:46
all the time. Now we live in a culture that
8:48
says do more, be more, maximize everything, don't ever miss out
8:53
on anything. And that tends to create a
8:56
constant low grade pressure that says I should be doing more than
9:00
I'm doing right now. And I think that pressure feeds
9:04
and fuels anxiety in a really unhealthy way.
9:08
In the book, there's a section just on anxiety and time.
9:12
It says this. The author's talks about how
9:14
anxiety is trying to be infinite as a finite person.
9:19
One of the the ideas that it gives us is that only God is
9:22
without limits. Humans were never meant to live
9:26
without limits in our state. Like only God is without limits.
9:31
But we as humans have limits. We live though differently.
9:37
We we live like we should be everywhere, all the time.
9:40
That we can handle everything, that we should never get tired.
9:44
And we live with this idea that we should never fall behind,
9:47
whatever the pace of culture or work or others are.
9:51
And anxiety tends to grow in that gap between our expectation
9:55
of being infinite and our reality that we are finite.
9:59
And that gap between the two, the further that gap is for us
10:02
in our lives in real time can lead to growing sense of anxiety
10:07
within us. And and that's why so many
10:09
people feel guilty for resting. They feel condemned for saying
10:14
no to people or not being able to keep up at the pace of
10:18
somebody else. And that comparison that just
10:20
drives us up to more anxiousness.
10:24
There's also an anxiety around time, right?
10:27
We say things like I never have enough time.
10:30
And the author talks specifically about how time
10:33
becomes a source of anxiety for us.
10:36
See, in modern life, we are trained to think every moment
10:39
should be productive. We're always behind and we're
10:42
wasting time if we're not optimizing it.
10:44
I know I followed to this category.
10:45
I love a good life hack. I love being efficient.
10:48
I love getting be highly productive.
10:51
And I can live with time being a tape type of tyrant in my life.
10:56
Well, time is a gift from God. It has limits.
10:59
It resets every day. But if I'm not accepting time as
11:03
a gift from God and the limit of time as a gift from God, God, it
11:06
becomes I become enslaved and time becomes a tyrant in my
11:11
life. And and that's when anxiety can
11:13
rise even in my own, my own soul.
11:16
So I rush around all the time. I'm guilty when I feel like I'm
11:19
resting or I have an inability to be present all the time
11:22
because my mind is always on the next thing or what didn't I get
11:25
done? Or, and then I have this
11:27
constant mental pressure. And you have this too, where
11:30
you're constantly pressured by time thinking I've got to get
11:32
done. I got to hurry here, go to go to
11:33
there, got to fix that or I forgot to do that.
11:35
And I and we just can't be present in a moment and we feel
11:38
like we're behind in some, in some way.
11:41
And, and ultimately anxiety becomes fueled by, by this
11:45
comparison and by visibility, meaning in, in the book, he kind
11:50
of connects our anxiety to our cultural moment where social
11:54
media is amplifying our performance, where expectations
11:58
just keep rising in around us. And everything that we do has to
12:02
be visible to everybody or it's just, that's not, we're not,
12:07
we're not, we're not fitting in. That's not being relevant.
12:09
We're not living in the moment, we're not aware.
12:11
And, and we constantly live with this idea of like, well, I just
12:14
have a lot to do. I have a lot to do.
12:16
I have a lot to do, I have a lot to do.
12:17
And, and that becomes really ambiguous, but it becomes heavy
12:20
over us. And, and it creates anxiety
12:23
simply because we don't have a well, clear curation or
12:28
understanding of time, the limits of time and how we are
12:33
not infinite in our own beings. And so we've got to come to this
12:37
idea of, of trusting the Lord with our time and accepting the
12:42
limits that we have rather than letting anxiousness and stress
12:46
and, and, and anxiety to kind of dominate our lives because of
12:49
unrealistic expectations or unrealistic perceptions of who
12:56
we are and how God has made each of us.
12:59
And we have this, this running thing in our brain that says
13:03
everyone else is doing more than me and I'm just behind everybody
13:08
else. Maybe you feel like you're
13:09
behind that by this stage of life, you should be further
13:11
along. We do this spiritually.
13:13
We think, well, I've been going to church forever.
13:14
I should be so far, I should be much more mature than this
13:18
person or by than this. And, and we kind of live with
13:21
this sense of like I'm just behind the 8 ball and
13:24
everything. But are we by whose standards
13:27
and, and according to what? And I think that it, that
13:30
creates a false sense of pressure, which creates stress
13:34
and anxiety in US unnecessarily. And I think this is kind of what
13:38
creates more anxiety. It's what creates the fear of
13:41
missing out in US, which has become a pandemic in our midst.
