Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Word and Flesh, a podcast from the elders of Riverview Baptist Church for the congregation of Riverview Baptist Church. We're so glad that you've joined us. My name is Nathan Bechtold. I'm one of the elders, the newest of elders at Riverview, although the oldest elder in this room, so there's that. So I'm not the newest. I'm the oldest and the newest at the same time, but joined by my brother, Michael Bean. Good to have you here.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Hey, glad to be here.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And my brother, Ryan Anderson, who is committed to speaking more loudly this episode at the behest of some congregation.
[00:00:33] Speaker C: The congregation has the final say, so I must speak louder.
They hold the keys, so I will be louder.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So good. Glad that y' all have joined us and continue. I'll just say that we have continued to appreciate the affirmation, encouragement, even challenges and questions and all that stuff. So, as a matter of fact, we'll put some info in the show notes on. If you have a question for us on the podcast, you can actually text us that now. Yep, I got that set up. It only took me, you know, the better part of a year or whatever, but I'm super excited about it. Yeah. So. So, seriously, text us. Maybe we'll do a Q and A kind of mailbag type episode at some point.
But genuinely, we've appreciated everything that folks have brought to us in terms of, hey, would you consider talking about this? Or, hey, what did you mean when you said this?
Certainly, we ourselves are not infallible, but that's really why we like to start with God's Word as the anchor of our conversation and always happy to give clarification and have more conversations and a lunch or whatever as we go. So, anyways, just wanted to put all that out there to begin, But today we're talking about something that is truly a pervasive issue culturally.
We live in a generation where anxiety is everywhere.
People are absolutely overwhelmed with stress. They're consumed with worry, and often turning to professionals for help, therapists and counselors. And in many ways, honestly, that's understandable because life is difficult, has always been.
Suffering is a real thing, and many people face emotional struggles that are genuinely debilitating and don't often resolve just with a good night's sleep.
So Christians actually face some really challenging questions in light of this.
When Jesus says, for example, do not be anxious about your life, is he giving us a command that we're expected to obey? Or maybe just an ideal that we could never actually achieve?
Is it possible to not be anxious about your life?
Is anxiety a sin that has to be repented of, or is it a medical condition that needs to be treated?
Or could it actually be both of those things? That's one of the questions we're going to wrestle with today when it comes to counseling, should Christians turn primarily to pastors and Scripture?
Should they turn to professional therapists and psychology?
Are there things that pastors in Scripture can't address?
Those are important questions, for sure. So here's the tension. Some Christians have treated nearly every emotional struggle as a spiritual failure, while others have embraced modern therapeutic thinking so completely that biblical categories like sin, repentance and sanctification have essentially disappeared.
And neither of those is enough.
So that's what we're going to be talking about today on Word and Flesh.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: It'll be all kinds of fun.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. And honestly, as we talked about doing this episode again, we weighed and have waded into a lot of topics, and this kind of falls under our Matters of Conscience series still. Absolutely not. Because the Bible isn't clear when it says don't be anxious, but because there's a lot of questions about how should I understand that and what should I do if I am anxious?
So we've really dove into some difficult topics, I would say, over the recent weeks. But that's okay.
The Bible addresses difficult topics, many of them.
So we're going to dive in. Let's do it.
Let's start with some key passages and an initial question, which is what actually is anxiety? And does the Bible say that all anxiety is sinful? Okay, so key passages.
One is Matthew, chapter six, the one that I mentioned just a moment ago. And in that Jesus commands us not to be anxious, commands us to ground our confidence in the goodness and providence of our Heavenly Father. This is during the sermon on the mount, Matthew 6, when Jesus says, look at the birds of the air, right?
They worry about what they're going to eat. Look at the lilies of the field. They don't toil or spin. Yet God clothes them more than Solomon and all of his grandeur, right? And so he says. So I say to you, don't be anxious about your life, what you'll wear, what you're going to eat. For your Heavenly Father knows that you need all of these things.
So that's pretty clear.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: That's pretty clear. Yeah. And I think there are probably more instances in the Bible where anxiety is treated as sin than not. And so another Philippians 4, 6, 8 is very much so directed that way. Do not be anxious in anything, but in everything, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
And so once again, there's this command. Do not be anxious in most situations. No, do not be anxious in anything. Seems pretty clear. I think there's others, you know, first Peter five, six, seven. We're commanded to cast all our anxieties on God because he cares for us.
And yet there seem to be a few places where anxiety is not particularly revealed or talked about as sinful. And probably the Clearest 1 is 2 Corinthians 11, where Paul mentions and says the exact same word in the Greek, I have all of my anxieties for the churches. And he essentially says, I have these concerns and worries and lists that a part of these trials and persecutions that he deals with, and says, this is another one of the burdens that I carry as a servant of the Lord. And so, yeah, I think that's a great one. I do think it's not the same word. It's a different word. Where Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, and he says that his soul is troubled. He has anguish even to the point of death. And so there's an evidence there that as he looks in on what's about to happen, that he suddenly becomes fearful, worried, concerned about the torment that he's going to endure for all mankind.
And so, yeah, I think that is an interesting thing because obviously we know Jesus never sinned. So as we start to pick apart anxiety, I think one of the things that I would say is this is not every experience of fear or concern or distress is necessarily innately sinful.
However, I think in my mind, we live in a time and in a moment where that's really not our problem is to call most fears sinful.
It is to excuse what is actually sinful worry and label it as anxiety and give it kind of this medical diagnosis.
And I think that's where actually we tend to struggle more so today in 2026. But before I go much further, what do you guys think? Thoughts on anxiety?
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Yeah, certainly I would agree that it's not the predominant part of the conversation that anxiety is sinful. Now we find any excuse to accept it. Right? I'm just a worrier, you know, just
[00:08:30] Speaker B: the way I am.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Just the way I am. And if you added any other sin to that, you would find that statement very problematic.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Although, I mean, people do say that about other things too, right? Oh, yeah, I'm sure about all sorts of Things. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: So, yeah, yeah, I just can't stop talking about people.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Okay, so do so just stop. Yeah, anyways. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: And so I think, yeah, the, the conversations around it have changed significantly and we'll get into this, but partly because of the therapeutic culture we're swimming in.
And the conversation has shifted dramatically in just the last few years, really.
