Releasing Anxiety - Ben Stuart

Well, all throughout the Scriptures, the Word of God declares over and over again that we exist for one simple, beautiful purpose: to know and enjoy Jesus. That all things were made by him and for him. That in his presence is fullness of joy. That the nearness to you is my good. In our text, it said, "Rejoice in the Lord always; find your joy in him." That every man, woman, and child was made to rest and delight in an intimate relationship with God. That's what we're made for.

And I know many of us believe that to be true, but we struggle to experience it. Your life is not this profound intimacy with God. And you say, "Why?" Well, if we have an enemy, when the Bible says that we do, then I would submit that for many of us, this goal is not to convince you that God is real or that the Bible is not true. He said, "If you want to read the Word of God, if you want to see God, go for it. Just make sure you look good while you're doing it." And while you're at that, make sure you go to the right college and pick the right major so you can get the right internship and get the right job so you can get on the right team and get the right boss so you can get the right promotions so you can take over the world.

But to do that, you got to move to the right city. And cities are expensive, so you got to get a house. And when you get the house, that's real expensive. So now I need roommates. Actually, I need a lot of roommates. Now I got roommate drama coming at me. And in the middle of that, I meet somebody, and we go on a date. We go on more dates, and some more dates. And I meet their friends and their family. They got to meet my friends and my family. Now, are we gonna get engaged? Are we gonna get married? Oh my gosh, what about our careers? Where are we gonna live? We can stay in the city or move to the suburbs. What are we gonna do? Do we want kids? How many kids? Public school, private school? What are we gonna do?

And then, meanwhile, I got to keep up on social media: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Oh, snaps! Yet, and let people know how I'm doing. But then there's health insurance, car insurance, diapers, life insurance. Okay. And it's not that anywhere in that suddenly we started thinking, "Hey, God is dead. The Scriptures aren't true." But we just, we just lost track of them somewhere along the way.

And for many of us, the greatest challenge in our life is that we have problems. And some of you go, "Well, Ben, what are you advocating here? I just got to eliminate some of these problems. You have the figures, I gotta get rid of some of these kids." That's the trip. "Is that what you're saying? We're all gonna live in the hills? Like, what are you saying?"

Well, here's the reality: for many of us, our problems aren't the problem. It's our anxiety about our problems that's the problem. For many of us, that's it. It's not even the problems. It's our anxiety about the problems that becomes the problem. That's what Jesus warned us about in Matthew chapter 6. He talks to his disciples. He says, "Don't be anxious, thinking, 'What am I gonna eat? What I'm gonna drink? What am I gonna wear?'" Those things matter. He says, "Don't be anxious about it. The nations do that." He said, "But seek first the kingdom."

And notice the contrast. He contrasts anxiety with seeking the kingdom of God. What Jesus is showing you there is that for many of us, our anxiety is our biggest impediment to our fulfilling our God-given destiny. Let me say that again: for many of us, it's our anxiety about the things of life that is our greatest impediment against pursuing our God-given destiny. That the enemy's strategy to keep you to really live as the man you're meant to be under God, or woman under God, the greatest enemy's greatest strategy to keep you from seeking the kingdom of God is to fill you with anxiety about the things of this present world.

And for many of us, the reality we live in is what Jesus warned us about in Luke chapter 8. He said, in Luke 8, in this beautiful picture, he said, "The Word of God is like a seed. And he said, 'I want to plant this seed deep into the soil of your heart. And as you hear my words and they plant into your soul, it's gonna burst forth into life and it's gonna grow and flourish and become fruit that blesses the world.' That's my goal for you." Bases.

But there's gonna be challenge in that garden. And one of the challenges, he said, is that as that little seed begins to sprout and grow, a weed is gonna come up and choke the life out of it. And when his disciples asked him later, "What's the weed that will choke out the Word of Life?" He says, in Luke, "It is the worries of this life." That for many of you, you're not experiencing the power of God in your life. Why? Because the Word of Life is getting choked by the worries of life. We don't have the life we're meant to have. Why? Because worry is choking out the Word of God. God wants to do something powerful in you, but worry is sabotaging the work. And we need to deal with that.

