Latest / Andy Stanley Sermons / Andy Stanley - When God Arrives Ahead of Time : Anticipating Christmas Part 1

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Andy Stanley - When God Arrives Ahead of Time : Anticipating Christmas Part 1 · Andy Stanley Sermons

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, when to welcome all of our churches from all
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: around the country, state of Georgia, those of you here
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in the Atlanta area, And I hope that your Christmas
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: season is getting off to a better start than perhaps
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: some of the things you've already seen or heard this morning.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing, regardless of where you live, regardless
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of our background, we're all at some level anticipating Christmas.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We're all planning and preparing. Sandra was already putting together
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: a toy yesterday because.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: She is like way ahead of everybody else. And why
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I wait till Christmas Eve?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: And while we, you know, as a group of local churches,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: we can't help you plan and prepare your meals and
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: plan and.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Prepare your gifts, our guest today is.
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  Speaker 1: Going to help all of us prepare our hearts and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: our minds for this fabulous season that most of us
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: have been looking forward to, really almost all year long.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Steve Cuss is a former hospital chaplain.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: He's going to tell you a little bit more about that.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: He's been a pastor of a local church. He's a
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: founder of Capable Life.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It's an organization he created to to help people lower
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: internal and relational anxiety. We're going to talk about that
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: both in the workplace and at home. He and his
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: wife Lisa, reside in Erie, Colorado. His book, he wrote
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a book that kind of made its way through our staff,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: managing leadership anxiety, and so many of our staff read
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: this book and found it to be helpful that we
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: brought Steven.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: We brought him in on a couple occasions.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: To meet with different groups of our staff, and he
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: recently spoke to our staff here. I'm at north Point
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Community Church here today, and as he spoke, I thought,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I wish everybody in our church could hear this message
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: is so applicable. And then I read his second book,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: entitled The Expectation Gap, and after that, I thought, for sure,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: we've got to get him here. So would you please
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: welcome Steve cuss so as you're about to discover Steve.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Is not from here.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 1: And so last night we were having dinner and in
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the restaurant we were at, I was sort of trying
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  Speaker 1: not to watching SEC Championship and then Steve started talking
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: about cricket.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I'm like, cricket, yeah, best game in the world.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, it goes for din They go for days.
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  Speaker 4: Five days, eight hours a day for five days, and
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: they stopped for they take dinner breaks.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fantastic Americans.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, we're all shaking our head.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it's great.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, best game in the world.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: So what we're about to learn together you discovered somewhat
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: accidentally in your years you were twenty four years old, Yeah,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: when you became a hospital chaplain, and as a result
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: of that, you have this extraordinary voice in this very
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: important space. So I'm going to go ahead and give
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the audience the bottom line for this conversation and then
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: you can just take it from there. So here here
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  Speaker 1: it is that this is all Steve's content. Reactivity is
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: going to define that for us in a minute. Reactivity
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  Speaker 1: is contagious, we catch it and spread it.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Merry Christmas.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's always based Our reactivity is always based
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  Speaker 1: on a fault need that feels very real.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: In the moment. So that's what we're going to talk about.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And you discovered this first at twenty four years old
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  Speaker 1: as a hospital chaplain.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: So just to get it out of the way from
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  Speaker 4: Western Australia, I'm a true Southerner grew up in Australia.
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  Speaker 4: We should also mention Andy, my last name is Cuss. Yes,
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  Speaker 4: there's nothing anyone can do about that.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is what it is.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: So I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, for Bible College, where
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: there are more Baptists than people in Knoxfielle's what I learned.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: And then it was in Knoxville that I became a
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  Speaker 4: hospital chaplain at University of Tennessee Medical Center. So if
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: you're not familiar, like if you watch your hospital dramas,
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: you know that medical students who are medical residency, what
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: they don't show on TV is that ministry students can
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: do a chaplain residency. So I was a chaplain resident.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: It was a one year program. We do the marathon
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: shifts just like the medical residence. We do those twenty
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  Speaker 4: eight hour overnight shifts. Sleep at the hospital. We're on
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: call for twenty eight hours. And my first shift was
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  Speaker 4: the last day of our honeymoon. My wife sitting on
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  Speaker 4: the front road. We'd be married six days or seven days.
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  Speaker 4: She drops me off at eight in the morning, picks
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  Speaker 4: me up at noon the next day, and off I went.
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  Speaker 4: I'd never seen a dead body before I'd had no
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  Speaker 4: experience with grief twenty four my prefrontal cortex wasn't even
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  Speaker 4: fully developed. In the year I was a chaplain, I
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  Speaker 4: attended around two hundred deaths. When when you're not in
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  Speaker 4: the room with someone who is dead or dying, you
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  Speaker 4: are helping people in the worst moment of their life. Really, functionally,
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  Speaker 4: the job of a chaplain is to help strangers navigate
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  Speaker 4: the worst and most intimate moments of their life. So
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: you have like a minute when you walk in the
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  Speaker 4: room to read the room, and a couple of lessons
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  Speaker 4: that I pulled out that I think are helpful for
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: as we plan for Christmas. The veteran chaplain taught me,
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  Speaker 4: He said, you know, in the emergency room, someone comes
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  Speaker 4: through on a gurney, they've had a car accident or something,
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  Speaker 4: and then their family gets a phone call, you know,
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  Speaker 4: the worst phone call of your life.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, your loved one had an accident. Come on in.
