A Gentle Whisper: Listening for God in Anxiety

Thank you, Dr. Smith, for jumping in to help us today.

Terrific.

Well, this semester we're looking at a gentle whisper, listening

for God.

How do we hear God?

And, you know, we took from the story of Elijah that the Lord

was not in the wind, the Lord was not in the earthquake, the Lord

was not in the fire, but after the fire, a gentle whisper.

How do we hear from God?

How do we hear that whisper?

Just to go back two weeks, when we started and we looked at

the story of Elijah, I think there were four things we took away

from it.

The first was, you have to be willing to listen.

Are you willing to listen to God?

People say, I want to hear from God, but they're not really

willing to listen because if God speaks, you better do what he

says.

And so when God speaks, are we really willing to listen?

Secondly, we learned from Elijah that you have to ask in order

for God to speak to you, you have to ask God to speak to you.

And a lot of us just haven't asked.

And so that's what I hope today and this semester we're going

to learn to do is to ask God to speak to us.

And then thirdly, hearing from God requires reflection.

Remember when Elijah, when God finally spoke to Elijah, the first

thing he said is, what are you doing here?

In other words, reflect on what got you here, this mess that

you've created, this overwhelming hopelessness that you

have in your life, what got you here.

Reflect on that.

And then we must get close to God to hear his whisper.

Because if God's going to whisper, you can't hear it unless

you're up close.

And that whisper means that God is approachable.

So he's approachable through Scripture, where we hear him whisper

to us from learning the kingdom perspective, being around

other Christian people who can help, and turning off the clatter

of the noise all around us.

And that's not easy to do.

But, you know, the key question to be asking is, what's

God saying in whatever it is you're facing?

When people come see me, pretty much everybody's got a problem.

I don't get any people who come just to say, have a nice day.

They come with a problem.

And when they come with a problem, my question to them often

is, what do you think God's saying in this?

What's God trying to tell you through this problem, through this

challenge?

And we examine that together.

And when we learn to ask what God is saying, God will speak to

us.

You see, because the point of the story of Elijah is God never

left Elijah Elijah stopped listening.

And when you stop listening, you don't find God's best for our

life.

When you stop listening, we don't find the life better than we

can imagine.

We stop listening.

The challenges of life overwhelm us and we get hopeless,

like Elijah did.

And so that's my prayer for this semester, that we'll learn to

listen to God.

And today I want to talk about how.

How do we listen to God in the times of anxiety, when we're anxious,

how do you hear from God?

Pray with me, and then we're going to open that question.

Lord, speak to us here in these next few minutes.

There's probably nobody in this room who doesn't have some anxieties.

So in our anxieties, how do you speak to us?

Let us learn from your experience with your disciple Peter.

Your name, we ask it.

Amen.

Listening to God in our anxiety.

Before we talk about anxiety, we need to have a little straight

talk, okay?

About mental health, mental health and physical health.

For some reason in our society, we all are willing to raise

our hand and say, I've got a physical health problem.

I broke my leg, I need a surgery, I got cancer, I got this

or that.

And we go and do somebody who's specialized in that, and we

get treatment and we get better, and God put that person there

to help us get better.

But when it comes to mental health, often there's a stigma.

I can't raise my hand and say, I need help.

I can't seek treatment, because what would people think?

I'm afraid of that because what would it stir up in my life?

And so we tend to go untreated in mental health.

And it's really a shame when we have mental health care available

to us and all of us need to work on our mental health just as

we do our physical health.

A lot of you are athletes or dancers or something where physical

health is really important.

Well, because of that, you're really careful what you eat and you

exercise and you get good sleep and you avoid the things that

hurt you.

That's what we do for our physical health.

Mental health is the same way.

There has to be a pattern and a regimental of things that help

us strengthen our mental health and not make it more difficult.

And so for all of us, anxiety is an issue.

But I want to separate out first people who are dealing with

anxiety at a whole different level.

There are folks among us who are dealing with anxiety who have

chronic anxiety disorder or they have clinical depression.