But also I think the, the part about anxiety that a lot of us just don't want to admit is it does reveal very quickly what our hearts prize and desire and worship.
After all. And simply anxiety is partly, I don't have control over this situation.
And thus the emotive response is one of, of anxiousness or fear or whatever the case. And so.
But we don't often want to make that connection. Well, I'm worrying about this. Well, why am I worrying about this? Well, maybe I'm worrying about money because I love money.
Maybe I'm anxious about this because I don't trust God.
We're very afraid to make those connections. When I think scripture makes them really clearly. I mean, Jesus says it in the, in a different way, like where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I mean, that is a statement on anxiety in some sense. To say what you're thinking about what you're treasuring is the true nature of your heart. And we need to make that connection a little more explicitly than we do these days.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: I think one thing I'll add to that is that I do think that we live in a time and a cultural moment that feeds anxiety for many, like many different ways.
I'm not saying that that's an adequate excuse to go, well, see, then I can't be helped. But I do genuinely think it's good to see that and to identify some of the things that culturally, I mean, goodness, even just like screen addiction.
And again, I'm not gonna give a whole litany of things, but I do think the media saturated culture that we live in, I even think the excessive amount of time that we all spend indoors, frankly, is not good for one's.
I don't really like the term mental health, but I'll use it. Mental health, soul happiness.
So I do think there's a lot of things about this moment existing in this moment that can lend themselves more towards more people feeling angst, right. Feeling just unhappy or struggling with depression. And I mean, I would put anxiety and depression in similar categories. I'm not saying they're the same thing, but they're kind of there with each other a lot of times. So I say all of that just simply to say that I think it's good to recognize that. And then, frankly, as you're struggling against anxiety, to try to identify some of those things and go, what are things that. Because I think repentance from sinful anxiety, I'm going to get ahead of myself, but can actually look like identifying those things and then removing them, because repentance is doing things right. And so, again, I got a little ahead of us there. But I'm just saying, I think that looking around and going, well, what are the things that I've allowed in?
And then maybe I even continue because they offer some benefit in one way or another, but are actually perpetuating anxiety in my heart.
Repentance might mean removing those things. Probably does mean that, actually, for sure.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: And I would just add, I mean, Ryan, you might be able to call the author's name. It's not even a Christian writer, but the Anxious Generation.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: Jonathan Haidt.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Thank you.
Yeah. And the point is that we live in a cultural moment where we are feeding our own anxious patterns, and that's a reality. I don't think that that's even really deniable.
Yes. Being endorsed too much.
The idealistic kind of vision that we all have of life because of our entertainment culture. You watch a sitcom and it always ends happily. It always has this happy mom. You look at Facebook, everybody's smiling. You see all these things. And so you are just innately thinking, well, why isn't my life like that?
And the reason is nobody's life is actually like that because it's not real. It's fake, but it feels real when that's all we're inundated with all the time. And so from social media to the news media to just the amount of information we take in, I do think we live in a moment where most of us are overwhelmed mentally. To take a break and pause is critical now.
So here's where I would distinguish between the two in my mind. There are absolutely the overwhelming majority of anxieties that most Americans deal with, I would say are sinful anxieties. They are motivated by a ruminating sense of worry that I'm replaying certain thoughts over and over.
And the reason is I have a distorted desire that I really, really need this thing to happen or want this thing to happen. I have a sense of control that I'm craving.
I have this fear that is an emotion that has just captured me. And so I've allowed my emotions to now lead me in a direction that I feel like I don't have control of myself.
I think that's the overwhelming majority of what Americans wrestle with. But what I want to do is just parse out the normal anxieties most of us bump into that are sinful versus significant moments of anxiety. The last thing I'll say is this. I heard Pastor John Piper talk about this in relationship to Jesus. How did Jesus sweat drops of blood and deal with anguish and not sin? And the answer that he gave, I thought was incredibly helpful, which is, it is appropriate because you are a human being.
It is appropriate to experience fear when danger is real.
It is appropriate to experience sorrow when loss happens. It is appropriate to have some measure of concern when you see that I don't have an answer for this particular problem in my life and that Jesus in his humanity essentially experienced this wave of fear, this wave of concern. But notice what Jesus did, and this is what most of us don't do, is he takes it straight to the Father. He goes to the Father in prayer. He doesn't just ruminate on it. He doesn't obsess over it. He doesn't just sit there and dwell on it. He runs to the Father and trusts he is a good Father. And so not my will, but yours be done. And that is, I just thought, a brilliant insight. The initial wave of emotion, the initial instinct of anxiety. Every person on the planet wrestles with that probably almost every day. And the question then is, how do you respond when those moments happen? Do you let the fear take control? Do you try to just assume control in some self made, self help way or do you turn it over to the Father who is for you? So I hope that's helpful in terms of just thinking about fear, sinful anxiety, and then kind of like a more clinical problem that some people actually wrestle with.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:38] Speaker C: Consider the early church, Father Augustine's likely most famous quote.
Our hearts are restless until we find rest in you, O God.
Much of anxiety is downstream from attempting to rest in something other than God.
I'm going to rest in the comfortable bank account. I'm going to rest in my control of this relationship. I'm going to rest in my ability to make the future what I want it to be.
You name it, I'm going to rest in those things.
And anxiety comes often when we're trying to rest in something other than the Father.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Yeah, the last thing I would just say attached to that great book, if you want to read it, Pastor John Piper's book on Providence. It's a huge book.
[00:17:35] Speaker C: Okay, dude, that's Like a thousand pages.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: But my point is this. At the beginning, this one little section is worth it.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: Okay, There you go.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: This is worth it.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: You can borrow Michael's copy.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Sure. At the beginning, he says understanding what the word providence is is critical to a healthy Christian life and that you can actually hear it.
Providence is provision that God will see to it. He will see to his will, it will be accomplished, and learning to rest into the fact that God will see to it. Whatever the situation is, whatever the outcome is, go is in control. And he will see, too. If you're a child of God, your ultimate good, you will inherit eternal life. You will be okay.