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  Speaker 4: The chaplain's job is usually more the family than the
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  Speaker 4: patient at that point. And the veteran chaplain said to me,
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  Speaker 4: your job is to figure out what was going on
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  Speaker 4: in that family one minute before the phone rang, Whatever
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  Speaker 4: dynamic is existing in the family is not created by
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  Speaker 4: the crisis. The crisis just reveals that dynamic. I kind
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: of feel like Christmas has that same. Christmas get togethers
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  Speaker 4: tend to heighten existing dynamics. So one simple thing you
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  Speaker 4: get's a.
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  Speaker 2: Nice way of saying it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So one simple thing you can do is pay is
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: you probably already know the dynamic. You're walking into the
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: beauty of reactivity as it is predictable. We'll get into
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: that a bit, so you can even now be thinking through, well,
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  Speaker 4: what are the landmines that I'm anticipating? And some landmindes
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: are relational. You know, You've got cousin Greg who runts
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: about politics, for example. But some landmindes are internal, like
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: your anxious need to get just the right gift. And
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  Speaker 4: if you can start to notice those, you're less likely
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  Speaker 4: to catch and spread it. The second big lesson for
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  Speaker 4: me as a chaplain, it's a lesson I'm still learning.
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  Speaker 4: I thought my primary job was to pay attention to
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  Speaker 4: the family, and it turned out my primary job was
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  Speaker 4: to manage myself, and that really surprised me. I didn't
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  Speaker 4: realize when I'd walk into a room where someone was dying,
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  Speaker 4: I would get triggered, I would get activated, and so
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  Speaker 4: learning to manage my own false needs so I could
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  Speaker 4: be present to people in their pain. So, for example,
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  Speaker 4: one of my ongoing false needs we talk about false
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  Speaker 4: needs here is I had this anxious need to make
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  Speaker 4: you feel better. If you talk to me and you're
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  Speaker 4: very upset, my brain tells me to say the right thing.
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  Speaker 4: I actually get under a lot of pressure to say
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  Speaker 4: the right thing to relieve you. Well, that's helpful in
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  Speaker 4: some ways, but if somebody's dying, there's nothing to say
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  Speaker 4: and there's nothing to do, and so chaplaincy becomes about
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  Speaker 4: straining my false needs so that I can be present.
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  Speaker 3: So those are some eliar lessons there.
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  Speaker 2: So you equate, and this is what was so helpful.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things that's so helpful.
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  Speaker 3: You equate.
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  Speaker 1: Instead of using the word anxiety, Yeah, you use the
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  Speaker 1: word reactivity. Because anxiety can be clinical. There's you know,
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  Speaker 1: you know, there's different kinds of anxiety anxiety. This word
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  Speaker 1: is something we all can relate to because sometimes it's
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  Speaker 1: hard to admit that we have anxiety or that we're anxious,
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  Speaker 1: and that can mean so many things.
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  Speaker 2: But reactivity, we get it.
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  Speaker 3: We all have reactivity. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: The easiest place to notice reactivity is on social media,
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  Speaker 4: if you look on Facebook or Twitter. Those are my
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  Speaker 4: two favorite. They're the most volatile of the social medias.
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  Speaker 4: All you have to do today, go home today, pick
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  Speaker 4: a friend's post and just put in the comments. Are
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  Speaker 4: you going to let them get away with that? And
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  Speaker 4: that'll take care of it. And then and then you'll
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  Speaker 4: notice the reactivity just escalating because you know, people have
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  Speaker 4: a false need to have the last word or to
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  Speaker 4: be understood. Some people are the false need to put
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  Speaker 4: you in your place, and there's something in their brain
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  Speaker 4: that says, you know, what the world needs is one
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  Speaker 4: more comment from me, and so off they go. So
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  Speaker 4: that's reactivity. It is important, I think.
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  Speaker 5: Andy, you equate this to anxiety, form of anxiety.
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  Speaker 4: It's a form of anxiety. People think of anxiety as
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  Speaker 4: worry and fear and so a lot of like someone
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  Speaker 4: who looks like me, like a white male, we are
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  Speaker 4: not prone to feel anxious. We don't realize we're anxious
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  Speaker 4: because we don't think we're worried about much or afraid
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  Speaker 4: of much. And it is important to mention that anxiety
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  Speaker 4: is one word that covers more territory than we can cover.
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  Speaker 4: But I will just take a moment to say, for example,
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  Speaker 4: there are people you know watching or in this room
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  Speaker 4: that struggle legitimately were like generalized anxiety disorder or certain
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  Speaker 4: conditions that really are benefited by mental health medication. I'd
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  Speaker 4: just like to say, as a pastor, mental health medication
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  Speaker 4: is a gift from God, and it's not a comment
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  Speaker 4: on your faith. It's a comment on your chemicals.
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  Speaker 3: Yep.
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  Speaker 4: So you might have tremendous faith and still need the
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  Speaker 4: help of a doctor. That's a good thing. But what
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  Speaker 4: we're talking about is not that, not those clinical conditions.