And this message today is not for you.

The message for you is I encourage you to get help, get treatment,

find a professional who can help you with it.

Don't let somebody shame you into not getting help with your mental

health.

You're not going to pray it away.

Don't fall for that.

You've got professionals who can help you and lead you through

tough emotional mental health issues and find those people who

can help you.

And for some of you, that's been triggered because you've been

abused.

Some of you have had trauma in your life.

Some of you may be in an OCD loop that's really hard to break.

And out of that you can't get a new pattern, get help for that.

You know, I will tell you this, OCD is the easiest mental health

issue to treat.

If you're dealing with OCD loops, get help on that.

It may take two or three or four times of different drugs until

you find the one that works for you, but that can be treated.

Now, abuse, trauma, that takes a lot more work and it's hard work,

but it needs to be done.

Because if you don't do that hard work, it'll just eat up the

rest of your life and it'll control everything that happens.

So I encourage you, if you're in that category, get some help and

that help is available.

God's put it there and to not take advantage of it is going to

hurt your life.

So I encourage you to do that.

But for all the rest of us, we have mechanisms we use for coping

with anxiety.

And today's biblical example we're going to take from Peter and

Jesus.

Walking on the water is a biblical solution that I hope brings

clarity for how the rest of us deal with anxiety.

Because you see, anxiety is rooted in pressure.

When you get anxious, if you got a big test tomorrow and you're

not ready, you're pretty anxious if you got a big game that's

coming up.

Men's basketball team has a 10 game winning streak on the line.

The next one becomes a lot more important.

And so the anxiety level raises with that.

Maybe it's a performance, you're doing, dance theater, whatever

it may be.

You know, reality TV is all built on building anxiety, building

the pressure, building to the point people explode on camera.

Because that's really entertaining for all the rest of

us.

I feel badly for those people who go through it.

Sometimes our anxieties are defined.

We know exactly where it's coming from, but for a lot of times

they're undefined.

We just feel anxious and we don't really understand why.

But God can help in those times.

But I do worry about you because of the pressure on your generation.

You face pressures of anxiety that I don't have.

You are the first generation, first generation ever to feel like,

for the most part, you will not have it better than your parents

financially.

First generation ever happened before.

You're a generation that is totally connected by social media

and constantly in connectivity.

And there's a great thing about that, but there's an overwhelming

thing about that too.

And unfortunately, that triggers a whole pattern of isolation

and loneliness.

It's amazing how we're more connected than ever and we're more

lonely and isolated than ever.

And then you got the whole work life balance, which all of us

face.

But I think you face it harder because there's a whole level of

expectations that come.

They're way beyond your to do list.

Your to do list is heavy enough, but then there's these expectations

that you're supposed to do this and this and this and be this.

Pressures from mom, dad or society or friends or whatever it

may be, or maybe internal, and that comes with it.

And then there's a lot of uncertainty about the future.

We're living in strange times.

There's a lot of uncertainty.

So I worry about you because of the extra level of anxiety poured

into your life.

And.

And so with that, we all find ways to cope.

And usually those are healthy.

We do different things to cope.

I don't know what works for you.

For me, golf really works.

If I can go play nine holes, I feel a whole lot better about life.

And it all gets sorted out by the ninth hole.

Maybe for you it's exercise.

Maybe for you it's going to a movie.

Maybe for you it's playing a video game.

Maybe for you it's being with a friend, Whatever it may be.

We find ways to do that, to deal with anxieties.

And if you don't deal with them, and even if you do, sometimes

your dreams will take over your anxieties as well.

And you dream, and that's where anxieties get worked.

And sometimes those are nightmares as well.

So we find healthy ways to do it, but some of us find destructive

ways to try to deal with this anxiety.

Max Lucado is a pastor of a huge church down in San Antonio.

Real famous, written a ton of books.

Top Christian speaker.

I love his stuff.

I've read a lot of his books.

But Max Lucado, a few years ago, just couldn't handle pressure

anymore.

It just got to him.