13:45
And this is where, as I shared on on social media recently,
13:48
that comparison really surges. And, and when, when, when we
13:53
start to complain, it's because comparison has surged.
13:57
We started to compare ourselves and therefore we start to
13:59
complain and we start acting entitled and, and that creates
14:03
more, more and more like we're, we're, we're, we're acting as if
14:07
we're infinite and we're not. We're acting as if we should be
14:09
infinitely more than what we really are.
14:11
And rather than celebrating our limits, recognizing limits and
14:15
living with them, we, we keep trying to push the limits and
14:18
expand more and be more this and more more, more, more.
14:21
And, and we can't accept the gift of enough or can't accept
14:25
the gift of, of presence with, with God in those, those areas.
14:29
And so we end up acting like we are God in and of ourselves.
14:33
And we shouldn't really claim to be God, but yet many of us live
14:38
like we should be able to do what only God can do.
14:43
We need sleep, we need rest, we need to experience and receive
14:49
limits. And So what ends up happening is
14:52
anxiety isn't just emotional. Anxiety actually comes because
14:57
of a misplaced identity where we think we ought to be more
15:01
infinite, but actually we are finite.
15:05
And so we can feel pressure to to move in those things.
15:09
And we really do need to embrace the limits as a gift.
15:12
And so instead of trying to fix anxiety, the author of the book
15:16
says, rather than trying to fix anxiety with better
15:19
productivity, we need to flip it around.
15:21
And we need to say that peace comes from accepting our limits,
15:24
not escaping them. And the the book kind of
15:27
reframes this idea of limits and time and anxiety by saying
15:31
limits are not a flaw. Limits are not a sin.
15:34
Limits are God's design for us. And when we accept that, we can
15:39
rest without guilt, we can say no without a sense of shame, and
15:43
we can be present instead of rushed in every moment.
15:47
And I think that's where anxiety really starts to loosen its grip
15:51
when we see the the flip around. Because anxiety grows when I try
15:55
to live like I'm infinite, but peace begins when I accept that
15:59
I'm human and I can trust the God who is beyond my humanity.
16:05
And that's where we want to. We want to come to another book
16:09
that I read I think last year is a book called Million Little
16:13
Miracles 1,000,000 Little Miracles by Mark Batterson.
16:17
And the major theme of this book is really that to help us
16:21
understand that we are surrounded by everyday miracles,
16:25
but we've lost the ability to notice them because we lost our
16:29
sense of wonder, which is what Jesus is getting out of Mark
16:32
chapter Matthew chapter 6 when he says stop and look at the
16:35
birds, look at the flowers, look at how God takes care of all
16:38
like have a little wonder in your life.
16:40
And perhaps if we live with more wonder and awe and fear of God,
16:45
then maybe, just maybe, we would experience a little less worry.
16:51
And in fact, in the bookmark, Batterson's whole argument is
16:54
kind of basically this idea that the problem is not that God has
16:57
stopped working around us. The problem is that we've
17:01
stopped noticing God working around us.
17:04
And he spends a lot of the time in the book trying to kind of
17:06
reawaken what he calls a holy curiosity, A childlike awe
17:10
towards God, towards creation, towards life and even ordinary
17:14
existence. I highly recommend the book.
17:16
It's deeply devotional and inspiring in so many ways.
17:19
You learned so many like Nuggets of around science and how God is
17:23
at work around us. And kind of some of the big
17:26
themes in the book that I think help us understand this need to
17:31
live with wonder instead of be consumed by worry, which we
17:34
talked about on Sunday, is to recognize that God is bigger
17:38
than big. This is what the book kind of
17:40
talks about. And the problem.
17:41
This is probably like one of the most dominant ideas in the book.
17:44
In fact, he kind of in the book, he kind of zooms out to show
17:48
like some of the million little miracles that we see all around
17:51
in the galaxies, black holes in DNA, in physics, in the
17:55
ecosystems of our world. And, and then of course, the
17:57
complexities and the nuance and the beauty of, of how the human
18:01
body is so intrinsically together and linked and, and the
18:05
idea it is this, that creation is too intricate and astonishing
18:10
to be accidental. And so when you look at how
18:12
caring and specific and intricate and, and, and
18:16
thoughtful just a human body is and all of creation is, you
18:21
begin to see the million miracles all around us, how God
18:25
is always at work. And, and the more we consider
18:28
the wonders of God, the more we'll live with awe and wonder
18:32
beholding God and live with less worry, like we are our own God.