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  Speaker 4: We're talking about God and variety reactivity when your false
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  Speaker 4: needs not being met, my need to be understood, my
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  Speaker 4: need to be respected. And people might say, well respect
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  Speaker 4: is a good thing, Yeah, but in the moment, I
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  Speaker 4: have to have it, and that's the problem.
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  Speaker 1: So you differentiate between wing throw that screen up period.
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  Speaker 1: You differentiate this was so helpful, between true needs and
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  Speaker 1: false needs. Yeah, And this is where we get in
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  Speaker 1: trouble when I confuse one for the other. Yeah, because
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  Speaker 1: my reactivity, even if it's a false need, it the
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  Speaker 1: reactivity is the same. And consequently, I love this phrase.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to talk about this
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  Speaker 1: or not. The whole idea that people pay it we
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  Speaker 1: need to pay attention, I wrote from your book. Remember,
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  Speaker 1: people pay attention into content but react to process.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah is that Yeah, So we listen to what each
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  Speaker 4: other says, but our reactivity is linked to the way
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  Speaker 4: we relate to each other. So in the theory I've
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: been changed in, it's technically called system theory for those
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: of you who want to nerd out about it. A
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: marriage therapist who's a systems theorist. They're not particularly interested
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  Speaker 4: in what spouses fight about the content. You know, spouses
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  Speaker 4: typically fight about sex and finances and raising their kids.
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  Speaker 4: A system serius isn't interested in what you fight about.
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  Speaker 4: They're interested in the pattern of your fight, and the
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  Speaker 4: pattern is usually predictable. So whether you're talking about a
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  Speaker 4: marriage and the way marriages conflict, or whether you're talking
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  Speaker 4: about a staff meeting, the patterns are predictable. The same
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  Speaker 4: people use the most words in every staff meeting. It's
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: always the same people. It's always the same people that
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: get the final word. It's always the same people that
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  Speaker 4: don't speak up in the staff meeting and then have
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  Speaker 4: their own secret meeting. After the meeting, everybody knows that
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  Speaker 4: you've got names in your head right now because those
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: are predictable patterns. And the same way as you approach Christmas,
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  Speaker 4: you can start to notice your predictable patterns. And it's
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: really powerful because you might get tripped up, you might
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  Speaker 4: get anxious again, but you ought not by this point
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  Speaker 4: be surprised by them, that anxious person that comes in
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  Speaker 4: the political ranter, the anxious need. Like for some of you,
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  Speaker 4: your anxiety is that some people in your family that
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  Speaker 4: you love don't get along, and because they're not okay
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  Speaker 4: with each other, you can't be okay. Everything I just
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  Speaker 4: talked about it.
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  Speaker 2: Is false needs, and it's contagious.
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  Speaker 4: It's contagious. Now, a true need comes down to physical safety. Clinically,
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  Speaker 4: this is called acute anxiety. So a couple of years ago,
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: I was at home with my parents and they live
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: in a remote part of Western Australia, and I walk
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  Speaker 4: into the guest room and there's a vacuum cleaner on
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  Speaker 4: the corner and I see this much of a reptile
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  Speaker 4: tail wrapped around the vacuum cleaner, and the rest of
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  Speaker 4: the reptile is hidden behind the body of the vacted well.
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  Speaker 4: As you guys know, Australian reptiles are not to be
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: trifled with. It's either a tiger snake, which is one
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  Speaker 4: of the top ten deadliest snakes in the world and
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  Speaker 4: very aggressive.
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  Speaker 3: They were born angry.
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  Speaker 4: Or it's a big lizard called a skink, and half
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: of the big lizard is tail. I could only see
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: the back. I couldn't tell is it a lizard or
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: a tiger snake. Well, I've got to get this thing
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  Speaker 4: out if I'm going to sleep in this room. The rule,
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: the rule of flushing out an Australian reptil gets someone decrepard,
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: someone older, like a patsy who you can bring in.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: So I got my dad. Pats Yeah, I got my dad.
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  Speaker 4: He'd look andy. He'd had a good run. It had
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: a good run, all right, he was he was eighty one.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: It had a good life. No, I'm teasing. It was
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: a two man It was a two man operation. So
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: we opened the door. We both get brooms, and we
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: get these big pillows and we flush the snake out. Okay,
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: So it turned out to be a big, big skink.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: About this big problem. So that old thing happened in
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: two minutes now you've had the same experience. When you
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: are a loved one in real danger, your heart starts racing, like,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: for example, driving through Atlanta, if I may evidence of
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: acute anxiety, but it doesn't like if you have to
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: swerve for a car accident, it doesn't last long, and
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: then afterwards you talk about it and you're getting the
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: anxiety out of your system by externally processing. Well, false
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: needs feel like that, but they're not a big dose
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: of adrenaline. They're a microdose. You just get a few
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: little drips of adrenaline. So my body cannot tell the
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: difference between disappointing somebody and seeing a snake. That's the problem.