It was too much.

And so he started driving across the other side of town in

San Antonio to buy liquor.

And he would privately drink until the point that it was starting

to control his life.

He's written about it.

I'm glad he came forward with it.

Written about it because he can help other people who have been

in that level of anxiety.

Because a lot of people self medicate to deal with their anxiety.

That may be alcohol, maybe drugs.

Some people turn to sex, others do shopping, others eat, go

to food.

Some people exercise like crazy, deal with anxiety.

Some people get really spiritually intense and that's not

always healthy.

Some people act out, other people bully or unhealthy ways to

deal with anxiety.

And if you're dealing with some of those unhealthy ways, go

to one of our counselors.

You know, we have three different counselors now, and we

have both men and women.

So that you have a choice of who you can go to and go and get

some help with that stuff.

If you're dealing with really can be helped when you get some therapy

and some work on it.

And I'll tell you something important about counselors.

If you go to a counselor and you don't like that counselor, it

just didn't.

It's not helping me quit.

Go to somebody else.

You will not hurt a counselor's feeling ever.

They are trained for that.

You don't have to have a graceful goodbye.

You don't have to come up with 10 reasons why I'm not going to work

with you anymore.

Just don't go.

Go to somebody else.

Don't stop going.

Just go to somebody else.

Because sometimes the mix has to be just right in order to get

the help.

But you know, all of us deal with anxiety and nobody was exempt

from anxiety.

If you were here last semester when we talked about the Easter week

in the garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane, praying to his father,

saying, please, could this not happen to me?

I really don't want to do this.

Knowing that his disciples were going to betray him in a few

minutes.

Knowing that he was going to be arrested and he was going to be

humiliated, knowing that he was going to be beaten and tortured,

knowing he was going to die a very, very gruesome death on a cross,

Knowing that in the garden he prayed.

And the anxiety was so heavy, the scripture says the sweat came

down like drops of blood.

Have you ever been so anxious you just start sweating?

Jesus was overwhelmed at that moment with anxiety.

Nobody's exempt from anxiety.

So anxiety can be one of the most intense feelings we have, especially

when you feel like there's no way out.

And it can consume us and we're surrounded by it.

And so today's story takes us there, takes us to that level of

anxiety where we see Jesus walking on the water and Peter coming

to walk to him on the water.

It's a biblical example for how to cope with anxiety.

And if we don't find a good model for coping with anxiety, anxiety

steals our joy and it robs our peace and it takes away our hope.

So this is an important question to ask the Lord.

How do we deal with anxiety?

God cares about anxiety.

Here's the Scripture.

Psalm 139 Search me, O Lord, and know my heart.

Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there's any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way

everlasting God cares about our anxieties.

Is anxiety a sin?

No, it's not a sin.

Is anxiety human nature in a fallen world?

Absolutely, yes, it is.

Will we be anxious in heaven?

In God's perfect world, in his presence?

Will we be anxious there?

Of course not.

So it follows that this side of heaven, the closer we can get

to God, the better we can manage our anxiety.

And that's where we need to learn from this experience of Peter,

because that's what he did.

Now let me pull out a few verses that was read so nicely for

us earlier, the whole thing.

But let me pull out just a few verses to highlight.

About 3 o' clock in the morning, Jesus came to them, walking

on the water.

Peter called out to him, lord, if it's really you, tell me to come

to you by walking on the water.

So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water

toward Jesus.

But when he looked around at the high waves, Peter was terrified

and began to sink.

Instantly, Jesus reached out his hand and grabbed him.

You don't have much faith, jesus said.

Why did you doubt me?

Then the disciples worshiped him.

You really are the Son of God.

They exclaimed.

This is one of my favorite stories in the whole Bible, because

it's been a guide for my life, because it says so.

When Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water

toward Jesus, he really did it.

But then Peter looked around at the highways and was terrified

and began to now we've got to get a little more context for what's

going on here.

If you go back to the beginning of the chapter of Matthew

14, it talks about John the Baptist.