Providence is real.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I was actually thinking about the same connection. That is a great book. I do recommend it, but it is a tome.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: It is a tome.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Just even the first few pages is worth it.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: But I was thinking that, I mean, this is why I believe so strongly in big sovereign God theology. Big. If God is really big, that makes my problems a lot smaller. And that's actually a good thing, for sure.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Yeah, no, go ahead.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: I was just gonna say so as a part of that. And I think this is the tension. You know, some of us actually may know people that do have issues.
And so I think there is this tension of.
I've been around it, I've bumped into it at moments in the SBC where only biblical counseling is acceptable.
There should be no medication use. There should be no kind of therapy at all.
And the flip side, which is not only do we not need biblical counseling, it's that we don't even consult the pastor. We don't even consult Christian brothers and sisters. We just go straight to the therapist.
And I think those two extremes are incredibly problematic. And so that's where I wanted us to go, is okay, Anxiety is real. A lot of people wrestle with it.
How do we wrestle with therapy, counseling, medication?
[00:19:55] Speaker C: We live in this tension often. Michael and I especially, we do a lot of counseling in our job, a lot of biblical counseling.
And we're happy to refer people when we understand that what we're facing is beyond the scope of our expertise.
But what we're seeing, often without sharing details, is that what people come in saying is a lot of regurgitated garbage from the therapy world. They're already trained.
And a lot of the talk is like, protect your peace, set these boundaries, do this self help thing. Cut this person off. I mean, you can. I can name all kinds of things.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: I have never heard that. Not once.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: No. That's good. Because social media is awash in memes and stuff that says that stuff. And so that is, even if you didn't mean to ingest that, it ingested you. Right. It took you in and changed you, even if that. So you find yourself saying those things not necessarily because you memorized them on purpose, but because they were just flowing through your mind and heart and those. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I'm just giving a yes and amen to what I'm hearing you say, because I feel like I see that constantly. This sort of, I won't even call it pseudo therapeutic. It's literally just therapeutic language.
The language of modern, especially secular therapy that everything from psychologizes to a lot of it is sort of new age self actualization nonsense.
[00:21:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Which is just idolatry of the self is all that is.
And like that language, it doesn't necessarily announce itself as that. It actually arrives with a really nice feeling and sometimes even wrapped in semi Christian, you know, vibes.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Right. So, you know, we'll talk about, like, love and loving yourself, and there's a. There's an element of that that you could sort of extrapolate scripturally, but that's not what the social media meme is talking about. Right. And so I think, yeah, like whenever people come to a pastor for counseling and you're hearing that, it's because actually it's because of even how we started this episode. It's because we are just perpetually on screens and are fed this kind of.
I would call it meaningless, but it's actually more insidious than that. It actually does have.
[00:22:34] Speaker C: But it's not neutral.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: It's not neutral. Yeah, this poison, but it's a poison that is culturally affirmed and often, like I said, gets wrapped up. You'll even hear people claim the name of Christ and then put some of these ideas forward, you know, big speakers and book writers and all this kind of stuff.
And so honestly, it's understandable why Christians would, like I said, ingest that kind of stuff and adopt it into their framework, into the lens through which they're viewing their life and their experiences and how they feel and all that stuff, and not realize that it's poison.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And to that end, I just want to add this thought which is, and I know this is going to be semi controversial, but just very simply that you are not qualified to be your own counselor and care for your soul all by yourself.
If that were the case, God would not have given any of us the church and he wouldn't have given us these commands to love one another, care for one another, pray for one another, teach and admonish one another.
Jeremiah 17 tells us very plainly, the heart is deceitful above all things who can know it. That means your heart is very capable of deceiving you. And so the algorithm of your social media feed is designed to make you happy. It is designed to help you hear what you want to hear about your soul.
And so if you are using social media as a counselor, if you have consulted that as a source of authority or truth in your life in love, I just want to just warn you, stop.
That is incredibly dangerous and outrageously foolish. Talk to a friend who's a Christian. Talk to a wife who's a Christian.
Go to a pastor, go to somewhere, find a counselor that's a Christian. Do not just sit in your room with social media and allow that to be your source of truth or the AI agent. I was talking to somebody just the other day, and they were almost proudly saying they think they had counseled themselves by using AI And I.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: That's awful.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: I tried not to laugh. I was just like, guys, what are we doing?
And so again, just to recognize a machine, a soulless machine, is not what you want guiding your life decisions, especially as it pertains to your soul.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Here's what's so interesting about that, is because AI actually can fit. Can respond with things that are true, technically correct. Right. Like AI can. AI can give you scripture.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Yes. And there's nothing wrong with asking for some scripture. I don't have a problem with that at all.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: So. But what's interesting about that, because I felt that temptation. I mean, I've had conversations with AI about things.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: And so. And you recognize it can give. You also recognize very quickly that it is weirdly geared towards affirming everything that you say. And that should be a huge red flag, Right? That.
And I think that must be almost like a product design. In other words, so you'll keep using it, right?
[00:25:37] Speaker B: It is, for sure.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: But thinking that you can counsel yourself using AI or a computer or whatever actually misses something. Because what you're saying without saying it is the thing that I'm missing is some facts. Right? That's the thing that's missing. And it's like, no, my brother or sister, probably what's missing is Christian community.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: Friends.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Yeah, friends. Christian community with people who love God and who love you enough to be honest with you and even admonish you if you need to be admonished and who, you know, love you and the Lord enough to where you can genuinely be honest with them.
So, like, that's the thing that's missing. You can type your problems into AI, but that's not a person.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: And so here's what's back of all that. I just want to say this because I've felt it too. I mean, it's real for all of us.
The call to expose your heart to someone else, especially that, you know, it is a pride killer.
It's much easier, it is much safer to go to the soulless machine and say, here's all my problems. Give me some facts so I can fix myself.
That's not humiliating. It doesn't cause any humbling of your heart in any way. But to go to another person and say, I know I don't have all the answers.
I need some wisdom and insight outside of myself is by its very nature a humbling act. And so that's where, again, I think, man, there is. That in and of itself is almost an act of repentance. If you're willing to go there and to say, I can admit me and the machine can't solve it all. I need something bigger than me. And so, yeah, the Word, obviously first. God's word is our source.
[00:27:26] Speaker C: But.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: But he has given us, it is his design, Christian brothers and sisters and the church to walk life with us.