Not only will it keep us from living our God-given destiny, that anxiety in the heart creates many sinful states of mind. It does. The longer we live in anxiety, it will begin to make you compromise. Anxiety about grades can lead you to cheat. Rutgers did a study of 32 different universities and they found that 74% of business students and 68% of all other students admitted to some form of cheating. Which, I don't know why the business student number is so much higher. I don't know if they're cheating more over there or if they're just more honest about it. They're like, "Yeah, cheat. That's how I get ahead." I don't know. But anxiety can lead you to dishonesty. A lot. Anxiety about dating can lead you to compromise. Anxiety about finances can lead you to make unethical decisions. Anxiety about being liked will lead some of us to embellish stories and be weird at parties. Or persistent anxiety for many of us will lead us traveling down the world of addiction for relief, just to escape. It won't solve the problem, but can I eject from it in a moment? And then that comfort from the problem becomes a whole different problem.

And then here's the scary thing: anxiety can quite literally kill you. I remember for me, when I was in college, there was one day I was taking a shower and I felt this incredible pain in my chest. And it felt like someone was trying to cave my chest in. And I got to a moment where I was like, "I can't breathe. I'm having trouble. My heart feels like it's pounding out, but my ribcage is collapsing." And I thought, "I think I'm dying." And I was trying to figure out, like, "What is going on?" And that was like, "Is this heartburn? Maybe I'll like, I've never had it. It was like this. What is this? That's like, is this the barbecue? 'Cause I've been eating off this plate of barbecue for like a week and a half in the fridge, against a bit of my better judgment." And I was like, "Oh my gosh."

And I remember praying. I was like, "God, don't let me go out like this. Like, look dumb. Way to die. Like, I don't want my roommates to find me here in the shower and then at the funeral that I counted eco-night is the barbecue. He just kept eating on it way past what was appropriate." And so I was like, "I don't want to go like that." And so I survived. And I went to the doctor. And I remember talking to him. And he's like, "Do you drink?" "No." "You smoke?" "No." "You're stressed?" "I know I was. I got in the fact that I'm trying to figure out what my major is, 'cause I got trying to figure out what I'm doing in my life, and I don't know. It scares me that I'm gonna be away. So I'm dating a girl, and I'm not sure how that's gonna work out, but we should say together. I'm scared of that. If we break up, I'm scared that I don't..." He's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, that's it. You just need to calm down. That anxiety is affecting your heart."

And here's what's crazy about it: a preoccupation with hypothetical situations was killing me in reality. And how many of us, your real life is being affected, your real health is damaged because of your preoccupation with hypothetical situations that may or may not ever be? So we got to deal with this for our own hearts, literally physically, and our own souls and our God-given purpose in this life. We have to deal with anxiety.

And here's the crazy thing: for many of us, we experience this even as followers of Jesus. But can I tell you this? The world is not impressed when we sing about the Prince of Peace but live life of stress. They're not impressed by that. But here's the thing: as followers of Jesus, we're meant to live differently. That's why Jesus told his disciples in Luke 12, he says, "Don't be anxious. He says, 'The world cares about those things, but your Father knows what you need.'" What's he saying? When you really know me, you know I have God as a dad. And so the believer in Jesus should be characterized by a lack of anxiety. That's what Jesus is saying.

It's interesting, there was a book, "The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia," which I know you've read, but by way of review, in the book, it's talking about inscriptions in the ancient city of Phrygia. And one of them is a guy's name, Tittas, Omer, Am nas. And scholars all agree that Am nas was not a typical name in that culture. It was a baptismal name. That back in the New Testament, when he got baptized, they gave you a new name, like Barnabas. I went in his original name, but they named him that some encouragement, 'cause that's what he was like. And so when you get baptized, they'd give you a new name. And Am nas has that, that negative on the front, like we still do. Was Osias? That's someone who doesn't believe in say, "Ask God." And so this is Am nas. He is not. And Am nas means "worried about stuff." So when he put his faith in Jesus, I am united together with him. The people who looked at his life says, "Your name is Tittas, Dios, takes no thought of the morrow. Tittas, Dios, not worried about stuff." And that's who we're meant to be.