18:38
He uses examples like the speed of the earth traveling through
18:41
space, the uniqueness of a fingerprint and an eye print,
18:46
the microscopic cellular complexities that exist, or the
18:49
the scale and the vastness of the universe itself.
18:53
And the idea really is that if creation is this massive and
18:56
detailed, then God must be even greater, bigger than big, which
19:00
is exactly what Psalm 65 is kind of pointing at, that God governs
19:05
all of creation, that he sustains the whole ecosystem in
19:08
the cosmos and creation reflects God's divine glory.
19:14
That's the idea. That's the that's the marker
19:17
that we saw in Psalm 65 on Sunday.
19:20
And that in the book 1,000,000 Little Miracles is, is kind of
19:23
what what what he's getting at. And he says this in the book
19:26
that we've just lost our wonder. And this is kind of what I said
19:29
on Sunday, that like man, we we've kind of allowed worry to
19:32
come into our lives to where we have a hard time worshipping God
19:36
because we're so busy worrying about what we are experiencing
19:40
in life that we're missing the wonder of God at work in and
19:43
among our lives. I think that we have lost
19:47
wonder. And it's kind of this extinction
19:50
of our own experience with God where we try to over explain
19:53
everything in modern life. We try to over digitize
19:56
everything in modern life. We over rationalize everything.
19:59
And in the process, we stopped being amazed.
20:03
And Mark Batterson in his book, he authors that we've traded all
20:06
of this. We've traded awe for
20:08
information, We've traded gratitude for something that's
20:11
familiar, and we've traded worship for complete boredom in
20:15
our lives. So the miracles just seem
20:17
mundane because we could Google it real fast and get it and get
20:21
an answer. And that information is kind of
20:24
taken away our curiosity and our wonder and our awe and even the
20:27
mystery of what what God has said.
20:30
And when we take miracles for granted, instead of taking them
20:33
for gratitude, we've got to learn to, to live with some
20:37
gratitude so that that gratitude fuels our ability to trust in
20:41
God versus where worry kind of fuels our inability to control
20:47
life as if we're God. And that's not what God has for
20:51
you or has for me. And so we we need to develop
20:53
this holy curiosity, this idea of paying attention, slowing
20:57
down, noticing the beauty, like flowers and birds.
21:00
Someone even posted a stopping and noticing the beauty of a
21:03
snake the other day. And I was like, no, don't want
21:05
anything to do with that. You can keep the snakes.
21:07
I'll just keep looking for birds, right.
21:09
Like, but we have to slow down, pay attention to the beauty,
21:12
notice something that's going on.
21:13
See God in like the ordinary moments, the way your kids laugh
21:16
at things, the the little man. I think one of the coolest
21:19
videos like on social media is like watching kids like little
21:22
babies like their face light up and they say something funny or
21:25
like how they start laughing hard at something.
21:28
I think that's beautiful. I think it's wonderful.
21:29
We, we begin to see ordinary moments like that begin to fill
21:33
us with a little bit more awe, a little bit more wonder, a little
21:35
bit more levity in life. And I think those are important
21:39
moments when we look at things like butterflies and flowers and
21:42
stars and, and the sound waves and how seeds work, how human
21:46
emotions are experienced, laughter and memory and music
21:49
like all of this is all about helping us reclaim just this
21:53
holy curiosity, a holy expression of awe and wonder and
21:58
awakening something that maybe has gone dormant in our lives
22:01
because we've just let life beat us down till we have no wonder,
22:06
we have no awe. And we need to stop and look at
22:09
the birds, stop and smell the flowers, stop and laugh a little
22:13
bit with somebody that we care about.
22:15
An ordinary life is actually very extraordinary if you'll
22:19
stop and you'll look closely enough at it.
22:23
And one of the other things that he says in the book is that God
22:25
is just closer than we realize. He's closer than close.
22:28
He's not just bigger than big, but he's closer than close.
22:32
And I love that. In fact, this is what we saw in
22:34
Psalm 65, that God being close to us, it happens because God
22:39
hears us and his whole goal and the whole goal of prayer isn't
22:45
to get God to do what we want him to do.
22:47
The whole goal of prayer is that we grow closer to God.
22:50
It's actually more about building a unity and union with
22:54
God. It's about experiencing his
22:55
nearness, about inviting his involvement, about encountering
23:00
his presence every day. And, and this is a miracle in
23:04
and of itself. Think about breath in your
23:05
lungs, the relationships around you, the provision that you
23:07
experience healing in our body, moment, moments of timing and,
23:12
and grace. These are cosmic things that
23:15
happen that are miraculous, that are God being near us, being
23:18
close to us. And, and this is what we saw in
23:21
Psalm 65, that that God portrays himself as someone who is
23:25
intimately involved with us, how he waters the earth, he enriches
23:28
the earth, he is crowning the year with abundance.