And so with that being said, then I think you get into, okay, there are acute situations where, okay, now we maybe do need to pursue something beyond mere friendship, beyond just the average pastoral counseling session.
And so the options then are essentially biblical counseling and modern therapeutic counseling.
[00:28:01] Speaker C: And you're asking how to discern those two.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Like, what do you. What do you do?
[00:28:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say that, you know, at the end of the day, if you're a member of a faithful church, then the elders will stand before God and give an account for how they've shepherded your soul. Which means no matter what, if you're in biblical counseling with an elder of the body or someone disconnected, that person should be approved by the body of elders. Hey, we're. And Michael and I have done this plenty of times.
We do afford successions with some folks and then say, hey, here's a counselor. They have more training than we do on the specific tools. They have a little therapeutic training, but they are Christians. God's word is their supreme authority. The Bible to them is sufficient in counseling. It's the authority of counseling. But they do have tools that could be helpful for you.
We recommend go with them for four to six sessions.
I would just say a few things to be wary of in therapeutic counseling. Number one, if there's no off ramp, the problems, the person is likely not a good counselor.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Why might that be?
[00:29:15] Speaker C: Well, because it's a sign that they're not actually helping you.
I mean, that's the great irony with a lot of modern therapeutic counseling is what you're paying for them to do is to actually help heal you.
Ish. That's a simple way to say it.
And you wouldn't go to a medical doctor if you had an aching elbow and they didn't give you some medicine or surgery to fix the aching elbow when they had the power to do it.
And so if the counselor doesn't provide an off ramp, they either really like your money or they actually have no idea how to help you.
And so I would encourage, if you don't meet with that counselor and they say, hey, after the original assessment, they say, hey, let's do six to eight sessions, or hey, you need six months. If they don't give an off ramp, that should be a sign that something is off.
Not only that, I would encourage that if you do need therapeutic counseling, which there is a place for it. I mean, there is a place for it in terms of real clinical conditions, like actual trauma, not trauma in the way many people use that word, but actual medical trauma or brain trauma or something like that, where we would happily recommend that kind of counseling. I would encourage you talk to your pastors, talk to a Christian brother and sister. Here's my counselor said, what do you think about that as a way to say, okay, I know what this person is saying, but I want to make sure that those who are spiritually invested in my soul agree and are partnering with me in that extra care that I need.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: We've kind of zoomed out beyond anxiety, which is fine because this really does apply to broadly a lot of different areas. But this is where I think it gets a little bit difficult, a little
[00:31:13] Speaker C: squishy, a little ticklish.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Well, is because, you know, what are we talking about when we're saying that we're going to send someone to professional counseling for this particular issue? Like, what is the nature of that issue? Is it behavioral?
Because again, it's like, does the scripture address behavior?
It does, right?
Is it like a sickness? Like you get a virus in your body, and so it's in some way equivalent to a virus in your body, but it's in your brain? Is it a soul sickness, which is even less tangible than brain? I'm putting those out There. Not because I'm trying to, not because I'm trying to just tie us up in knots. But I'm saying, I think that whenever someone seeks counseling for something or seeks help for something, that is clearly. In other words, it's not like, you know, they, you know, like got their arm chopped off and we're like, you should go to the er. Right, right. It's like the issue they're having is a mental spiritual issue. Right. Like you. In other words, it's non physical, at least not in the immediate. Oh, let me put something on that.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:28] Speaker C: I think we have an answer for that.
[00:32:30] Speaker B: So I think in particular, if you think about the way that the Bible presents human anthropology, mind, body, soul, and that those are not the same. And so it is possible those things are not the same and yet they're integrated that your. And you know this, if you've ever been genuinely physically sick for an extended amount of time, it does start to affect your mind and your soul. It starts to play games on you a little bit. Vice versa, if those things are particularly sick for a very long time, it can affect your body. And so there's pieces to that where I do think an individual that we're counseling may, if we're starting to see certain patterns of this is not just a normal behavioral sin issue, but this is a particular sickness of the mind, or there's something happening that may actually be somewhat medical, then yeah, we're going to say, you know what, why don't you go and get diagnosed by a physician? Why don't you go and see someone who can actually assess you a little more carefully as it regards to this particular behavior and this particular pattern of thinking.
Because it seems to be a little unique, it seems to be set apart from the normal patterns of sin that we're really equipped to address as pastors.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:34:03] Speaker C: You've been counseling people for 15 years? Ish.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Somewhere around there.
[00:34:10] Speaker C: Let's just say on an average year you counsel, you have probably one, one and a half counseling meetings a week. So let's say 50 every year.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: I don't know what 15 times 50 is. I don't know math in all of those.
Let's just call it a few hundred counseling sessions.
How many times have you actually done that?
[00:34:33] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Done what?
[00:34:34] Speaker C: Referred someone to specific clinical examination for something that you deemed passed beyond your ability to care.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: So in the terms of actual medical and. Or psychotherapy that way, those are pretty honestly rare.
[00:34:55] Speaker C: Under 10?
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I would just say under 10, over 15 years. Around 10, maybe.
Now, the flip side of that is sometimes, and here's what we just have to be realistic about as pastors, sometimes it is a more normative sin issue, but you can tell the roots are deep. And I don't have the capacity as a pastor right now. There's 350, 400 other souls that I'm called to care for. I can do four to five sessions with you, and then at some point, I may need to hand you off to another biblical counselor that can continue with you in an ongoing way.
[00:35:26] Speaker C: And generally those. Those aren't therapeutically trained folks. They're just biblical counselors who we trust their methodology.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:35:33] Speaker C: But I was getting at a specific point there to answer Nathan's original question, which is, in the grand scheme of things, very few times do we deem qualified therapeutic psychotherapy help as necessary.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: Because I'm going to get this. I'm going to just like, cut right back to where we started, which is if I'm feeling anxious a lot, and I think I probably need to go see somebody and get some medication for this,
[00:36:02] Speaker C: very rarely, if ever would we recommend someone to go get psychotherapeutic reviews for that.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's not never.
[00:36:14] Speaker C: Not never. Rarely.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: What I think I'm hearing us saying is even if some kind of highly specialized, highly trained medical flavored like that. Flavored. Medical flavored intervention is needed there, I think it should go through your pastor because more likely you're actually waging war against sin or need to be waging war against sin. And that sounds really, like, not nice to say that. Right. Because struggling with anxiety or other things that are mental, I don't know what the word is I'm looking for, but pain, soul pain, is very real. And it's not like, you know, oh, I just flip this switch on because sometimes I like having a problem or something. Right.