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  Speaker 4: My body acts as if I'm in danger when I'm
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: in no danger at all, when my false needs aren't
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: being met. So for me, being a people pleaser is
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: one of my ongoing false needs. If I sense someone's disappointment,
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: it's tricky, andy because my body doesn't go into this
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: big reaction like a reptile, tiny one like imperceptible, But
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  Speaker 4: it doesn't go away like this goes away. It just
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: builds and builds. So we live in a society in
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, that has rampant reactivity. We're all catching
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: and spreading it and it's just building. And that's why,
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is a bit simplistic. That's why people
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: are treating each other so badly in a culture right now,
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: Like many of you are, like, what happened to dignity
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: and respect? It's all gone because we can't manage the
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: amount of reactivity.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: That's well, Frankly, can you talk about in your book
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: our body store.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: It, it stores it, yeah, yeah, and then it just
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: builds and you just get more and more heightened.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So the part of the way forward, and we're going
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to get into this in a minute, is you talk
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: about this gap as we're gaining some language. And that's
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: why I wanted you to hear Steve. This language is
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: so helpful when I began to experience reactivity. Now I
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: have a word for it. This is this is reactivity
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't necessitate any specific behavior, but in the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: mo moment, it feels.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Like it does because it's reactivity.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to my body's already triggered, and now
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: my mouth and my behavior and my presence is I
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: think there's a natural connection. But you say there's a gap,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and what we choose to put in that gap really
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: differentiates a positive, healthy way forward versus a negative one.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Am I saying that correct?
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: That's the great news is reactivity is like an automated response.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: So if I live for people's approval and somebody disapproves,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: my body just automatically acts under threat. The difference is
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: I can turn it into a deliberative response. I can
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: go from automated to deliberative, and there's a number of
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: ways you can do it.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: One is you can learn.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: To notice your bodily reaction and rather than just pressing in. So,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: for example, this is true, I go on Twitter to
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: practice my reactivity. What yeah, And I watch Gilmore Girls
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: to practice a kid you not. I know this is funny,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: but I really do because Gilmore Girls drives me crazy.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: Emily and Laureli have had the same fight for five seasons,
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: and as an anxiety manager, I can't stand it. So
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: I actually watch, I intentionally receive reactivity to notice my
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: response and manage. So that's one thing you can do
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: is put yourself like exposure therapy and exposure therapy, find
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: somebody who drives you nuts and meet with them on
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: purpose and what's crazy, And we're being playful and serious
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: at the same time. If you meet with somebody who's
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: a difficult person and you go in with a posture
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: of noticing and curiosity, the opposite of anxiety is not calm,
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: it's curiosity.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: And you see Jesus of Nazareth using curiosity a lot
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: to de escalate the anxiety around him, like in John
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: chapter eight, the woman at the well. You know this
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: angry mob and Jesus shows up and he's like, who
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: among you is without sin? Makes them think? They go
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: from reactive to deliberative. So if you meet with someone
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: who's difficult with a posture of curiosity, you'll be blown
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: away by your resilience to not catch and spread it.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: So I go on Twitter and I look at what's
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: the church word for stupid comments? And I feel because
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: my false need is to put people in their place.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: I'm not proud of this, but when I'm reactive, I
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: get really self righteous, like the world needs Steve to
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: set it right. It's crazy. So I actually go on
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: Twitter to manage. So that's one thing you can do.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: Then if that's too difficult, you can simply look ahead.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: So just think about who takes up too much space
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: in your brain? What event coming up is taking up
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: too much space in your brain. Well, that's wonderful because
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: now you can go in with curiosity.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And noticing by anticipating this, Yeah, you know it's coming.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: You know, cousin Greg is going to rant about politics,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: so you should not catch the anxiety when he does.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: And then you know, we can get to some antidotes.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: But really the rule is number one. Just because someone's
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: generating anxiety doesn't mean you have to catch it.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: It is optional.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: And secondly, spend less time trying to convince someone else
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: and more time defining yourself.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Talk about that a minute, because that's that's hard.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: It's hard to do. We anxiety is.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: A different you're differentiating because when they trigger anxiety and me,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: now I feel like we're connected, like I have to respond,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and you know, the weaker person oftentimes controls the environment.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I'm a leader. I feel a need
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: to always be convincing people of things. And then what
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: I find is the more I try to convince, the
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: more resistance in them I build. Right, And so I've
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: learned it so powerful even in leadership, just to define
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: myself like, hey, you don't have to agree, but here
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: is where we're going and you don't have to like it,
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: but we are going this way. So if you are
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: hosting Christmas, for example, and maybe you have some family
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: that don't get along, and you're just one of those
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: emotional sponges that feels the room, and if people are
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: tense with each other, you get tense. Rather than focusing
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: on them, you can pay attention to yourself and manage
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: your own well being and it really will surprise you
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: your resilience to their tension. But also the whole room,
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: if you're the host, takes your temperature. So just the
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: way that reactivity is contagious, so is connected presence. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: you know what the society needs is way more connected
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: leaders with short of them.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So is there and again we're going to got to
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: get to the meat of this. But is there when
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you when you realize what's happening, where do you go
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: in your head to again differentiate and to and to.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: You know, separate in an healthy way. I mean, is
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: there a process?
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Is there?
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Step one?
