John

This is a rock House Center podcast and I'm John Murphy.

Beth

I'm Beth Murphy and we want to talk today about anxiety and the keys to defeating anxiety.

Beth

We have always had a lot of calls from people who experience anxiety, worry, panic attacks, but that's really intensified with the whole season of COVID, and that's brought forth.

Beth

Things that perhaps made suppressed.

Beth

Hadn't thought about in a while.

Beth

Well, but it's really coming to the surface in an intensified kind of way, so it's important now that we we really pull the curtain back on looking at what are the ways to defeat anxiety?

John

Yeah, I think we'll just go ahead and not wait till the end to give the answer, but the answer is trust that the condition of fear and anxiety is that we do not have something that we can trust in that's that's bigger than the things that we are wrestling with.

John

The things that we are challenged by the things that rob us of our peace, the things that we worry about when we are in a situation.

John

Where we feel like we have to.

John

Control it to get peace about it.

John

Then what we discover is there's a tremendous number of things that we in our lives.

John

We really can't.

John

Control they're.

John

Out of our control and so just like this, the foundational reason that all mankind needs a God.

John

We need a guy that we can trust in who's bigger than the challenges of.

John

Our life.

John

And so trust is we want to really focus on the word trust and understand that.

John

The spectrum here is.

John

It controls on one end and trust is on the other.

John

On the trying to control everything in your life side, there's usually a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety because you can't control everything.

John

There are a lot of things which are bigger than we are on the other end of the spectrum.

John

There's trust and trust in God for the deepest things that we need in life and assurance about life and peace about life.

John

That's where we're going.

John

That's where it's going to come from is going.

John

To be trusting in him so the foundational.

John

Answer to the question is what is the key to defeating anxiety?

John

The key to defeating anxiety is trust.

Beth

And you can see why the circumstances around the COVID in our world have pulled the rug out from under people lives.

Beth

Or there is the threat that it could be so even if they haven't had a.

Beth

A significant financial loss, but they can see the there.

Beth

It might be imminent or lose looming, or they're a threat of.

Beth

On or all of the other things that are are really shaky or they feel rocked about in life as as any of us could.

Beth

In these current circumstances.

Beth

Then it begins to make us see that we're we have been operating in a lot of control and it sort of to some extent has worked.

Beth

It's felt like it's worked because we sort of fooled ourselves into believing that we're controlling things 'cause we're.

Beth

Kind of manage.

Beth

Getting it, but when it becomes apparent that actually we're not controlling anything, we're really not controlling other people and how they behave.

Beth

We can't control the circumstances of our own lives, and that's what really makes it clear.

Beth

Just back to what you were saying initially is that we all need something bigger than ourselves.

Beth

And bigger than the things that are facing us and all the unknowns down the road.

Beth

That's what we need to be able to trust in.

Beth

And of course that leads us to the only one there is, which is God.

Beth

That's the only one who is bigger than all that.

John

Yes, as we talked about in our last podcast, there are a lot of things that people have a tendency to trust in and something like the COVID scenario where our world has been turned upside down.

John

We've learned they've learned that those things are not trustworthy.

John

The money they had in the bank, the job they had, the situation, you know, whatever it is they were depending on to feel OK about life and trusting for worth.

John

Acceptance and all those other key elements of what we need to have peace.

John

That the things we were trusting in we just were not trustworthy.

John

And So what we've heard before the conversation about idols and false gods, and we talked a lot last time about the specific kinds of things, like monies and jobs and people.

John

And those kinds of things, as stuff that we've trusted in.

John

So we've kind of dug into that.

John

And we know what a false God is.

John

We know what a golden calf is.

John

That's something that clearly is not real, and we understand those things to be idols and false gods.

John

In the SM G version of God.

John

But but it's interesting that the foundational thing.

John

The most common thing that we probably find is really false perceptions of who the God is.

John

I mean, they they definitely feel as though they're connecting with the God of the Bible Capital G.

John

God here, but their impression of who he is is false and because of that false impression of who?

John

He is, he seems to be someone who's a little scary, a little sketchy and kind of hard to trust for a lot of people and with certain kinds of things, and certainly some of the deepest things that we need to have assurance about life and half piece.

John

We need to be getting those things from God, but if we have a wrong impression.

John

Of who he is then that's our problem.

John

Then we're going to have a problem feeling as though these things are resolved or satisfied or are fulfilled if we are trying to trust in something that we don't feel is really that trustworthy because they really have a wrong impression or wrong interpretation of his character.

Beth

So we know from Scripture that the enemy strategy from the garden forward is to get us to think and believe accusations about God, character, wrong beliefs about God that he really isn't trustworthy, doesn't have our best interests in mind, is in some way a shaky, rocky.

Beth

Foundation, and we've got to resort to our own control as they did then, and everyone in mankind has done going forward and that place, of course, is precisely where the enemy would want all followers of Christ or everyone to live, because that is.