That's the good news of today. That when we know Jesus, we are rescued not just from sin, not just from condemnation, but from anxiety. And there's some complexity to anxiety. And I know there's some medical issues that are very real, and some of this I'm not gonna solve and touch on every issue. But I want to give you a pathway forward of how to experience more of the peace we've been given in Jesus. And it comes in this text. It says it in verse 6: "Do not be anxious about anything." Or I love it, some trains, "I should be anxious for nothing." And I love that because that is just proof from God. You are never called to be anxious. In that great, that God does not require that of you. Now, that doesn't mean you don't care. It doesn't mean that you don't value some of what he's given you to steward. But that chest-tightening, scalp-itching, you know, shoulder-clenching anxiety you live with, you think is just part of what you're supposed to do and shoulder in life. You're not meant to carry your burdens that way. We can carry them in a different way. You're supposed to be anxious about no thing. And that "anxious" means in the to be drawn in different directions, to distract. I'm trying to focus on this, but my mind's racing with that. And so I think about that, but my mind's racing with this. And this preoccupation impedes good decision-making. That I can't function well in life because my mind is too drawn in different places. We're not meant to live like that.

So he says, "Be anxious about no thing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." Do you see the parallel? Be anxious about no thing, but in everything, pray. That whenever I encounter a thing, my kids, my school, my job, my future, my life, when I get that thing, I'm not supposed to preoccupy, obsess, get worried about it. I am supposed to lay it before the Lord. That's the same thing with everything. Now, he's gonna unpack a little bit about how to do that as they go on. But before we do that, I just know there's some people in here, and maybe some people in Cumberland, that you started rolling your eyes. You go, "Oh, that's the secret to my anxiety: just pray more." You're like, "Thanks, bro. Like, that helps me a lot." But before you just kind of smash on this theory, let me just ask you for a second to analyze your own. How are you dealing with it? And how is it working for you?

That for some of us, that this text was our text would be, "I'd be anxious about nothing, but in everything, just pound a lot of carbs to comfort yourself." Like, that's some of us. That's why you're working. And let me tell you something, I sympathize with you. I do. When Don and I first moved to DC, some people were talking to us about our health. And they asked Tana, "What are y'all eating?" And without hesitation, she said, "Our feelings." And I was like, "That's true." Like, we are. Kenta for some of us. But you get anxious about things, you take none of it to prayer. You take a lot of it to the pantry. And that's not solving any problems for you. Or others of us, when you ever enter into something uncomfortable, you don't know what to do. You just escape into social media and distract yourself, which often feeds your insecurities and becomes a whole different problem. How's that working for you?

Or for many of us, we just try to bury the anxiety under an addiction. And there's a million places that can go, and it's destroying us. And so before you bang on this theory, you need to look at your own and say, "How's that working for you?" And here's what's fascinating: as you look at secular studies all around the country over the last several years, it's amazing. People with no religious legions are studying people and they say, "You know, one of the greatest remedies is for anxiety: meditation and gratitude." And they keep coming around these in these studies. And I'm like, "That's so funny, because you are literally tripling and stumbling onto an ancient path that's been ours for centuries in Jesus." We just need to know how to walk it.

And so how do we do it? He's gonna give us three things. And the first one is, "In everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." That's the first thing is that I deliver my anxious thoughts to him. Now, we're gonna talk about the mechanics of how to do that. But one thing I love about that is the passive voice of the verb. "When everything with prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God." I love that. That it's not an active form of the verb. An active form would be, "Make your requests known to God." He doesn't say that. He says, "Let them be made known." I love that because it carries the idea that they want to be. You just need to let them. Stop suppressing them, but let them rise.

So I don't know how you wake up in the morning. Some of you, maybe you wake up in the morning and your soul is ready to worship as soon as you rise. "A chance to glorify my Savior." Yes, off you go. That may be you. For some of us, our souls are not this pristine water of stillness. We have all these anxieties about school, about work, about our kids, about the unknowns, about the future, about our age. And when we wake up, they have invaded our soul. And for many of us, you go, "What am I gonna do when I wake up thinking about all these? I wake up with these realities. I wake up with this stuff I worry about." For many of us, we wake up, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm stressed about school. What am I gonna wear? My kids, we're what I'm gonna do." That then you wake up, but there's no time. I gotta go. So what do I do with all this? I'll tell you what I do. I bury it down deep inside. And you just try to suppress it, push it down into your soul, right? And not deal with it, and just function in the daily business of life. Many of us do that in church. We got all these real concerns about our family, real concern about our kid, real anxiety about our death. But we show up here, we just shove it all down. And people ask, "How you doing?" You're like, "Great, fantastic. God is good. Blast not today, Satan." But meanwhile, it's just all getting shoved down.