It's genuinely real and it genuinely can feel almost debilitating. And that's the way it is with a lot of these different things.
But again, that just sounds kind of like what sin does to us.
I'm not always equivocating it with sin, but I just mean that the call might genuinely be, you need to repent of this or that, and that's going to be very difficult. And also it's going to require you to do it more than just today.
Right. So again, that's a super broad thing to say in this conversation, but I think that that's part of where we're going, is that for the most part, we don't think that our culture's struggle with anxiety is like, fundamentally a medical problem or some lack of.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: We don't put that.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Yeah, the culture thinks that. The culture thinks it, but we don't think that. Or that it's some lack of psychoactive or whatever drug. It's like, boy, you just need a little more of this in your system and then you'll be cured and you'll be solved.
But rather that maybe the particular moment we're in makes it worse, but that often it's like we've maybe given safe harbor to certain sins that we need to repent of.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: Yeah, we have to be super careful in this conversation.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: No, I say that, like, not as a. Because I got this under control and everybody else needs to go out there and repent. All you heathens. But simply saying that, like, sin can actually lead to anxiety. Right, right. And also, whenever Jesus says.
We'll go back to the scripture. Like Jesus says, don't be anxious about these things. He gives some real world things that you would genuinely be anxious about. And that someone who's not a godly counselor could be like, it's normal to be anxious about those things. Like, they would say the opposite of what Jesus is saying. Right, right, right.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: And that's.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: That's all I'm trying to say there. I'm not saying, like, every time or even every time that you fear or every time that you, like, worry about a thing that that was sin, you loser. Who needs to repent. My point is that struggling under this can actually reveal that there may be some areas that you need to grow spiritually and even repent of.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's good. And one of the reasons I'm going to try to do two things at once, but one of the reasons I brought up the issue of biblical counseling versus therapeutic counseling is. And this is where I want to just warn the people of Riverview to think carefully. Is most therapeutic counselors where they're starting from, like, they're starting framework of how to understand humanity and the purpose of life and what joy even is, is a totally different place than we would ever start from.
And that starting point, the failure to start from God's word and understanding, you're made in his image and that he is source of value. He is your hope. He is your eternity.
If you get away from that, you're already off course before you ever begin. So you're essentially just putting a band aid. Even if there are certain helpful tools that they may be able to give you, you're just Putting a band aid over the ultimate problem.
[00:40:29] Speaker C: That's really good.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And so that's where we want to just be careful about. Okay. Who is it that we're inviting into our lives to really be the authority about? This is how you should live. This is how you should think about happiness. This is how you.
[00:40:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Do they have the same basic assumptions as you?
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Correct. And so I think that's a critical piece of this whole conversation.
Now, to that end, with what Nathan is saying about anxiety, I do think sin stirs up and causes a lot of our anxieties.
I do think, again, where I would at moments refer someone again, and this is outside of the just straight up mental issue is addiction and abuse, the two A's, addiction and abuse.
There are physical components to addiction that are real.
And I'm not super qualified to understand every one of those realities. And so there are moments where we're going to try to say, instead of just handing you off to a medical professional, we're going to say, hey, we're going to walk with you and we're going to provide some soul care and some counsel alongside. We would encourage you to engage some medical help that way.
And again, I think the same thing would be for an individual that's been through abuse. And when I say abuse, I'm not just talking about, someone was mean to me on the playground one time when I was five years old. We're talking about serious, legitimate, legal abuse.
If someone's dealt with that kind of a situation, I'm not going to pretend that I understand everything about the fallout of that. There are physical and mental realities that come into play when a child is trying to figure out life after abuse that I don't fully understand as a pastor. Now, again, does that just mean I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to wipe my hands, you go with the therapeutic counselor. Good luck. No, we want to partner with you and say, okay, perhaps go pursue some help over here. But we want to also help you think biblically. And as we walk through this together, is what you're hearing matching up with what God's word also shows us.
[00:42:44] Speaker C: Really great stuff there. And what you said about basic assumptions is really, really essential here because it matters downstream of what that counselor is going to tell you.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:56] Speaker C: And if you've actually experienced some therapeutic counseling, maybe experienced counseling with Michael or I, one of our elders, maybe, maybe what you felt is what pastors are trying to do, biblical counselors are trying to do, is to show you how big your God is.
He's not lost control.
He's kind and merciful and gracious, and he is patient with his people. And he has what you need to heal your heart and soul. He has it.
And so it's in a non minimizing way.
Biblical counseling is sort of your God's really big in light of the gracious inheritance that he's promised you in eternity. What you're facing is smallish, not insignificant, not painful, but it's small compared to the glory and grandeur of your God. So press on, hold on tight. And a lot of times, alternatively, what happens in modern therapeutic counseling is your problem is really, really, really, really, really, really, really big.
And all of a sudden you are almost more discouraged than when you walked in.
I recently, recently as a relative, a couple years ago read a book also by a non Christian sociologist. Jonathan Haidt is a non Christian sociologist. In fact, fascinating enough in that book, Anxious Generation, he recommends going to church even though he's not a Christian, as a recommendation for fighting anxiety. Boom. What a concept. Anyway, there's another book out by kind of a colleague of his, Abigail Schreier. Is that her name? I think so.
She wrote a book called Bad Therapy.
Fantastic book on sociology. And the point that she's making is what I just said, that most of modern counseling makes small problems much bigger than they are.
And she refers to studies about folks out west putting their kids in counseling for climate change or folks out west putting their kids in counseling for a basic human issue. Like, I'm having trouble making a friend.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:57] Speaker C: And if you're hearing that, anything like that in your counseling, be careful, maybe just run away.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: Yeah, alarm bell should go off. Yeah.
And again, I think what I want people to hear us say today is essentially there is a place for some professional counsel and help out there, but it's something that is overused. And we have replaced. And I think this is the temptation. We have replaced spiritual authority and spiritual reality and just said it's really all just medical or it's really all just psychological.