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: Step two? Okay? Yeah, three steps.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: First you notice it, then you name it, and then
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: you diffuse it and notice name diffuse.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, so name is.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: Naming is big, and people chase me on my website
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: and we have a podcast if they want to dig in,
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: you know, and this notice name diffuse. You can do
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: it in the moment and then it can also just
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: be your posturary years. So naming it like, I don't
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: know what you're like, but I'm naturally not aware of myself.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: If people ask me how I'm doing, I say I'm fine,
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: and that's code for I have no idea how I'm doing.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: I don't think about it. Why are you bugging maybe asking?
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: So I've had to learn to stop and notice what's
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: going on in me, and that takes thirty seconds to
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: ninety seconds thirty to ninety seconds to stop. So I've
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: actually learned andy. People say how are you doing? And
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: I now say I don't know, thank you for asking,
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: which is very humbling to do. And then it's kind
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: of awkward because they'll just sit there and I'll be like,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: but I'm actually what is going on in me?
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: So you're trying to name it, trying to name it.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh, oh, I'm anxious right now, and
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: now I have something to give to God. Okay, Lord,
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: I am trying to control the situation that you are
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: in control of. So then for me, it's a prayer
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: exchange and we can get to some of that.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: So in a little bit reactivity hits, I notice it
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: learned today. After today, we're all accountable. Oh, I know
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: what's going on. Yeah, I'm reacting internally. Then I'm going
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: to name it and others. I'm not gonna blame yet.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna name what I'm reacting to or what
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: Name it to God, name it to someone else.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: And then the third step was to diffuse.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, once you've noticed a name, you've already created some space. Yeah,
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: and then this is a bit more than we can
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: do today. But laughter is a wonderful diffusion agent. I
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: try to what stand up comedy every day. I try
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: to laugh every day. Any of God's good gifts people
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: who love us, music, good food, whatever God's good gifts.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: That's a great diffusion tool. We actually teach people to
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: make a life giving list and they can chase that online.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: They can google life giving list and find that.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we talked about true and false needs. Let's
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: talk specifically about false needs because you say there's a
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: big five, and we're all a little bit prone toward
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: one or two of these than others.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: And this is when we when there's.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Reactivity, generally, it's because we're chasing one of these five.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, correct, yep, that's right. Every human has five categories
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: of false needs. So our false needs are very specific,
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: usually to certain people and events. But there's categories that
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: kind of help you get started. The first one is control.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: Some of you in the room and some of you
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: joining us online. Your control freaks, and you know it,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: and your friends know it, and you know the signs
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: of a control freak is like if somebody invites you
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: to a party, you say, I'll meet you there. You
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: don't you like you don't all like to be trapped.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: You want to ride separately. You want to know how
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: to leave early. I've got a friend he loved when
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: the Apple Watch came out. He bought one for him
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: and his wife because he loved that he could be
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: in a party secretly send her a text on a
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: watch and it wouldn't alert her watch so that others
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: could see. It would just tap her wrist and then
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: she knew he wants to go.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: That's a control freak.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Another sign of it for somebody here that was worth
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: coming to church forest Land.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: I never thought.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, if you've ever been in a meeting and it's
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: not your meeting and Jim is just droning on and
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: on and on, he's boring, he's lost the room, and
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: you're anxious even though it's not your meeting, you're control free.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: Second one is perfection. A perfectionist believes the lie that
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: the very first time they ever do something, they've never
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: done it before the first time they do something, the
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: minimum standard for themselves is expert. So they're like, I'm
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: going to learn the cello three months later, why aren't
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: I yo yo ma already? Like that's a perfectionist. For
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: a perfectionist, a mistake is a big threat, a big
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: threat to their nervous system. So your average perfectionists will
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: check their emails incessantly before sending because a grammatical error
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: is the end of the world, even though it's really
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: no big deal. The next one is knowing the answer.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: This is one of mine. I grew up feeling really stupid,
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: and any time I feel stupid, you're really exposed.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Like everybody knows that's that's your reactivity.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: Oh big time. And so I manage my feeling of
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: being stupid by always knowing I'd never like to be
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: caught off. God very difficult for me to say I
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: don't know. And so, for example, when a telemarketer calls,
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: I'm not proud of this, but if I get a
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: sense that it's not a human and it's a robot,
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: you know, most normal people just hang up. I prove
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: to the robot, I know you're a robot, and will
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: I will trick it. You know, I don't know if
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: you've had this experience, but the algorithm that programmed sounds
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: like a human being. They gotten really clever, and so
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: I'll throw a question that I know they weren't prepared for,
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: and then they go on trying to sell me solar panels.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: I'm like, ah, it's a robot, and then I'll smugly
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: say I know you're a robot. Then I hang up,
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: and then my wife will look at me like, congratulations,
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: you just wasted two minutes of your life like negotiating
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: with a robot. But better that than a robot thinking
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: I'm stupid. That's so one thing you can do to
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: notice your big five is your armageddon scenario. But the
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: other one is the crazy things you do to get it,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: like negotiating with a robot. The next one is one
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: of mine as well, being there for people when they're hurting.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: I'm this is one of mine. I can't tell the
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: difference between your need and my need to be needed,
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: And so I.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Say that again, that's that's such a subtle thing, because
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the way I've experienced that.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Is people who you you.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Generally say I've been thinking about, and they just jump
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: in like.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Wait, wait is this about me?