And what I love about this text is it says, "You know what? It's not godly to deny what's in you." These are very real realities. And so don't pretend like they're not. Don't keep trying to shove them down deep in your soul where they're making you sick. Let them rise. Does that mean you let them rise in every conversation? "Hey, how's it going, brother?" "I'm scared about my future. My parents might..." Let you know. Like, does that mean you start doing that to every person? Some relationships can't handle it. But it says, "I let my requests be made known to God." That as a concern rises up in me, I'm not shoving it down. I'm pulling it out and saying, "Criticism. It's killing me. I show up to work and I'm so anxious because I feel like people are looking at me. I feel like they're not happy with my work, but they're not being direct with me. And I just, this is, I'm carrying this. And it's affecting the way I respond to my kids. When I respond to my mate. And I don't want to be that way. And I'm gonna do something with this." Either push it down deep, or I'm gonna pick it up and say, "This is real. Let me take it to somebody who can do something about it." And I begin to let it rise.

And I love that he says that. How do you do this? By prayer. Prayer. He uses the most generic term for creating a space to be with God. That I carve out of my schedule, just a space to be with him. And I talk to so many people when I tell them that, they go, "Man, I'm too busy for that." I'm like, "No, you're not." They have a saying, "Sharp shooters in the military." I was saying, "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast." Then if you try to hurry too much with a weapon, you're gonna drop a clip, you're gonna not aim accurately, you're gonna miss. And so your intended goal, you're actually not getting to efficiently because you're hurrying so much. And for many of us, that's you in life. You're hurried out the door, you're responsive and reactionary in conversations, and you're not really advancing much as a person. You need to slow down to become more efficient. Many of us were like an octopus on roller skates. Lot of action, but not necessarily moving forward. So you've been successful at busy, but not at efficient. You need to slow down and be smooth.

For me, the mornings have been a key part of this. Now, when I wake up in the morning, that I've started to do this, I create a space for prayer. And then it says, "In prayer with supplication." That is on bringing specific requests. I'm creating a space, and I protect it. It's an appointment in my calendar. People ask me, "Can you meet me at this time?" "No, I have an appointment." It's with the Almighty. I don't usually tell them that part. They don't need to know. But I'm not gonna bump him. And so I sit in that moment. And then what I do with supplication is I give free rein to my inner voice. And what I mean by that is, I watched a video back in high school years ago, in like science class, called "Madness." And there's all different kinds of mental illnesses. And there was one part of the video about a guy that he was working on the railroad back in the day, and the explosion went off, and it drove a railroad spike through his forehead. Now, at the back of his skull. No, you saw. Yeah. And and he didn't die. Yeah, but it it separated his frontal lobe that helps regulate what you choose to externalize or non-externalize, right? And so he had no filter. And so in the movie, they kind of reenact him trying to get his job back. And he shows up and he's like, "I'd like my job." And the guys like, "I can't. You had a spike go through your head." "Nice, nice. Hey, what's your name?" And he's just kind of all over the place. And that's how I pray.

Now, for me, when I wake up in the morning, I don't try to control it. I don't try to make it cute. I just open up my journal first thing in the morning and I write at the top, "How are you feeling?" Which many really do you really have to ask yourself that? Yes, I do. Not all of us have great access to our emotions. We have to ask ourselves, "How are you feeling?" And I'm like, "Scared, stressed, anxious, concerned." I start writing all these words out. And then as I write them out, I ask myself, "Why?" I do what David did in the Psalms taught us to do. "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" And as I start to process those emotions that were about to affect how I treat my kids, now I'm doing it in front of the Lord. "Why am I feeling this way?" "Well, I'm worried about this meeting." "Where you?" "What about this meeting?" "Because I need this person to do X." "What do you need to do X?" "Because I need to get to Y." "What do you need to get Y?" "So that I can succeed." "Why do you need success?" "So I can be seen as a success by so I'll feel like I am somebody." Well, man, that has nothing to do with the meeting. That has everything to do with your identity. And this is the circle to deal with that in.