And I just would want to argue that, no, we are mind, body and soul, that you have a spirit made by God and that someday your body will die and be gone and your soul will live forever. You will, in heaven or hell.
CS Lewis said it best. We often think that we are a body and we have a soul, but the reality is you are a soul. You simply have a body.
That who you are internally is the truest you.
And that again, we can't totally separate the two because that's Not God's design, body and soul, but the point being simply this.
We need to be careful not to just turn everything into a physical or psychological issue in our lives when there is a spiritual component that most of the world wants to deny. Now the last thing that I want us to do is just recognize this.
You know, there is a balance. And so kind of a framework, I would just say real quick on counseling to distinguish between biblical and therapeutic counseling. I think that's an important first step just for a lot of people.
I think too, just thinking about, there is a value at moments for appropriate professional counseling, but that should not be where you start most of the time. Like, if that's your first reaction, that's probably not a good place to be. And then, you know, I think, I think the danger of just uncritically embracing therapy culture, where everything is trauma, everything's a big deal.
And I think the most foundational piece that you can see this in terms of just your own thinking is why do I exist?
The therapeutic counseling world, the answer for that is your own happiness.
[00:47:29] Speaker C: Yeah, be happy.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: We want you to be happy. And so we're going to try to figure that out together. What does happiness look like?
The biblical answer to that is no, you actually don't exist for your own happiness. You exist to know and glorify God and enjoy him forever. And strangely, that will actually create an eternal happiness that is far exceeding any other worldly happiness that you can have. And again, so I just think that's where we've got to recalibrate our minds as Christians. And then, you know, the last thing that I would say in terms of a framework of just how to think about counseling, these guys have already kind of said it, but godly counsel is actually talked about a lot, especially in the book of Proverbs. And it's around friends and inviting people into your life.
And so to allow many counselors into your life is wise. And when the Bible says that, but it's not talking about someone you're paying to listen to your problems.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: And so I just think so many of our issues would actually be solved if we would allow ourselves to be known by godly, Bible fearing people.
[00:48:45] Speaker C: I remember a few years ago our church theme was biblical friendship as our elders considered just the sad landscape of a lack of robust, sticky, thick Christian relationships.
And I think I preached the opening sermon in that theme series.
And in my introduction I said something like, we likely wouldn't need counselors if we just had good friends.
And I felt a collective hush in the room. And I think it was at a mission that we've neglected the good, true and beautiful sticky relationships of the Christian life. If you listen to my conversations with my dearest friends, you would maybe mistake it for a biblical counseling session. We're talking about woes, we're praying together, we're confessing sin, and we're pointing each other to the hope and mercies of our Savior.
And that, I think, is one of the greatest antidotes to the paid friend, otherwise known as a counselor.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: It's really good on the practical side because I empathize with people that wrestle with this.
I've gotten, I think, some bad advice when I was younger, wrestled with anxiety.
Know that that is a real struggle.
And so I empathize with people that face this. And so I wanted to just stop and ask collectively.
So for the Christian that's out there, who actually is in the middle of this, like right now, middle of anxiety, I'm struggling with massive anxiety.
I'm miserable.
I feel alone.
I don't know where to turn.
There's all kinds of shame wrapped around this. I'm not even sure where it's all coming from. I'm praying, I'm trying to read my Bible. I'm going to church. I'm not in some crazy, open, sinful situation.
What do you do?
[00:50:56] Speaker C: Oh, well, I hope your pastors know about that. And so if you're listening to this and. And that's you, we love you and we want to help you.
So come to our office and we'd love to listen and care and. And point to the scriptures. That's practical, number one. We love you. Come, come seek some help from. If you're in a different faith family, go talk to your pastors. They love you. They want to help you.
I think very practically Nathan hinted at this, but I think what we ought to do maybe first is consider the inputs of your life.
What is being inputted? What are you listening to? What are you watching? What are you spending your time doing? What is filling you up? Because what's filling you up is what's going to come out of you.
Recently saw a post from a counselor, 24 years biblical counselor.
Here's the top 10 most destructive forces I deal with every day.
These are all inputs.
Phone addiction. Hooked on apps designed to be addictive. The grown men living with mom and dad. He's gaming all day.
Third, fourth wave feminism has ruined a lot of women. Chase careers, delay marriage, and then hand them antidepressants when they get lonely and burned out.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Oh, the next one's third wave. And second wave. And first wave.
[00:52:19] Speaker C: No.
All included.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: Okay. It's all four waves.
[00:52:23] Speaker C: The college debt scam.
$100,000 for a degree you can't use.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: Dude.
[00:52:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Identity politics. You've joined a movement. Instead of building your life and your identity around Jesus. Too many medications.
We've talked about that over diagnosis.
Diagnosis are skyrocketing. That's not necessarily an input, but it's on the list.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: Kind of is.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: Sort of this.
[00:52:45] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a label, I guess you are putting. Yeah, it's a label.
Trash food and no exercise.
Processed food, seed oils. My wife will like this one for sure.
[00:52:54] Speaker A: I agree with that one.
[00:52:55] Speaker C: And sitting all day make you very sick very fast.
Nine, corrupt institutions, government, media, medical institutions and banks all lie to protect and promote themselves. Stop believing them blindly.
And 10, no God, no purpose. You've discarded faith, family and duty. And then you wonder why your life feels empty. Consider your input.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's what I mean when I say there may be things you need to repent of or things that are true that you.
[00:53:20] Speaker C: That's a fire list. I read that and I thought, that's great.
[00:53:23] Speaker A: Or things that are untrue that you're believing that you need to repudiate. That's really what I mean is those are outstanding. And the moment you hear every one of the things on that list, you go, oh, yeah.
[00:53:34] Speaker C: Yep, same.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And yeah. And, oh, yeah, that one has done that too.
[00:53:38] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: And so you go, well, what's the answer again? Not that that's a totally comprehensive list, but that's a pretty good start. And so then you go, well, what should I do? Well, if one of those is a source, you could start by stopping that. And again, it's like, ah, you're oversimplifying. Okay. You know, okay, I'm oversimplifying it. But at least if you could do a thing that somewhat improves it, that would be a good place to start.