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Or is that yeah, I am anxiously helpful.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: Anxiously helpful. This is not helpful. Most it's not helpful. No,
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: it's not helpful. So like and and I'm indiscriminate in
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: my help. And this is the sign you over commit.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: You drop everything, You don't discern what the person needs.
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: You don't even bother asking them. They say they call
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: you with a flat tire, you're already driving to discount
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: tire to buy one. Maybe they were just telling you
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: they're late for lunch. But you're over helpful. This is
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: one of mine as well. And so that's where you
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: can notice the crazy things you do to get it
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: is the way I over commit to people and then
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: let them down because I can't manage all my promises.
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: The final one's approval. That's one of mine two. So
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: I'm the bottom three. Now some of you might be
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: all five. You might be like, oh crap, I'm all five.
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: Try to find the one that's primary. And for me
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: it's approval. That's the one that everything else. For me,
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: I need you to like me for me to be okay.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: If you're not well with each other, I'm not. And
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: I rush in and make a false piece when I'm
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: not well, and it gets me into trouble again and again.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: So and we know this is going on because of reactivity. Yeah,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and we pause and create a gap and say, okay,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: before I blame and connect, what is it I'm trying
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to get? And it's generally one of these or connected to.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: Way in one of these categories. And you know, if
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: you've got some years under your belt like we do,
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: we've got some some decades, you probably know where you are.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: If you are not sure, just ask yourself two questions.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: Where do I keep running into myself again and again
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: then again? So for me over committing all the time,
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: or what is costing me too much, or what is
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: costing my people too much?
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: This is me and heard about this you have from Holly,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: now from Sandra, you and I chatwick. Yes, and you're
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: exactly right when you use the armagain syndrome. Yes, yes,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And where it hurts is not just migrading myself. It's
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: me with the people around me, their performance. You know
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: all you know all the things. And and again when
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I heard you talk about this the first time, I thought,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: my I know, I'm old enough to know. Internally I
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: am overreacting, I am over what is wrong with me,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: but learning to create the space, own it. And then
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: in a minute you're going to give us an antidote.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: To all of this. So well, so powerful.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: See yeah, but what gets tricky. If we can go
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: one layer deeper, I think we can. If Andy is
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: chasing perfection, then the human sized version is improving things.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: Like you're really good at improving things. You're also really
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: good at clarifying. And the problem is you've been rewarded
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: and there's been fruit from improving and clarifying, which you
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: can do. But when you chase perfection, it exhausts you.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: In my case, you can put me in any room
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: and I can find anything to talk to you about
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: or to listen. I can ask you any question. I'm
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: very nimble at connecting with a wide range of people.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: And also I need you to like me. So where
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: this gets interesting is if you look at these as
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: false needs, that's interesting. But if you look at these
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: as God's core character traits, now it gets really interesting.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: God is in control. We get to trust. God's size
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: is control. Human size is trust. God size is perfection.
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: Human size is improving things. God size is knowing everything.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: God knows everything there is to know. I think we
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: could all agree our nervous systems can no longer handle
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: all of the news coming. Humans would not design everything
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: that you and I know in twenty twenty five. We
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: know too much, and so that's why we're exhausted. Is
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: there are too many issues for us to manage. God
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: is there for everybody you know, with somebody who's always
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: trying to be there.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: They call it a Messiah complex God complex.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: And God gives us our approval through Christ, through Jesus.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: We don't need to strive for it from humans. And
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: so what happens is this is God's territory and the
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: very first temptation humans were given in the Garden of
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Eden is you can be like God. And for those
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: of us who are followers of Christ, I think the
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: challenge is we didn't realize we fall into that trap.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: Just like every other human, we are trying to do
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: God sized work, and that makes us reactive. Anytime a
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: human is carrying more than God has called.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: You to carry, you will get reactive.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: And so learning how to relax into being human sized
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: and then we're just to show you, like the pot
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: at the end of the rainbow, what's crazy is the
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: thing you're chasing.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: You never get it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Like those of you who are perfectionists, when have you
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: ever done it perfectly enough? You know, somebody compliments you,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: you've probably corrected them to their face. Perfectionists really are
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: terrible at accepting compliments because you're in a critic is
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: batting it away, and you start to realize, I never
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: get enough perfection to relax. I never know enough to relax,
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: And so that thing we're chasing, it just exhausts us.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: So learning how it is.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: So contagious, especially if you're leading family, leading children, leading
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: an organization.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Oh it's not good, are so what are we doing?
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Do, what do we do about it?