Beth

The the most clever and subtle separation from God is wrong beliefs about him and his character.

Beth

His love for us who he really is, and the depth of his love being his power and all of what we can operate in in connection with him as truly who we need for.

Beth

Every breath we take and every step we take, but if we're disconnected from him because we're not just not so sure about him.

Beth

Not really sure I can trust him and maybe I'm really all on my own.

Beth

Well then that's the foundation for anxiety, worry, fear and panic.

John

Yeah, I think an interesting example are the Jews during the exodus time where they they're closed in, wear out their sandals didn't wear out.

John

They had the food they needed, but they had a problem and they were warned to not collect more mana than they needed for it.

John

And because and the result was when those who didn't trust God that he would be able to deliver the food the next day, they went out and collected for two days, and then it would go bad.

John

And then they had to deal with the consequences of bad food in their tent or whatever.

John

The consequence was.

John

I don't know exactly what it was, or maybe they tried to eat it.

John

Or something.

John

It was a bad outcome, but the point there was just that there was God delivering food to them was a basic foundational need, a sense of peace about provision.

John

He gave them what they needed that day total.

John

There'll be more tomorrow.

John

Don't worry about it, but they didn't trust and they had a consequence for not true.

John

Testing, and that's a real small example, but that is really the mechanism here and the way it works is that when we don't trust God and we take things into our own hands and try to control things, then we don't.

John

Then we don't have a good outcome and and it also sets us up that if I don't have the ability to trust in him and have assurance and confidence.

John

And he's going to deliver on those things because I don't know him.

John

As someone who is trustworthy, then I'm going to have a lot of uncertainty and a lot of anxiety about the basic things that I need.

John

In line and I just want to bring up this one scripture here that speaks to this point. It's second Peter 1/2.

John

And I'll read it to you. It says make this is the amplified Bible, the classic version. So it says May grace, which is God's favor and peace, which is perfect.

John

Well, being all necessary, good all spiritual prosperity and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts be multiplied in you in the full, personal, precise, correct?

John

Knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, very clearly.

John

To cut that down, it says make may peace be multiplied in you.

John

From knowing God and Jesus correctly.

John

So there it is.

John

That's that's the statement.

John

And there's a lot of times that the foundational thing that will disrupt our piece is going to be having a wrong impression of who God is.

John

And so I think we want to kind of focus on it, and that because it is a really common thing of the people that come and and reach out to us.

John

It's a really common thing to see that there somehow they've gotten a misunderstanding.

John

Of God and how they do it and how we help them.

Beth

Pass that there are many examples that come to mind, but two in particular because they so clearly represent the level of suffering that people can have.

Beth

As a result of a wrong understanding of God and his character, so the first it came to mind while just then where you're talking is.

Beth

Actually, quite a few people who have a fear panic attacks care about getting on an airplane, and ultimately it comes to light that they have this foundational fear.

Beth

That they that God would actually send them to hell if they had a bad thought that they hadn't repented of, and the plane crashed.

Beth

Or they had some sin that they had not repented of, and the plane crashed and they didn't have time to repent of it, and so that would mean that God would send them to hell, which is a basic misunderstanding.

Beth

Of the Christian faith, but ultimately really of the character of God that.

Beth

He would that he would be someone who would do that and that our salvation is is insufficient.

Beth

What Jesus did on the cross is insufficient and therefore God is angrily going around looking for people who have perfectly repented right up to their last breath.

Beth

And as extreme as that sounds.

Beth

We've seen it repeatedly, directly connected to people who have care about getting on an airplane.

Beth

And another thing that comes to mind, that's a theme that crosses over many areas of of life.

Beth

But the concept is this fear or this wrong belief about God, that he is someone who takes things from us, takes a loved one and and people will say my my loved one was snatched away or.

Beth

Ripped away from me and and the thought of course is who did the snatching or the ripping away as the thought is that it was God who did that?

Beth

Or maybe it's a job.

Beth

Or my dream house?

Beth

Or the thing that I had just gotten and thought it was a blessing from God.

Beth

But something happened to it.

Beth

It went away and and connecting that wrongly to the thought that God punishing them for something they did in childhood or for some sin they didn't feel like they'd adequately repented of or.

Beth

This place of suffering in life has happened in order to get their attention or punish them or punish their child for something that they did, that whole network.

Beth

Of what thinking is just a system of lies about the character of art loving Heavenly Father.

John

So we need to take a look at where does this come from?

John

What's the foundational common thing that we see as the origin of this wrong belief by who God is and I experienced it myself so I can just tell you my own story was I can remember not too many years into Christianity.

John

I started thinking about God, and as I thought about God and I wanted to engage him.

John

In a thought or in a prayer or whatever it was.

John

I just had the impression that I was talking to my father.