23:32
And, and this is the God, the God who's involved, the God who
23:34
is close, the God who draws us close to him.
23:37
And this is what we want to see. We, we want to recognize the
23:41
million little miracles all around us and create a little
23:44
bit more awe and wonder within us instead of letting worry
23:49
consume all of who we are. And so this is kind of what we
23:53
looked at. We, we looked at the beautiful
23:55
moments that that Jesus reminds us that that God has cared for
23:59
birds and God has cared for flowers.
24:00
And, and when you can stop and you can actually say, man, look
24:05
at the birds, look at the flowers.
24:06
You're, you're kind of beginning in that moment to, to stop the
24:10
cycle of moving on. You, you kind of begin to
24:14
acknowledge that something's there.
24:16
You're not trying to escape it. You're, you're, you're, you're
24:18
actually beginning to regulate your, your nervous system.
24:22
When you can name how there's a bird, there's a flower, there's
24:25
something here. And you can speak specific in
24:27
your praise and gratitude, your awe, your wonder.
24:29
You're actually beginning to regulate what's happening on the
24:32
inside of you. Rather than letting worry just
24:35
cycle you into this, this tornadic kind of frenzy of chaos
24:39
inside of you, you can begin to quiet and calm your own soul and
24:43
mental state. Your nervous system begins to
24:46
chill out. I meant to kind of joke on
24:48
Sunday that that when you find yourself spiraling and you start
24:51
to to see worry begin to circulate in your mind.
24:54
Go touch some grass, right? You don't need to smoke the
24:57
grass, but just go touch the grass.
24:59
Go, go touch, go touch it. Go look at the flowers.
25:02
Go walk through your yard, look at some birds for a minute.
25:05
Grab a couple deep breaths and just examine the curiosity
25:10
around you and grow with a little bit of awe and wonder.
25:14
And that wonder will help lessen the around you.
25:19
The last thing I wanted to say here in this section, kind of a
25:22
bonus content was kind of to to just specify something I talked
25:27
about how the that how how a woman can a mom or a wife
25:33
especially can give encouragement to a kid or to
25:36
their husband. And it does something special.
25:39
It breathes life and like life and death in the power of the
25:41
tongue, which means that when you can use your words to speak
25:45
life, you actually breathe kind of life into the soul of the
25:49
person who is listening. And, and I think there is a
25:52
power in our words in that way. When a mom speaks life it
25:57
breathes encouragement and belief into a persons soul.
26:01
When a dad speaks life and encouragement, it forms identity
26:05
and establishes purpose. Think about it.
26:09
When a dad speaks encouragement and life into a child or into a
26:13
spouse, it helps form identity and establishes purpose.
26:18
But when a mom speaks life into a kid, it breathes courage and a
26:22
sense of belief. I think both kinds of voices are
26:26
needed. I think that's why I got set up
26:27
a male and female in the way they did.
26:29
The uniquenesses the the things that they bring to the table,
26:31
their strengths, that they stand together as like Co laborers in
26:35
this life, equal in all things, like both made equally in the
26:39
image of God, worthy of dignity and, and and respect in that way
26:43
and of mutuality in all things. And, and so in that we, we don't
26:47
get into toxic forms of control and submission and nor do we
26:53
fall into the prey of like throwing off all roles and
26:57
understanding of gender distinctions as some like toxic
27:01
form of femininity. Like, like we reject both of
27:04
those things as people who hold to the scriptures.
27:07
And, and as we look at the scriptures, we see that God has
27:10
a unique blessing that comes when a father blesses a child,
27:13
when a when a husband speaks to a wife in an encouraging way, it
27:17
does something to the soul into the psyche.
27:20
And the same thing happens when a wife speaks to to her husband
27:23
in a life giving way. And something happens in the
27:25
child when a mom breathes life into them.
27:28
See a dad speaks life and it forms identity on purpose.
27:31
A mom speaks life and encouragement and it brings
27:34
courage and establishes belief within that person.
27:39
So that's going to do it for our bonus content today.
27:42
I hope some of that has been helpful in kind of continuing to
27:45
explore these ideas together. All right, so let's get to those
27:48
questions and response. Now here's the first question.
27:52
Is it a sin for a genuine believer to constantly and
27:55
consistently worry about something all the time?
28:00
So let me say this first of all, if you were kind of dealing with
28:05
some extremes here, like all the time, I don't think anybody does
28:07
that all the time, but I think we can consistently and
28:11
constantly be kind of worried. I think that is true.