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: Okay, at just the time, I wish to say that
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: we put people through annual cohorts where they spend a
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: whole year on this, and here we are pretend to
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: have twelve minutes plenty of time. Okay, so the first
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: thing is noticing in curiosity. I really can't state enough
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: we said notice named diffuse. I want to say that
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: most of my work is organizational leadership. I'm brought into
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: organizations to help leaders deal with this, and it's ten times,
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: maybe one hundred times easier in an organization than a family.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: I'm going to say a phrase, and this is not
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: a shot at mother's This is just kind of a
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: fun way to talk about family dynamics. Bilical cords make
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: everything ten times harder. That's not about a mother child,
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: it's about any familial relationship. So that you have to
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: be very kind to yourself when you're doing this work.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: You've probably been in these patterns for decades. They're probably
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: going to take weeks and months to work through, and
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: so this Christmas might be rough.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: But even just noticing, just noticing so helpful keeps you.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: It protects you from catching and spreading and if you
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: know your triggers, you can then give them to God
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: ahead of time. So noticing and curiosity, being curious about
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: what's going on in me. And then let's say that
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: cousin Greg comes in and starts ranting about politics, and
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: you can feel the room get really cold. Or let's
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: say that you've got a loved one who's kind of
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: an eore, you know, like everyone's having fun, and then
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: eore walks in with his or her big emotional field
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: and their big emotional field runs into you, and the
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: whole room gets cold, like everyone is having fun, and
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: then the unspoken agreement is we're not allowed to be
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: happy if he's not happy. Right, So you've got the
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: political ranter or the kind of the moody person who
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: just broods their mood. Well, typically you would catch it.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: You'd not know what to do. Everyone looks at the floor,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: then they look at you. That's how you know you're
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: the host. If you approach yourself and that person with curiosity,
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: like even the ranter, maybe they have a lot of heat,
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: you can actually ask them three curious questions and it
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: will likely settle them.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: It may not.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: Some of those political ranters they just go but it
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: will settle you and the rest of the group just
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: by asking curious questions. And so that's a couple of
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: things you can do. And then really, for me, the
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: most powerful is membering that God is with me. One
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: of the most common commands in the Bible is remember
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: the Lord. And my opinion is God knows what it's
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: like to be human. So he just kept putting it
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: in there again and again. Because what reactivity does is
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: it disconnects us. It disconnects us from ourself, which is
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: why when people ask how I'm doing, I say I'm
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: fine because I'm not aware. It disconnects us from each other.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: So cousin Greg, the political ranter is now the frustration
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: rather than mating God's image. But it disconnects us from
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: awareness of God. So there's just a simple thing that
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: I say. It's kind of a mantra for me. God
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: is with me and God is ahead of me. This
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: is just a simple two step. God is with me,
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: God is ahead of me. When I was a hospital chaplain,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: this didn't happen often, but sometimes when I was doing
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: one of these late night twenty eight hour shifts, maybe
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: that day there be three or four people had already died,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: and at ten at night, I'm finally having dinner, and
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: then I go to bed and I'm just exhausted. And
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: then at two am, the beeper goes off, and it's
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: like the fifth death. And I'm not proud of this,
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: but sometimes I would get angry that someone was so
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: selfish as to die while I'm trying to sleep. This
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: isn't something I'm proud about, but it is very human.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: And now I have a choice. Now I can be
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: aware of my anger. I can notice my anger and
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: I can give it to God, change my reactivity for
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: God's presence, or I can bring my anger into the
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: room and short change this poor family who are suffering.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: And so what I would do is I would notice
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: that I've stopped noticing the Lord.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: It's not easy to do.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: That's such a powerful state.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can everybody notice that I've stopped noticing the Lord.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what reactivity does.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: React to the fact that for me to get all
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: wound up about perfection is to say, God, have a seat.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I got this, yes, and I don't got this.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Because if God is perfect and you're trying to
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: be perfect, you're functionally displacing God.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: You're now on the.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Phone, I'm not remembering the Lord.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So what I would do is just stop
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: and try to relax into God's presence.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: And that was helpful.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: That helped me realize I'm not alone, because anxiety always
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: tries to tell you.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: You're all alone, and you're not.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: And then it really helped me to realize, wait a minute,
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: wait a minute, God's already ahead of me. And that's
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: when I just coined the phrase and this is the
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: final line for us.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: God is already in the room.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: And I can't begin to tell you how much that
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: helped me to realize I am walking into a room.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: People might be screaming. Sometimes people were very violent when
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: they were greeting. They grab you by the shoulders and
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: shake you. You just never knew what you were going
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: to walk into. But it didn't matter because God had
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: already beaten me to the room. Because God's always with
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: a broken hearted. So when I walked into a room,
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: I was entering a space where God is sovereign and
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: andy for me. I mean, I think about Christmas. Christmas
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: is the reminder that God's in the room. If you
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: think about right now, who are you anxious about, or
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: what are you anxious about? One of the things you
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: can notice that day or leading up is that God's
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: already in the room. And it won't make them behave better,
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: but it will make you manage it better because it's
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: you and God working on it together. One of the
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: ways I enjoy reading scripture is noticing when people have
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: stopped noticing the Lord. So for those who want to
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: chase this Genesis chapter twenty eight, you could read this later.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: Jacob actually says, surely the Lord is in this place
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: and I was not aware of it. That's the confession
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: of a reactive person. And if you read Jacob's story,
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: it makes sense why. In the New Testament, my favorite
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: story is Luke chapter twenty four, clear person, his companion
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: actually walking on Easter morning and they don't know Jesus
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: has risen from the dead. They think you're still dead.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: And Luke says that Jesus came right up next to
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: them and they didn't recognize it was Jesus. They were