John the Baptist was the one sent before Jesus to tell of his

coming.

John The Baptist was a prophet, and he was.

They didn't have the scripture like we did.

So he would speak about the coming of Jesus.

He would tell that this one the Messiah is going to come.

And he was a wild guy.

He kind of upset a lot of people by the way he behaved and

the aggressiveness of which he did it.

So he was this kind of prophet who was out there telling the message

of Jesus, but he was also Jesus cousin.

They were related.

They were family.

Now, Jesus didn't go public with his ministry until he was about

30.

And John the Baptist had been working for several years before

that, but they were the same age, essentially.

So what happened was that John the Baptist upset so many people

that King Herod felt like he was a threat.

Well, really, King Herod's wife felt like he was a threat and

talked King Herod into arresting him.

So they arrested John.

And I don't think Herod was all that bought in, but he kind of

went along with it because his wife said he's going to do it.

So, you know, that's probably a good thing to do.

So he does, he arrests John, figures that's taken care of.

Well, they had a big party one night, and his daughter did this

really special dance.

And the king was so proud of his daughter.

And he says to her, I'll give you an oath.

I'll give you anything you want as a thank you for that wonderful

dance.

And she says, I want John the Baptist's head on a platter.

And that's what they did.

Herod didn't want to do it, but he promised.

And in those days, your promise was everything.

So they beheaded John the Baptist and brought here the head

of John the Baptist.

Well, the scripture says Jesus heard the news.

And when Jesus heard the news, he wanted to be alone.

And he got in a boat and went to a remote place.

Have you ever.

When you've heard the news, a lot of you have had family members

die.

It's like a gut punch.

And the only thing you really want at that moment is just to be

alone.

You don't want people telling you stuff.

You don't want to be pressured on stuff.

You just want to be alone.

And that's how Jesus felt.

This was the one who went before him.

This was the one who was his family member.

And he'd been beheaded because the girl who did a dance wanted him

dead.

So he was pretty heartsick.

So he went alone to find a place to be alone in a boat all by

himself.

Didn't go with his Eyes only by himself.

So he gets, he's going to the boat and.

But, but he was pretty popular in those days, so all the people

wanted to go where he was.

So they're all walking around the side of this, of this lake or

whatever it was, trying to get to where Jesus was headed.

And once he got there, all the people were there.

And then he just felt like he needed to help them.

So he healed the sick, he preached to them, did all that kind

of stuff.

And this went on all day.

Well, as it started to get dark, the disciples got together

and said, we got a.

With something.

These people haven't anything to eat all day.

We're out here in the middle of nowhere, you know, and there's

not like you can go to a store and get anything.

We got to send them home in a hurry because they haven't had anything

to eat.

So they go to Jesus and they say, we got to get them out of here.

And he says, no, no, you feed them.

They just laugh there.

Are you kidding?

We can't feed them.

We got five pieces of bread and we got two fish.

We're not going to feed them.

We got all these people.

He said, give it to me.

Took the bread, put the fish, blessed it, and he fed all of them.

Now the scripture says he fed 5,000 men.

And we always talk about feeding the 5,000, but it said, plus

the women and children.

They only counted men in those days, and that was a cultural thing.

But he fed the women and the children.

There were probably maybe about 20,000 people there that he

fed in all this.

And they said everybody ate all they wanted and they had 12 baskets

left over.

But Jesus pain hadn't gone away.

So he finally told the people to leave.

He put the disciples in a boat, told them to go back across

the way.

And he was going off, back to be alone because he was still grieving

over his cousin John.

So he went alone to pray.

But then the scripture says the storm came up about 3 o' clock

in the morning.

So the disciples were probably rowing about four hours at this point,

trying to get them back to the other side.

Storm came up and it would have been a big storm because they

were really afraid they were going to sink.

And so they hadn't made it back to shore.

The disciples were in trouble.

And here comes Jesus walking on the water toward them.

And of course they screamed.

They said, it's a ghost.

He said, no, no, it's not a ghost.

It's all right, I'm here.