28:13
And is it a sin for a genuine believer versus a nominal
28:16
believer? Again, I think we're kind of
28:18
painting extremes to try to like pigeonhole something.
28:21
And I want to be cautious here. Let me say this in in in first
28:25
John 5 John writes and he says there is a sin that leads to
28:28
death and there is sin that doesn't lead to death.
28:31
I think if you're going to qualify worry as a sin, since
28:34
Jesus kind of instructs, kind of commands us not to worry, which
28:37
you could make that claim in that case, I would say would be
28:41
fall into the category of a sin that doesn't lead to death.
28:44
In other words, it's not helpful in this moment.
28:46
It's not helping you experience the life that God wants for you.
28:49
And it can disintegrate away and kind of disrupt our union with
28:54
God, our closeness with God. And so in that way, it, it can
28:57
be a sin. It misses the mark of God's
28:59
designed union with us. So in that way, yes, but it's
29:02
not a, a damnable sentence of, of, of a sin that's going to
29:07
kind of condemn you and damn you to hell in that way.
29:10
It's not, it's not one of those kinds of acts, if you will not,
29:13
not one of those transgressions that has to to, to be that way.
29:17
It's one of those sins that isn't good for us, isn't God's
29:21
best, and it's living below the standard of what God wants for
29:24
us. God does not want us in worry
29:25
all the time. He doesn't want us there.
29:27
That's not good for our souls. It's not good for our minds.
29:30
It's not good for our emotional well beings.
29:32
It's not good for our spirit and it's certainly not good for our
29:34
physical bodies. So in that way of saying, if
29:38
we're worrying all the time, is that a sin?
29:40
Well, it's certainly not helping our lives.
29:43
And so I want to be cautious in labeling something in that way
29:46
because worry absolutely can disrupt our union with God and
29:50
our closeness with him. But but I don't think we need to
29:54
feel condemnation when we experience worry.
29:57
Do you think that we need to recognize that worry isn't the
29:59
right way to deal with what it is that we're experiencing in
30:02
that moment? And so I think that that would
30:06
be a good thought process around kind of that that question.
30:11
Here's the next one kind of similar.
30:12
Could worrying then be also considered part of the
30:15
commandment? Love the Lord your God with all
30:16
your heart, soul, mind and all your strength.
30:18
If we could really take him at his word and really love him,
30:22
wouldn't that take care of worrying?
30:24
Again, I think it's a sincere question, but I think it's a
30:27
little bit can lead to some abusive legalistic approaches to
30:32
viewing other people like, well, if they just really love God,
30:35
then they would worry. And I think that can be really
30:37
dismissive and and unhelpful. So I would caution us in
30:41
thinking in that categorical way.
30:45
In other words, just like saying, well, if I really loved
30:47
my wife, I wouldn't get upset or frustrated.
30:50
Well, that's not true because I live a human experience and I
30:53
get frustrated and upset. That doesn't mean I don't really
30:56
love my wife. It just means that I'm really
30:59
not living in a sanctified moment and I need to grow in
31:02
sanctification. So I don't think that we can say
31:06
it's not. But I think that when we love
31:08
God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, it
31:10
definitely moves us into richer union with Him, but it doesn't
31:14
remove our humanity. So I think it kind of sets up an
31:18
idealistic false dichotomy to say if we really loved him, then
31:22
we wouldn't ever. I just think that's a false
31:25
dichotomy. I, I don't think that that's how
31:27
God actually thinks about it, but I think that it's the
31:31
behavior that worry can create that can become an issue rather
31:35
than the emotion of worry itself.
31:38
Again, worry is an emotion that alerts us to a process of
31:41
thinking. And if we can understand that
31:44
worry alerts us to an emotional experience that we're having,
31:48
it's what we do in response to that emotion that matters.
31:51
It's kind of like saying, is lust a sin?
31:53
Well, it can if it leads you to act out in wrong ways, but it's
31:58
not so much having a a thought that is wrong or having a an
32:02
appetite or an urge that's right.
32:03
That's part of the human experience.
32:05
It's that you just don't act out on those things.
32:08
It's not leading you to a behavior that would be
32:10
destructive or damning or or unhealthy.
32:12
And so when we think about worry as an emotion, no, But when we
32:16
think about worry as a way of then leading us to certain
32:19
behaviors that discount, discredit, and dismiss God or or
32:23
diminish our love for God, I think that that becomes really
32:26
unhelpful and unhealthy. Again, in all of those things.