And in DC, I talk to so many young people that they write in their journal like it's their memoir, you know what I mean? "Challenges today, and yet I will rise and overcome." You're like, "Oh, stop. No one's gonna read it. You just be honest with God. Let it all come out as ugly as it looks. At least be real and give it to him." He wants you to do that. Not only does he want you to do that, he commands you to do that. First Peter 5:7 says, "Cast your anxieties on him, why? Because he cares for you." Psalm 55:22 it says, "Cast your cares upon the Lord, he will sustain you. He will never let the righteous fall." I love that because in those two texts, we're given the same command: cast your anxieties on the Lord. Don't stuff them down. Give them to him. But you're given two very different motivations as to why. The first one is, "Cast onto him, why? Because he cares about you." And the second one is, "Cast onto him, why? Because he will sustain you."

Why do we cast our cares upon the Lord other than just he commanded it to be so? Because he's strong enough to do something about it, and he's loving enough to want to. That's why. That's why we do it with Thanksgiving. Why do I thank him when I'm in the middle of the fire? Why do I thank him when these difficulties haven't been resolved? Because I get to bring my concerns to the King. That I get to come to him with these. That I get to rest in his arms. "Your Father knows that you need these things." That's Jesus's language. "Don't be anxious, little flock."

I remember once, it was time to go upstairs. And I picked up one of my daughters. And she went, "No, no, no, Dad." Like, "What do you mean, no?" She said, "I'm too heavy, Daddy." And I was like, "Whoa, okay. One, who told you that? And then two, I said, 'You're not too heavy for your daddy, baby.'" And then you kind of press her a few times, just so she could see. What feels heavy to you is not heavy to him. And he wants to carry those things. And he wants to carry you. And that's something worth celebrating. And it's not just worth celebrating, it's essential for good decision-making. Because "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus." We needed to guard us.

Abraham Lincoln. There was a moment where General Lee, leader of 76,000 troops into Pennsylvania. And as they did that, panic took hold in Washington. And yet historians report, in the midst of that panic, Abraham Lincoln possessed an ole as he made decisions. And a general who was wounded at Gettysburg, Lincoln went and visited him later. And he asked him, "How were you able to calmly function and make decisions in the middle of that chaos?" And what Lincoln told him was this: "When everyone seemed panic-stricken, I went to my room, got down on my knees, and prayed before Almighty God. Soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul that God Almighty had taken the whole business into his own hands." Do you see that? Prayer does not release you from having to make decisions, but it does liberate you to make good decisions. Anxiety is an impediment to good decisions. But when I trust the Lord, his peace steps in front of my heart and guards it like a garrison. I love that because Paul is in prison at the time. And Paul is literally like, "When I trust things to God, his peace becomes like Bob here. Bob's not letting me go anywhere." It becomes like that. It's like the peace of God's a bouncer in front of my heart. "Uncertainty about the future? No, you're gone. Weird boyfriend? Beat it. You're out of here." That he just begins to protect me so I can make rational decisions and I can function. We need that. We need that.

And not only do we need it in that moment, we got to offload all this stuff to him. Then comes the moment where you go, "I have to bring back on things that can now help me." For me, my normal rhythm now is when I wake up in the morning, I get that piece of paper out. I write those things out. And then I have this little monitor I clip to my ear that measures not just your heart rate, it measures the distance and time between the beats of your heart. It measures coherence. How focused are you? And when I start, it's usually not good, which you can tell because the little reader is red and it makes this ominous low sound, which is like, "You're a mess." I go, "Okay." So I'm writing out my anxieties to God. Then I start breathing. And I start thinking about who he is. And I just watch it. Well, that feels better. Okay, here we are. And then it turns green. And I realize it just focuses me. And I'm calm. And then in that moment, you don't just go, "Oh, good, my mind is a complete blank." That's where a lot of meditation stuff ends. But that's only a part of the journey. Here, I offload my anxiety onto him. And then I hit "embrace his truth."