Don't be afraid.

And then Peter, being the one who always takes charge, said, well,

if it's really you, tell me to come to you on the water.

Tell me to come to you.

Peter always wants an extra proof everybody else doesn't need.

And so Peter gets over the side of the boat and starts to walk

to him on the water.

Now, there are five take away principles in here that are really

helpful for dealing with anxiety.

First of all, Peter was willing to risk when Jesus called

him so often.

We want God to tell us what to do.

And when he tells us what to do, we're not willing to take the

risk.

Peter's willing to take the risk.

It was huge faith, walking on water.

Nobody had ever done it.

It's impossible.

Not just walking on water in a storm with the waves around and the

winds and everything going on.

For what?

Just to walk out to him?

Just to prove he could do it?

Yeah, I guess so.

Because they didn't.

Wherever they're going to go, you know, some people when they're

anxious, deal with it by doing nothing.

I just want to shut down my world.

I just want to get away.

I want to close down.

Peter, on the other hand, said, I'm willing to go.

I'm willing to risk if you tell me to come.

And so he did.

He took the risk and then he focused on Jesus.

So he gets out of this boat.

This wasn't a little rowboat.

It's probably a fairly good sized boat.

Normally you would jump down into the water and go all the way

down, come back up.

He didn't.

He just got out, got down on the water, and he started toward

Jesus.

Now if he's starting toward Jesus, he's got to be looking at

Jesus, right?

He didn't get out of the boat and just start wandering around.

He said he started toward Jesus.

So he's looking at Jesus and walking toward.

As long as he's walking toward him, he's doing great.

He's on top of the water.

Hebrews chapter 11, which is the story of all the heroes of faith.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

It says, fix your eyes on.

On Jesus.

Fix your eyes on Jesus.

When our eyes are fixed on Jesus, we can do the impossible.

And that's what Peter did that day.

He got out of the boat and he walked on the water toward Jesus

when he was looking straight at him and he didn't look anyplace

else.

Well, then the scripture goes on to tell us, he started looking

around.

So he's taking a few steps, he's on top of the water and he starts

looking around.

I'M sure you thought, what in the world am I doing out here?

Look at the waves, look at the wind.

I'm standing out in the middle of this body of water.

I'm going to drown.

They probably didn't.

A lot of them didn't swim in those days.

Probably going to drown.

What am I going to do?

And he started to sink.

When the realities of life overwhelm our faith, we start to

sink.

When we start looking at the realities, instead of fixing our

eyes on Jesus, we start to sink.

Now, these are the exact same waves when he started to sink as

they were a few minutes before when he was walking on the water,

it hadn't changed.

So what had changed?

His focus on Christ.

He was frozen in anxiety and started looking at all the storm

around him instead of looking at Jesus.

When he took his eyes off Jesus, he was terrified.

And it became a bad outcome as he started to sink.

And then immediately, I love this.

Instantly, Jesus reached out his hand and grabbed him.

Why didn't you have much faith?

Jesus said, why did you doubt me?

And the disciples worshiped him.

You really are the Son of God.

They exclaimed.

Instantly, he reached out for them.

You know, he could have said, well, Peter, I told you to get out

of the boat.

I told you to come to me.

Instead, you're looking around at all the storm.

I so sink a little bit.

Get him wet for a while and that'll teach you a lesson.

He didn't do that.

He reached out immediately and pulled him back out.

And that's what God does for us, reaches us out.

Well, what changed?

What changed?

When he had his eyes fixed on Jesus, he was walking on top of the

water.

When his eyes were on the storm, he was sinking.

That's the only difference.

There is no other difference.

We need to keep our eyes fixed on Christ, especially when we are

in the storm.

See, because every time we trust God, during times of anxiety

and storms in our life, we know him better.

That's why the disciples finally said when they got back in

the boat, they said, you really are the Son of God.

Like we just figured this out.

Why didn't you figure it out on shore when I just fed 20,000 people

with this little basket of fruit?

I didn't figure it out then, but now it got personal and they

figured it out.