And I think that one of the themes I see in all those. And this is kind of my answer, I don't know if this is my answer to your question, but this is as close as the one that I have in my critique about the cult of psychology. It's really because it ends up being a focus on one's own self, fundamentally. And I say this out of my own personal struggles, not with anxiety so much, but with other sort of sins of thought that are internal and wrestling with things like guilt.
The more I focused on my own even the more I focused on my own sin and self loathing for that, it actually got worse. This was a crazy experience for me. I was about 20 years old when I really walked through some. Just deep internal battles mentally. And I was kind of internally despairing in some ways over my inability to what I thought defeat this area of sin. And then just like self loathing over it. And then, yeah, it just was like this crazy hamster wheel.
And what I began to realize was that I was very focused on myself in all of that. Even focusing on my own sin was a focus on myself.
[00:55:29] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:55:30] Speaker A: And that felt revelatory, but it also felt kind of wrong for me to think that, like, aren't I supposed to focus on my sin? That's what humility is.
You know what I mean? Like, because I should focus on my sin all the time so I know how bad I am.
[00:55:45] Speaker B: Right?
[00:55:45] Speaker A: And it was like.
But actually, actually that's. That's just sort of a twisted version of what modern psychology does, secular psychology, which makes, like Brian was saying, you and your happiness the chief end of your existence. Whereas it's like, well, that was never the. That's not what it's supposed to be.
Rather, the more I fix my eyes on God and on what Christ has done for me, on who God is, on his ability, and unlike him being larger than my circumstance and than me on his purpose, the more I actually kind of forget about myself.
And I think forgetting about one's self is actually.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: That's true humility.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: That's the humility. And to me, that was actually a path out of the crazy mental hamster wheel that I myself was on for a while. I gave up on trying to, like, internally fix myself. I just decided I was just gonna, like, let the Lord sort that out in me and just focus on loving and following him.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: Let God be God.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And I know that sounds overly simplistic. It wasn't that simplistic in the moment. But honestly, that was, for me, that was the way out.
[00:56:56] Speaker B: No, that's really good.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: Just take my eyes off myself and put my eyes on Christ.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: And I appreciate you sharing that. Let me ask you this. I think for the person who is wrestling with anxiety, this might be helpful to hear. How quickly did that happen?
[00:57:07] Speaker A: Well, the realization was sort of a moment of realization.
And then it was like a practice that I got better at and was bad at early on.
And it was like a curbing of my own internal thoughts. It was like, oh, dude, no, you don't get to go down that road instead open the scriptures. I mean it was even things like writing scriptures down and keeping them on me in my pocket or I didn't have a smartphone back then, but you know, whatever. A place where I could like go to scripture and go towards things that direct the eyes of my heart to the Lord. But like real physical actions.
And that's what I meant early on too about like the repentance means real actions.
That's what that looked like for me was going, okay, well what are things I can do to kind of head that off when that temptation to self fixate arrives?
[00:58:00] Speaker B: No, that's really good.
So yeah, for the person that is wrestling with anxiety, genuinely and distraught. But one thing I do want to say again is we care for you and to not wrestle alone, to let someone in as a part of that that you know is godly, that you know loves you, that you know will speak truth, not just what you want to hear.
And so I think that's one piece of it is community. I think two is consider the input and reduce the inputs. Just whatever they are, reduce them. Slow down in terms of mental pacing.
Give yourself room to think and to examine. And I think just this piece, really, what is this source? Where is this coming from? Is it that I have some actual potential issue? Okay, I need to have another Christian brother or sister potentially help me understand that and speak truth into my life. If it's sin, okay, I need to deal with that again. I need to let some brother or sister come in and speak truth into my life.
I do think the reality of. And you've kind of heard Nathan say this, It's a discipline. I learned this as well in my own struggle. Learning to speak truth to your hurting soul and not letting emotions win the day, not letting an anxious feeling just derail you, but to understand that, that you have again, you have a mind. And you're called to take every thought captive. You're called to not be led by your emotions. You're called to be led by the spirit. And so one of the ones that has just helped me, Psalm 42. 5.
Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
What's David doing there?
[00:59:55] Speaker C: I prayed that psalm yesterday.
[00:59:56] Speaker B: Excuse me. So it's not David, sons of Kor,
[00:59:58] Speaker A: but either way those psalmist.
[01:00:00] Speaker B: Yeah, the psalmist. What's the psalmist doing there?
He's preaching to himself. He's saying he's talking to yourself.
Why Are you so cast down? Hope in God, do what's right, live in truth. Don't embrace just this feeling and be distraught. And that is a huge part of renewing your mind, is learning how to do that when you see those thoughts come in, catch them, and then speak truth back to them.
[01:00:26] Speaker C: Amen to all that.
The answer I'm going to give is very simple.
Pray God's Word and allow the Holy Spirit to use the word of God to meet your soul every day in a way that you need it. The last two mornings, I've woke up with a very real worry on my head and my heart.
Went to my front porch because it's been beautiful, opened the Bible. I pray a psalm every day according to the day of the week. Yesterday was 12, so either Psalm 12 or plus 30. Psalm 42 today, Psalm 13 at 30.
And I read a psalm, both of those, each time exactly a word that my soul needed from the Lord.
And again, it's simple. But let God be God. When you open His Word, he's speaking to you.
Pray God's Word, say it out loud. Ask the Lord to make it real to you.
And this is true every day. Not even when I'm just having thoughts that could give me fear or whatever the case, God's Word has something for me every day. He's given it to me as an amazing gift.
And whatever you do, get up, get in God's Word and allow him to be God. Let him speak to your heart and soul and mind.
[01:01:52] Speaker B: That's good. And on a practical level, I mean, these things come first.
On a practical level, I mean, there is research that she just shows if you exercise and move your body, you actually are less likely to be depressed.
And so it's. You're less likely.
[01:02:09] Speaker A: It's too easy. I mean, it's not that it's easy to work out and exercise, but, like, if that genuinely helps, that's amazing.
[01:02:16] Speaker B: That is amazing. And it's almost as if God designed your body to do that and doing what he says is good. Yeah. And so I think the same thing. There's research again that shows if you eat less junk food, and we've kind of already mentioned this, get some of that stuff out of your body, you tend to think a little more clearly, you tend to feel better, and that helps. And so take advantage of the natural things that God has already designed into creation and just lean into that a little bit. There's nothing wrong with that.