And to me, that's the next word. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable. If there's any excellence, anything worthy of praise, think about those things." That's my rhythm in the morning. It's release and embrace. I wake up and I release my anxiety to you. I don't just do that thing where I just throw up on my devotional and read it all, and then everything else is still down here. No, I bring my anxieties out and lay them before you. And then when my slows down, I get your word out and I begin to replace it and get it back into me. And I put your thoughts into my head, your mind, and my truth. I release my anxiety to him and I embrace his truth. To me, that liberates me to function in the way I want to as a man in this world. That's the secret.

One of my heroes is Jeff Stricker. Jester Coe was an Army Ranger in 1993 and was involved in the Battle of Mogadishu. The Battle of Mogadishu was famously depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down," where a small group of elite soldiers was sent into Mogadishu, Somalia, and they were tasked with capturing two high-profile targets and escaping. But while they're in the middle of that operation, which was supposed to take well under an hour, two of their Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and crashed within the city. And so suddenly, what was supposed to be less than an hour dragged on through the night into the next day. A small group of American troops, surrounded by thousands of enemy fighters. Jeff Strucker, was charged at age 24, was driving the lead Humvee, which was their exfil out of the city into safety. And as he drove out, and this situation began to devolve, the first casualty in that battle happened right next to him, one of his friends. He was able to lead the column of Humvees out of the city successfully, make it back to their base. And when he got to their base, he was just so thankful to be alive. They unloaded the wounded. And then his commanding officer came to him and said, "You have to go back. There's men trapped in the city." And as he told him that, one of the other Special Forces men came out to him and said, "Before you go back, you have to wash all that blood out of your truck. It'll traumatize the men you pick up for them to have to sit in that." And so he had to go and wash the blood of his friend out of the truck. And he said, when he entered into that moment, panic just filled his life. He said he just began to freak out. "I don't want to go back. I can't go back there. I can't do this. I can't function." And he began to lock up. And he said he just kept thinking over and over again, "This is gonna be my blood. That's gonna be my blood. That's gonna be my blood."

And so in that moment of anxiety and panic, he just started praying, started saying these things, but now sang him to the Lord. I said, as I began to talk to the God about his fears, sitting there as Humvee, knowing what he was about to face, he said, suddenly the thoughts began to enter his mind as he transitioned to thinking, "The Lord commands my destiny, not my enemy. The Lord determines whether I live or die. No other soldier does. If he will have me survive this day, I will go home and see my wife and children. If he does not, I will go home to heaven and see my Savior." Because his faith was in Jesus, had lived and died for him, forgave sins, gave him life in the assurance of eternal life in Christ. And so as he thought about those realities, the sovereignty of God and the salvation of Jesus, he said, "No matter what happens, God will let me live, and I will go home into my children. Or God will let me die, and I'll go home to see my Savior. But either way, I'm going home." And he said, when those thoughts entered his mind, his mind cleared, and he was able to function. And he cleaned out the Humvee, got in, drove it into the city, rescued more men, and brought them out. And then drove into the city again and again and again, continuing to rescue his fallen, wounded brothers. And then later became a chaplain to comfort them emotionally and spiritually as they processed what they've been through.

How was he able to function? This very rhythm I'm giving you: I cast my anxieties unto him, and then I take his thoughts onto me. What is true? What is true is that God runs my story. What is just? What is the right thing to do? What is honorable? What would be the best way to act when I walk into the office? Not stooping down to the behavior of the lowest among us, but rising up to the full stature of someone who knows the King and calls him Father. What would it look like to live a lovely life? A life that's beautiful and commendable? A pure life of no duplicity? What would that look like? What would a commendable life look like? What's the kind of life I could step into that they would write a book about that I would read and say, "I want to see a person live like that"? What's an excellent and praiseworthy way to live? It's the reason why I read a lot of biographies, because I don't want to live a life of reaction to the world around me. I want to live a life that elevates to the heroic journey of those who live by faith. If I read the stories of men and women who did it well, why? Because I want to cast my anxieties upon the Lord and then take up his thoughts into my mind so I can live differently.