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: so caught up in themselves they didn't recognize.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: And it was one hundred percent reactivity. They were filled disappointment,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: all of it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, it's the human condition that we tend to
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: get caught up in ourselves.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: It's hard to lift our eyes.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: And that's why I tell people to make a life
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: giving list, to practice God's goodness of whatever is God's habits.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: So yeah, So John Chapter one to me is one
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: of a great messages of Christmas. He doesn't have wise
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: men or shepherds. He has this phrase, Emmanuel, God with us,
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: you know, and he says right that God made his
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: dwelling among us. I would just say, oh, God's already
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: in the room.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, I love that.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: So as we anticipate the rooms of Christmas, whether it's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: visiting someone, welcoming somebody at the front door, of the
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: dinner table, and then we can already.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Perceive or we know.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: What those dynamics are going to be, especially with family.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: And to begin now imagining first he's with me. Now,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: he's already ahead of me, even it's not bound by
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: time and space, and God is in the room. And
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: as I experienced my reactivity to try to figure out, okay,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: what's on with me? Create the space, fill the gap.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Something else sounds simple, takes practice.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: It's brave. It's not complicated, but it's brave. It's brave.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: We got a couple more minutes.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: What just anything else.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: I'm fascinated that Jesus spent more time defining himself and
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: convincing others.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: I'm fascinated by this.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: Say that again, he spent more of his time defining
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: himself and convincing others if you read Jesus, and convincing
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: that he wasn't He never really tried to convince people.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: The rich young ruler, he let him walk away. But
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: if you look at the Gospels and you see all
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: of the reactivity that people were putting on him, all
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: of their false needs, all of their expectations, and he
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: didn't catch it, and he would just keep defining himself.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: And the thing that strikes me about Jesus that I
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: wish we would talk about more is that he worked
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: on being well. Like Jesus actually spent quite a bit
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: of his life working on being well. He would often
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: get away from the crowds. We talk about his miracles,
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: we don't talk very much about that he stopped doing
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: miracles and said, I'm getting out of here. The workday
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: is done. And so I would say to you, if
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: you are anxious about somebody, if you were prone to
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: merge into other people's well being. You know you're not
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: okay if they're not okay. Just learn to notice when
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: your brain is in their brain, when you are thinking
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: about what they are thinking about, and just take a
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: moment to pray and give them back to God and
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: work on. The best gift that you actually have to
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: offer at Christmas is a well self. If your gift
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: like whatever you're giving this Christmas, whatever you're cooking, If
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: your number one gift to your people is you being well,
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: you will be blown away by how much people need
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: that from you, and then how much that will make
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: room for them to take responsibility for them to be well.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: I don't want to make this sound like this is
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: going to be the best Christmas. Everything may go really south,
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: but you don't have to. But you don't have to,
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: and that's ultimately the only thing.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: You're responsible for. I think that would be my last word.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Wow Wow, I'm temper to say any questions, but I'm
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: not going to say that.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Steve.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: As we close, I would love for you to pray
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: for us. I love to pray, and you know everybody
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: in here is listening to you and thinking about someone
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: else all at the same time, right, I mean we're
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: all doing that or anticipating or just grateful that we
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: don't have any of that.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: And they're wondering, why are they spending thirty five minutes
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: talking about this?
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: That would be wonderful.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's about ten of those people here, including everyone online.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Would you just pray for us that we would we
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: would do this, that this, that this would be the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: frame the context for these next few weeks.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: That God is with me. Now God has gone ahead
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: of me.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: That's so biblical, right, And God is already present in
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: those rooms before we get there, and that I mean
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: what you just said just then, A well south, A
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: well self is the best thing I can give my.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Children out my grandchildren, Sandra, right, the church? So would
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: you just pray?
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: I'd love to pray. Yeah, let's pray.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: Oh Father, thank you so much that you chose to
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: step into the room. I just kind of help thinking
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: at Christmas that first of all, that you came at all,
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: that you came as Jesus, Thank you for coming, and
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: thank you that you shocked us by coming as a
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: baby born to peasants, not to kings, And thank you
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: that you chose a room with a manger we did
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: not script that we are astonished every year by the
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: way you show up. Thank you Jesus. Also that when
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: you left, you left behind the comforter Jesus shaped Spirit,
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Holy Spirit who is with us all the time. So Father,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: we just pray Lord, as all of us have front
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: of mind somebody who takes up too much space in
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: our brain, a situation that we feel pressure about. Maybe Lord,
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: it's the internal angs to get it just right, get
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: the meal just right, get the gift just right. Lord,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: help us to remember that you are sovereign and in charge,
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: and that we get to relax into that. Not that
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: that takes away the circumstance, but it makes us navigate
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: it with joy and peace and love.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: Lord.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: I pray for everybody in this room and everybody joining
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: us online, that we would take responsibility for being ambassadors
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: of your peace and freedom and love, the very thing
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: this world desperately needs the most.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Lord, I pray that in Jesus name.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Amen, would you thank Steve. Some of you probably took
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: some notes, some of you thought, oh.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I wish I could remember this. We're going to make
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: it easy for you. Steve's team has agreed they they've
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: created actually a PDF that you can download if you'll
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: use this QR code, and we'll.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Leave this up.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: He's entitled at five Steps to Christmas Sanity, and it
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: actually is a step by step way to incorporate some
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: of the things you've heard today into your thinking and
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: into your family.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Next week I'll pick up or he left off, part
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: two of our series Anticipating Christmas.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: We will see you then. Have a great rest of
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: your day.