32:30
But let's not set up false dichotomies to say like, if you
32:32
worry, you really don't love God.
32:34
I don't think that's true. I think that you really can love
32:37
God and really are human and you can experience worry.
32:41
But what we do with our worry because we love the Lord and we
32:45
know the Lord loves us. I think that's where we learn to
32:48
deal with worry in a different in a different way.
32:53
Here's the next question. If I see someone like in crisis,
32:56
what are some things I can do to help them?
32:58
Now I'm assuming we're talking about like stress, worry, or
33:01
maybe even anxiety is just kind of like crippling their body
33:05
that's really showing up in in real ways.
33:07
I think one pray for them and try to understand them, like get
33:13
kind of curious about them, learn and and I would say in in
33:18
a non anxious moment or a non anxiety induced moment, ask them
33:24
how to best support them when they do get anxious and worried.
33:29
Sometimes when you're stressed, the worst thing to hear is,
33:32
well, don't stress about that. Well, there's no reason to
33:34
stress about that. That like diminishes the fact
33:36
that you're stressed and makes you feel bad that you're even
33:38
stressing. Like that's not necessarily
33:41
helpful. It's kind of like somebody who's
33:43
grieving saying, well, you don't just get over the grief.
33:45
It's fine. God, God, God's going to come
33:46
through like kind of Trident cliche.
33:48
I think we actually need to hold the burden with people, not
33:51
dismiss the fact that people are experiencing a burden.
33:55
So we want to be very understanding.
33:57
We're going to get curious about it.
33:58
We want to love them, support them, pray for them.
34:01
I think that when someone is, if they really are spiraling, go
34:04
like be physically present with them if you can go for a walk
34:07
with them. Not to condemn them but to just
34:10
have curious conversations. Sometimes the best thing to do
34:13
is just hold somebody and help them breathe deeply if that's
34:17
possible. Like one of my kids, when they
34:19
start to have anxiety, just helping them breathe, sitting
34:22
there with them being a non anxious presence in their life
34:27
is a great way to just support people in those moments of
34:31
crisis when someone is spiraling, you can't talk them
34:34
out with logic, but you can help them regulate in the moment.
34:39
And then as things begin to calm down, then you can begin to
34:42
bring logic and rational into those moments.
34:45
And so finding strategies that help them find ways that kind of
34:49
come alongside them. But man, it's kind of like when
34:52
people like get worked up, telling them to calm down
34:54
doesn't help because it it's not calming them.
34:58
So just be a non anxious presence rather than telling
35:00
somebody don't be anxious. And so showing up for people in
35:04
their lives can look different and find the ways that would
35:06
support them, especially if they're prone to experience
35:09
those kinds of moments with very anxious moments or whatever.
35:15
Here's another question. You said in the message that we
35:19
aren't bad people, but we have bad systems when talking about
35:22
stress. Can you expound and explain that
35:24
to me more? Yeah.
35:26
So we all have developed systems of behavior to try to meet core
35:33
needs in our life. Those core needs being safety,
35:37
belonging and purpose. Or set another way, being safe,
35:41
being seen and being significant, right.
35:44
These safety, a sense of of seen, belonging, love, and then
35:49
significance purpose like these three things are core needs that
35:53
we all have and we all try to meet those needs through systems
35:58
of behavior. Everything from codependency to
36:02
OCD, controlling to work, workaholism to money, becoming
36:09
greedy and hoarding and money things to all sorts of behaviors
36:13
we've create. And we do in order to try to
36:17
meet these critical core needs, these primal needs within us.
36:22
We we've done some things, we've developed behavior around trying
36:26
to to meet these needs. And same thing when it comes to
36:29
worry, like worry and anxiety and how it shows up in our body
36:35
is always our way of trying to deal with something that feels
36:40
uncertain, that maybe feels unsafe, that makes us feel
36:42
unloved or we feel less than or not good enough or not important
36:47
or not successful or not meaningful in life.
36:50
Like these needs start to show up and we create behaviors to
36:54
scramble around to try to help mitigate that that need from
36:59
being damaged or hurt or, or even kind of missing altogether.
37:03
And, and God has an answer to all of these.
37:05
God wants to be present with us in all of these.
37:07
And, and so we often have created systems of behavior to
37:11
try to deal with these things. Now, what I'm not trying to say
37:15
is that like, well, if you worry, just memorize a scripture
37:17
and it goes away. What I'm not saying is let's use
37:20
worship music or or scripture as a way of escaping the emotion.