[01:02:45] Speaker A: It's great.
[01:02:46] Speaker C: Can I make one more comment about what I just said? I recently read.
I think it was J.I. packer.
He said the greatest battle of the Christian life is perspective.
And I think he's so read on that. And one of the things that I recently started doing a couple years ago, I think I mentioned it on here before. I've talked about it openly because it's been so good for my soul.
We all fight anxious thoughts somewhere.
And even this morning, you know, I have that, the same journal that I started with two years ago.
And there most of the time, I'll flip back to a page a year ago and I'll look at what I was praying over and I realize God came through on every prayer that I was bringing before him.
And something about just that little thought, God, you've been faithful to me before.
You've been so kind and gracious.
You will be faithful again no matter what I face.
So keep a journal, simple. It could be one or two sentences and look back on it years from now and say, you know what? The Lord has sustained me and he will continue to do that. That's good.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll just say real quick because it fits exactly with what you're saying, Ryan.
Philippians 4. So I remember in my battle with anxiety, I was actually really frustrated with prayer because I thought, I'm doing it like I'm doing Philippians 4.
[01:04:14] Speaker A: Right.
[01:04:16] Speaker B: So it says, do not be anxious for anything, but in everything with prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God.
[01:04:23] Speaker C: Like, I'm doing that. God, I'm talking to you.
[01:04:24] Speaker B: I'm doing it. Why isn't this working?
And I was skipping over a clause with Thanksgiving, and I honestly discounted that. I thought, you know, it's not that big a deal. God knows I'm thankful.
But here's the secret behind that. The genius of what God's word says and is Ryan just demonstrated it.
I've seen you answer my prayers in the past, and so here it is. I know you will do what is best.
I'm scared about this situation. I don't have the answer.
I am a little nervous about it. But here's the thing. I know of your faithfulness. I've read of it in the scriptures. I've seen it in my own life. And so I'm going to thank you, God, that you're in control.
And now I can face whatever this thing is because you do all things well. You do not fail. And that that is where the anxieties start to be relieved. If you can actually find your heart and mind. Trusting my God, Never misses, He doesn't fail.
And so I can give thanks in this situation.
He's already going to again back to Providence. He's going to see to it.
[01:05:35] Speaker C: And by the way, that's exactly what most of the Psalms do.
[01:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I was thinking you're quoting like half the Psalms.
[01:05:42] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what they do.
[01:05:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's like God, this situation is terrible. However, I will remember, I will tell my heart, I will remember how you have delivered me and your people and on and on and yeah, like that's the pattern, over and over. And so that's a discipline.
It's like an actual heart and mind discipline to say the true thing. And Jesus says that truth, like truth, is a palliative really. Jesus says truth has a freeing power. Right. The truth shall set you free. So say true things, genuinely true things to yourself that are from God's word.
And again, you're letting God's word preach to you and shape the contours and the grooves of your heart and your mind.
And that's work that happens. I mean, I do think that you can see some pretty short term results, but it's work that really happens over.
Not over minutes. Right. And not over hours, over weeks and months and even years again. I mean, when are you guaranteed that you're going to be sort of freed from that struggle?
I don't know, man. You might always have it.
[01:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, to some degree. And I think that's critical to trust your anxiety. Just like any form of suffering is never purposeless, I think that's one of the things that so many people wrestle with is, hey, this is really uncomfortable.
And so that means it's a waste or it shouldn't be here or whatever. And just to recognize God is not surprised he is doing something and it's
[01:07:16] Speaker C: not a punishment either.
[01:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's important. It's not a punishment. But here's what it might be a trial that is meant to refine.
[01:07:23] Speaker C: Amen.
[01:07:24] Speaker B: So that you might be complete and lacking in nothing.
So, yeah, there are portions of this that you may be walking through that again. You didn't necessarily invite, you haven't necessarily failed or done some horrible thing, but God is teaching you what true dependence actually looks like in your anxiety.
[01:07:45] Speaker C: I know I beat the drum that I'm about to beat all the time.
But one of the many reasons that I beg older saints to be intricately involved in the life of younger saints is because most older saints who have faithfully served Jesus for a long time don't deeply struggle with anxiety.
They have anxious thoughts, but they've seen God's faithfulness over and over and over and over and over again.
And they can look at the face of a 25 year old and say, it will be okay.
[01:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah, he's going to be faithful.
[01:08:20] Speaker C: God's going to be good. That happened to me at lunch today. I had a lunch with another one of our elders talking about a specific place of, you know, the Lord. Well, frankly, I was just saying my wife is wife stays at home with our kids, only works one day a week. This economy is not very kind.
And he said, brother, I have been there.
My wife was home with three kids.
We barely made the bills.
Which we're fine. We are paying the bills, but that's not why I'm bringing this up. But he looked at me, he's like, the Lord was so kind. He was so faithful.
He didn't even know he was ministering to me in that moment. But he was.
And so older saints, tell your story.
Take that. Bring that young adult in your home. Bring folks our age in your home.
You've wrestled with parenting. Parenting a teenager stinks.
Tell those folks parenting teenagers of God's faithfulness to you. Pray with them.
Intergenerational connections in the local church is maybe one of the hidden secrets to having faith and pushing back anxiety.
Good word.
[01:09:25] Speaker B: That's good.
[01:09:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:09:26] Speaker A: Got anything we want to add before we wrap up?
[01:09:30] Speaker B: Last thing I would just say again, just John 16:33.
I've told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble.
Take heart. I've overcome the world that has soothed my soul over the years. And just to lean into a part of God's design is not that you would have a perfect, peaceful, comfortable little life here and now. That's just not the design in the world. It's going to be troublesome. But take heart.
I've overcome.
Christ has overcome for us. That's the good news. You may not. He will.
[01:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah, he has won the victory.
[01:10:11] Speaker B: That's right.
[01:10:12] Speaker A: Good stuff. Well, we hope this has been encouraging to you and we hope that indeed that you'll even write that one down, that you will take heart.
For Jesus has already overcome the world. And God is faithful to walk with you as you fix your eyes on him and pursue him. He's faithful and he's good further up and further in. We will see you soon, Sam.
[01:12:04] Speaker C: J.
Ra.