And so I cast off my anxiety. And for me, I just think of the words of Jeremiah Burroughs. He says, "You don't pour wine into a shaky vessel. It's a bad decision." He said, "Still the vessel, and then you can pour into it." And he says, "It's the same with the blessings of God. God has blessings for you in his word. He has blessings for you in your life. But you need to steel yourself. Cast your anxiety unto Him and be still, and then let Him fill you with the blessings of God." Right? He said it's like a child. He says, "When a child comes begging you for something and is anxious, you make them calm down. Even if it's a thing you want to give them." "Dad, I want to snap that. I'm gonna stack that. I'm gonna snap stuff." So I am going to feed you. And frankly, it's a little insulting that like, "Are you gonna starve? Like, have you starved yet?" It honors me for you to come to me at peace because it says a lot about who you think I am as a dad. And so let's be still and then come to me. Cast my anxieties and embrace the truth. You're my Father in heaven. You run this office. You run this world. The things that are big to me are not big to you. But you know my story and you command my destiny. And you step down into the chaos of this life and you did something decisive about it. So though I live in tragedy, tragedy is not the end of my story because in Christ Jesus, I have victory. So if I'm not experiencing victory yet, it's because this story's not over yet. Because all our stories end in victory in Christ Jesus. If we're His, He has paid for our sin on that cross, rose from the grave, and we have a future with Him. And I'm gonna lean into that. And the certainty of that will cascade into how I live today. That I will set my mind on things above. I will think about these lovely things. I will dwell on them. And then I'll let them shape how I behave.

That's the last piece in verse 9: "What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things. Don't just read about them, sit here and listen to them, live them. Practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." I love that. Cast my anxieties onto him, and the peace of God will be with me. Embrace his thoughts, and excel at the revealed. And the God of peace will be with me. Not just the peace of God, the very God of peace will stand with me in the fire. That's who you want to be. Someone who says, "I'm gonna learn your truth. I'm gonna listen to your word. I'm gonna sing it out loud. And then I'm gonna walk into it. I'm gonna excel at the revealed things. I'm not gonna just react to what's around me. I'm gonna step into what my God has for me."

I know for me, stepping out of college was an anxious time. Got a job as a youth pastor. Had never had a youth pastor. Didn't know what one did. So I started interviewing all his youth pastors with huge churches. And they were telling me all this stuff, like, "When you get 500 kids to camp, or 6,000 kids to camp." I had a ministry of six kids that I had grown to one. As they're telling me how to get your ministry to 100 and 150, and I was literally doing nothing. But the thought of having to do all these things, I started panicking. And I quit. Quit the job two days later. I quit because I felt kind of guilty about it. I've even been there like a month. And I thought, "God, you gotta help me." And I remember in that moment, a mentor telling me, "Ben, you ultimately don't exist to be a youth pastor. He said, 'You need to know what Ben Stewart's about.'" Then I realized, "I exist to know God." And so that'll be a priority in my schedule. I'm never gonna be too busy to do the one fundamental thing I was made to do. What's the greatest commandment? Love God, heart, soul, mind. And then love others. I thought that was going to be my schedule. I literally started scheduling that. I am going to get deep into the Word of God and around the people of God. So reading too. I hadn't read the whole book in years. Ever. So I got rid of my TV. I'm gonna soak in the Word of God and let it take root in me. And I'm gonna let it affect the way I treat people. And back then, I wasn't preached on stages. Didn't need a microphone in my ministry. Just needed everyone to scooch ahead, scooch up. Yes. And we just love these kids right where they're at. And we would encounter different things. And I would do the best I could to be an honorable, loving person in the sphere that God had put me in. I'm gonna excel at the revealed things. There's so many unrevealed things. I don't know. But I'm not gonna panic about wondering whether or not you're doing your job. I'm gonna do mine. And I'm gonna excel at what you called me to do. I'm gonna be good at loving people today. I'm gonna be excellent at what is good and innocent of evil. I want to live a beautiful, commendable life. And so far, I look and see God provide. I trust Him more and stress less. And I want that for you. To release, to embrace, and then to excel. What He's called you to. Then you can live a life that's commendable, beautiful, change the world that way.