You really are the Son of God.

Every time we trust God more and more, we see him more clearly

and our anxieties become more manageable.

But that's not the last time Peter had anxieties.

You'd think after that, he'd go, I'm never taking my eyes off

Jesus again.

Because, I mean, I walked on water and if I looked around, I sunk.

And so I'm just focused on that.

You'd think he'd do that the rest of his life.

He didn't.

Even when Jesus was arrested and crucified, Peter denied him three

times.

Three times because of his anxieties, took over for him.

Well, here are the takeaways.

Be willing to risk.

When Jesus calls us to do the impossible, be willing to step out.

Keep your eyes focused on Jesus.

Don't forget that Jesus is stronger than the storm, and Jesus

will reach out for us even when we doubt.

So you don't have to do it perfectly, but just take the step.

But every time we trust him, we see God better.

So I want to give you a practical tool real quick that will

help you to deal with anxieties.

I have anxieties, you know, I'm responsible for all you.

That makes me anxious a lot because I worry about you.

And then we got 3,000 online students, and I'm responsible for

them.

And then we got 450 employees, and I'm responsible for making their

paycheck in.

These fitness families are dependent on me to do all that.

I got anxieties.

And sometimes the storm's a lot.

So here's what I do.

I've been doing this, as I told you, for 50 years, 5, 0.

50 years I've been doing it.

First of all, I identify the anxieties.

What's got me anxious.

You know, when you're anxious, you just kind of feel it.

You're not really stopping to say what it is.

So when I'm anxious, I stop and I say, okay, what is it that's

got me bugged?

And I start to identify it.

Sometimes you can identify it, sometimes you can't.

Unless you really put in some time and some thought and some work,

and then you finally figure it out.

What is it that's really causing the anxiety?

Identify that storm.

And then I write it down.

I write it down on a piece of paper.

Now, I don't write it down on a piece of paper for anybody else

to see.

Some of that stuff I don't necessarily want anybody else to

see.

And you're going to write down some stuff you don't want anybody

to see.

So this is not for anybody else to see.

This is for you.

Take your anxieties, identify them.

Write them down on a piece of paper for nobody to see.

Take that list and just ask yourself, is God more powerful than

this?

Is God more powerful than this?

Is God more powerful than this?

Yeah, he is all the way through.

When Peter looked at the storm, he sank.

When he looked back at Jesus, he pulled out of the water.

Ask Christ to help you to do the impossible.

Yeah, these anxieties may feel like they're impossible, but they're

really not in the hands of God.

So ask him to do that and then do this.

And this is critical.

Take that list and stick it away in your Bible for about two

to three months now.

I put them on my Bible.

You can put it someplace else if you want.

If you want to put it in chapter 14 of Matthew where this

story is.

But take that list of your anxieties, commit them to the Lord

and stick it in your Bible and do not look at it again for two to

three months.

And in two to three months, this is what's going to happen.

In two to three months, you're going to go back to that list and

nearly all those things are going to be taken care of.

It has happened to me over and over and over again.

When I go back to the list, it's like, yeah, that worked out.

That worked out.

That's off the list every time.

And then you know what else happened at that point?

You're going to have a new list every time.

You're going to have a new list of new anxieties and new stresses

and new storms that are in your life.

And do it again, and do it again.

Every time you go through this cycle, you trust God more and you

see God more clearly.

I told you, I've been doing this for 50 years.

And I used to do it probably five or six times a year, and now

maybe I'm down to maybe once a year.

I do this because through the years I've just learned how to trust

God more and to see him more clearly.

And that's what God will do in your life.

The more you trust him with your anxieties, the more clearly

you're going to see him.

Well, listening to God and your anxieties instead of looking

only at the storms around us, if we'll listen to God in our times

of anxieties, that's when we can learn to trust him more and better

know who he really is, the Son of God.

Make that your prayer as we say our benediction together.

No eye is seen, no ear is heard, no mind is conceived.

But God has prepared for those who love him.

God bless.

Have a great day.