37:24
I don't know. We need to learn how to regulate
37:26
our nervous systems, acknowledge our pain and our emotion that
37:29
the concern that we have to God and then worship and recite the
37:33
scripture. In other words, we're not trying
37:35
to escape our humanity. We're trying to let God meet us
37:40
in the midst of our humanity, which means that we have to
37:43
recognize some of the behaviors that we've established that
37:47
aren't helping actually meet our real needs.
37:50
And we need to acknowledge that, be honest about that, and let
37:53
God meet us in our moment of of need.
37:57
I think we can have a spiritual encounter with God once we've
38:00
kind of regulated our our peak heightened, stressed out,
38:05
anxious, riddled, worried, consumed emotions.
38:09
I think it looks like inviting God into what it is that you're
38:12
experiencing, what it is that you're feeling in that moment.
38:15
The thing that is kind of spurs surging kind of the the
38:19
uncertainty and allowing him just to be present and kind of
38:22
parent to you lovingly as a father, kind of being there with
38:26
you in the moment. I think it's allowing worship to
38:28
move us to something real and moving something real within us.
38:33
I have found a great piece in I'm kind of getting consumed.
38:37
I'm going to listen to worship music.
38:39
Just focus on the lyrics for a little bit because they're
38:41
helping remind me of a truth about God rather than like, I'm
38:45
just going to worship and like ignore the problem.
38:48
No, no, no, I I want to face the challenge.
38:50
I want to acknowledge the problem.
38:51
I don't. Faith doesn't deny the pain,
38:54
deny the problem. Faith just shifts my trust to
38:57
God in the midst of the pain and problem that I'm having.
39:00
So I'm going to be honest. I can be honest.
39:04
I can get really ugly about it with the Lord.
39:06
I can get filter free when I'm talking to God about it.
39:08
Like I can get honest about all of those things knowing that
39:12
he's going to be close, he's going to be near and then he's
39:14
going to hear me and just allowing God to love, love me
39:17
just just as I am. I have found great help in
39:20
praying the prayer that kind of we prayed at the end of service
39:23
on Sunday. God, I give everything and
39:27
everyone to you right now. It's almost a daily prayer for
39:32
me that I give everything and everyone to you right now.
39:35
It just helps me release all of the things that I'm carrying,
39:38
that I know I'm carrying and maybe that I don't know that I'm
39:41
carrying. And sometimes I get real
39:42
specific and telling them to God, but all I'm trying to do is
39:45
not escape my stuff. I'm just regulating my nervous
39:48
system. I'm touching the ground, I'm
39:50
looking at birds, I'm taking some deep breaths.
39:52
I'm trying to regulate myself physically so that I can
39:56
encounter and experience the love of God in a very present
39:59
moment. And I'd rather do those things
40:02
to experience God than to continue to develop systems that
40:06
aren't really going to meet the need that I'm feeling in in the
40:09
moment. Next question says what does it
40:13
practically look like to replace worry with worship in everyday
40:15
life Yeah, so I kind of just mentioned some things here a
40:18
minute ago, but I found that when I worry, it needs to cue me
40:22
to examine the wonder of God. So looking at the birds and the
40:25
flowers to see something that can fill my heart with gratitude
40:29
and my mind with a fresh perspective.
40:32
So worry or anxiety or even stress for me.
40:38
I've, I've told my wife this, but like I have grown so
40:42
accustomed to living with a certain amount of stress in my
40:45
body that it's hard for me even to recognize myself without
40:50
stress. So I've had to do some, a lot of
40:54
things to kind of help regulate even that even recognize when
40:58
I'm stressed. So I don't recognize anymore
41:02
that I'm stressed. I actually have to recognize
41:04
behaviors that I typically go to to handle stress or in response
41:09
to the stress. So I can recognize the behavior
41:12
quicker than I can recognize the emotion.
41:15
And so when I recognize the behavior, when I recognize the
41:18
things that I do, when I get worried, that's when I typically
41:22
cue myself. I need to actually go to God.
41:25
I need to cue a different behavior.
41:27
So for me personally, this, maybe it's because I'm a guy,
41:30
maybe it's because I'm just kind of fried on the inside on some
41:34
things. I don't know.
41:35
I'm just kind of getting real honest here.
41:37
When I do those things, I have to recognize the behavior, and
41:40
that behavior accused me to have a different behavior.
41:43
So I change my behavior and that helps to reorient kind of who I
41:48
am on the inside. So I sing unto the Lord, not to
41:51
use it as background noise or escape, but to actually speak
41:55
aloud a truth of God. That's how I worship.