Louie Zamperini was an Olympian who served in World War II, flew a bomber, shot down in the Pacific. He had to exist on a life raft for 47 days, became emaciated. When he was finally found, as a grown man, he weighed less than 90 pounds. But he was found by the enemy, taken to a POW camp led by a man, Watanabe, that was a sadist who enjoyed torturing people and did pretty horrible things to these men. Louie, most of all, because he was famous. So he made section came out as a unique recipient of his torture. A one time tying him up and having a line of men take turns just punching him in the face over 200 times, just brutalized him. The United States allied won the war, got to go home. Louie went home, sweetheart, got married. But even though he left the war, the war didn't leave him. And they wrote a book about him, "Unbroken." But when he got home, he broke. PTSD was ripping apart inside. He didn't know what to do with the flashbacks, the nightmares, the purse of anger, yelling at his wife. At one point, she came home, he was shaking their child. So he began to do what a lot of people do in that moment, try to bury it and alcohol, which became a whole different set of problems. And finally, she had to make the healthy decision, "We have to get away from you." Realize that he was about to lose the best things in his life. He consented to her last-ditch effort to help him. There was a Billy Graham crusade in LA. So he went with her to hear the evangelist Billy Graham. As he sat there, Billy Graham talked about how every person's beautiful image of God, but you're broken because of sin, and you can't fix you. And Louie got up and stormed out. "How dare you tell me I'm a bad person? I'm a good person." And he left. I realize he still went home and had nothing but alcohol, no life, no kids. He thought, "I don't have solutions here." So he went back.

And that next night, Billy was speaking out of Jesus walking on water in the midst of the storm. And in the midst of that, he said, "Some of you are lost, adrift at sea in the storms of life, and you can't navigate your way out. But your God rides over the storm, and He has purpose for your life." And he records in that moment, it stunned him. As he thought about his life, he remembered on that raft praying to God, "If you save me, I will serve you." And he started to think about the fact that when his ship went down, he was tangled up in metal and cords, but then suddenly was set free. When different planes were strafing his raft out in the open ocean, he was never hit. When he arrived in some very precarious places, at different strategic moments in his story, believers in Jesus from different countries helped keep him alive. And he had survived to this moment by the grace of God. And he began to realize, "God rules my story, not my enemy." He'd been consumed with not just anxiety, but anger, and wanted to murder the man who had tortured him. And yet, in that moment, he realized, "That man doesn't determine my story. God does. And I'm a mess. I'm not good for my family. But Jesus came for me. He walked out into my storm. That he can forgive my sin. He can make me something new." Louie stood up and he walked down that aisle, a broken man who was made whole by the grace of Jesus. He began to read the Word of God, began to work with troubled youth, preaching to them. Got to a point where he was invited to go back to Japan and preach the gospel to war criminals. And he went and did it, telling them about the grace of Jesus that forgave even him. He found out that the guy who had tortured him was still alive, asked to see him, and the guy wouldn't do it. So he wrote him this letter. I'll close with this. He said, "As a result of my prisoner of war experience under your unwarranted and unreasonable punishment, my post-war life became a nightmare. It was not so much due to the pain and suffering as it was the tension of stress and the humiliation that caused me to hate with a vengeance. Under your discipline, my rights not only as a prisoner of war, but also as a human being, were stripped from me. It was a struggle to maintain enough dignity and hope to live until the war's end. But it was the post-war nightmares that caused my life to crumble. But thanks to a confrontation with God through the evangelist Billy Graham, I committed my life to Jesus, and love has replaced the hate I have for you. Christ said, 'Forgive your enemies and pray for them.' As you probably know, I returned to Japan and was allowed to address the Japanese war criminals at Sugamo prison. I asked them about you, and they told me you had probably committed suicide. And I was sad to hear it. At that moment, like I did with the others, I forgave you. And even now, I would hope that you would become a Christian." Can you believe that? A life broken by the stress of his very real pain, and yet by releasing it into the hands of Christ and taking up a belief in the sovereignty of his Father and the grace of the Son, he was able to forgive, find peace, to think about the words of God, and then to walk them out. You said to forgive, so I'll forgive. You said, "The blessing on curse, then I will bless." I will offer grace even to my enemy. And the world marvels at a man like that. New York Times bestsellers are written about a grace like that. That's the life available to us in Christ. That's the opportunity on the table if we will walk the path He's given us by His grace.