41:58
Instead of worry, I have to actually look at things that I'm
42:02
being grateful for rather than just letting the complaints and
42:06
the comparison grow in my heart, which is what typically creates
42:10
trace stress and anxiety. Often times I get worried about
42:15
future things like what's happening here, what's going to
42:18
there are things I can't control, and that's when I come
42:19
back to just the breath prayers. I give everything and everyone
42:24
to you God and I take another deep breath and I just have to
42:27
do these things again and again. Often times to just remind
42:30
myself to invite God into the moments to replace my worry with
42:35
with some worship. And sometimes the best way made
42:37
for me to do that is to think about the lyrics to sing the
42:40
lyrics out of a song or to do some things that cause me to
42:45
look at the wonder of God in creation all around me.
42:50
And that really is has helped me in my own life, kind of lessen
42:54
the worry and the stress and the anxiety and reorient back
42:59
towards worship and wonder, if you will.
43:02
All right, last question. How can I trust God's care for
43:05
me when my circumstances still feel so unstable or uncertain?
43:10
Yeah, that's a tough. It's hard.
43:13
I think we have to reject the notion, though, that trusting in
43:19
God means that it's going to happen quickly, right?
43:25
Like we think that it will. If God's going to work, then
43:26
it's going to happen real quick. That's not true often.
43:29
God at work in US takes a lot of time.
43:32
It's slow, it's deep in US. It's it's seed.
43:37
It's seeds that are being planted that didn't eventually
43:40
grow. It's something that is steeped
43:42
deep within our soul that God is trying to shape and form inside
43:46
of us. It's not just a basic behavior,
43:48
but there's a whole belief system that we have that has
43:52
formed these behaviors, these systems of behaving to try to
43:55
cope with things. So changing belief systems and
43:59
behavior systems because of beliefs that that takes time.
44:02
It's the renewing of the mind. That's that's the hard work of
44:05
resisting the way of the world so that we're being formed in
44:08
the way of God instead. I think trust isn't about having
44:13
certainty, but rather it's trust in the face of uncertainty.
44:19
So when I find myself feeling unstable or things feel
44:24
uncertain, how do I still have trust for God's care?
44:28
I look for the progress, not the perfection in the middle.
44:32
I'm just looking for progress, not completion when I'm in the
44:35
middle of it. So if I can see some progress, I
44:38
know God is working and that helps me feel a little more
44:42
trusting of him in that, in that way.
44:45
And and then you just keep doing the next right thing.
44:49
You keep doing the next act of what it looks like to trust God.
44:53
You keep doing the next right thing that looks like humility
44:57
before God. You keep doing the next right
44:59
thing as the relationship is being repaired.
45:02
I think a lot of times stress, anxiety, worry happen around
45:06
human relationships and a lot of times because we've made some
45:09
dumb mistakes or we've we've broken those relationships and
45:13
we're trying to repair that. Well, those things take time
45:16
and, and, and you've got to be willing to look for the progress
45:19
and, and look for those moments rather than looking for it all,
45:22
all, all, all along the way. And so, you know, if you're the
45:25
one that broke the trust, you're the one that broke the
45:27
relationship. You just have to keep doing the
45:29
next right thing as you work towards stability.
45:33
So if you're in a place where everything feels unstable and
45:36
uncertain, just keep doing the next embodied act of trust
45:40
towards God that helps establish stability in the long run.
45:45
It takes time. It's true, it does, but I want
45:48
to keep trusting God in a way that establishes stability
45:53
rather than worries. Because there are certain things
45:58
that are unstable. So just do the next right thing,
46:01
look for the progress, and remember that trust happens in
46:04
the face of uncertainty, not when everything is perfect and
46:08
complete. And that just reject the notion
46:11
that God, if God is at work, it's going to happen quick.
46:14
That's sometimes it's it does a miracle things like man boom,
46:18
the lawyer mind happens real quick.
46:20
But most of the time it's progressive, it happens over the
46:24
course of time because that's where faith is strengthened.
46:27
And that's why we need perseverance in our faith.
46:30
And that's the kind of faith God is shaping and establishing us
46:33
to have. That's the kind of faith that
46:35
comes to life every day. So we just keep bringing faith
46:37
to life today. We keep living faithfully today.
46:40
We keep showing up with loyalty and trust to God today.
46:43
We keep living with faith for today.
46:47
And that's going to wrap up today's episode.
46:49
Thanks for watching, thanks for subscribing, thanks for sharing.
46:52
I hope it's been and a blessing to you.
46:55
Just know man, God is faithful. God is at work.
46:58
Go look at some birds, go smell some flowers, go touch some
47:01
grass. Go worry less by letting your
47:05
wonder in. God grow bigger and bigger and
47:09
he's closer and close. I love you.