John

And and that would wow, that's amazing.

John

I mean, my dad now had a lot of conflicted years and it didn't really go that well.

John

A lot of times, and so I have that grid for my Heavenly Father.

John

It is the same as I had with my father.

John

And then that was when I first really experienced it, and it's so fascinating because we hear that repeatedly.

John

As a matter of fact, we've had other people outside of our office.

John

Even tell us stories where people had.

John

Confuse the Heavenly Father for their for their real father, for their earthly father, and they had attributed the character and the behavior and the interaction that they had with their earthly father with God.

John

And so then they presumed all of the same things that the ways in which that relationship maybe wasn't didn't go well, had negative.

John

Aspects to it they attributed all that to God, and so they couldn't bring really breakthrough because you know there may have been a situation where their father and maybe mother also were not trustworthy.

John

But these are the people who are gods of our youth, so our first understanding of how to relate?

John

Two gods has to be to our parents because we're these little people.

John

The parents are the large people who run this place, and obviously they're the ones we look up to.

John

They've got total power torque control, so our first beginning of forming a way of relating to God comes from the way we form the way we related to our parents, which has to do with what our experience was with them.

Beth

And the way we interpret our experience of them, you know, so it can be the things they say and do in this role of what we call divine authority, that we know that parents have in a child's life and maybe things that they say or do that don't accurately represent the character of God, or can be ways in which a child.

Beth

Misinterprets their discipline or their love for them and reads it wrong.

Beth

And and then really sort of smears that onto their understanding of God.

Beth

Or it can just be parent is sick and absent or deceased or whatever.

Beth

But somehow a child correctly or.

Beth

Incorrectly interprets what they think about themselves or what they think about God based on the behavior, the actions, the way in which their earthly parents related to them, or the people who are in spiritual authority in their lives.

Beth

And that becomes this foundational wrong view of God that's carried on into what you know.

Beth

People will come here, perhaps describing themselves as.

Beth

Christians sold out believers.

Beth

One person might say that they are born again or another might say their spirit filled or however they describe themselves, but they're they're mystified by their inability to trust God.

Beth

Or they they think they are trusting God until they start really looking at it and realizing no.

Beth

Actually they don't trust God at all.

Beth

They've taken control and taking everything into their own hands.

John

It's also in the case if I had a neutral to good relationship with my parents, what we still see is that our parents are not divine and they have a limitation.

John

There are things they can't solve.

John

There are things that are bigger than they are, so even if I just take the sort of the natural, obvious aspects of humanity versus divinity and I take.

John

That mentality and I apply that humanity interpretation in terms of the limitations of humanity onto God.

John

There again in another interesting in different way.

John

I've also limited God because I've thought of him in the context of the limitations of humanity of my parents, the things they couldn't solve so you could have false reasons all the way from.

John

There's a bad experience all the way over to just the reality that you know there are things your parents couldn't.

John

Fix and if you think.

John

And you might think God's that way that he's got limitations on what he can do and what in the ways in which he can love you.

John

Or the ways in which he can provide for you.

John

So the interesting there are a lot of origins to getting this interpretation wrong, and it's just so critical to how we feel.

Beth

And people begin to understand that better when they start thinking about the adjectives or the way they might describe God, and they realize they're describing him with human limitation.

Beth

Maybe making me negative attributes that are completely conflict with the truth of what Scripture reveals to us about God.

Beth

And or or just like you were saying, just limited adjectives about him.

Beth

Just because you know parents make mistakes.

Beth

Parents get sick, parents die.

Beth

Parents just have the humanity, the limitations and people without realizing it have a kind of a fairly full.

Beth

Thought about God revolving around all kinds of human characteristics.

John

We can't limit.

John

God to the horizon that we can see the horizon of humanity and functioning in that place and it's kind of a similar thing is that we limit his perspective.

John

We limit his options.

John

We limit his power based on what we think the options are and one of the ways in which we assess that is is this whatever level of impression we may have had.

John

About our parents.

John

So I think that the it's really clear that what we're trying to get at is that if we're going to have more peace and less anxiety, then we're going to have to reverse these misinterpretations.

John

We're going to have to recognize that they're there, accept them the further there, and then resolve them through prayer and try to break these.

Beth

Things off because where we all want to live is on a foundation of the truth about who God is.

Beth

With all the unknowns of our lives and that like you're saying about this, we don't know what's going to be on the on the horizon beyond what we can see, which is extremely limited and our imagination even is limited for how God might resolve a situation that looks thorny or difficult, or.

John

Right?

Beth

Threatening or completely irresolvable.

Beth

And you know, the more you go on in life with the Lord, the more you see him over and over.

Beth

Repeatedly coming, I feel like it's like pulling a rabbit out of a hat where you just how in the world did you come up with that gut in terms of resolving the practical situation or the relationship struggle?

Beth

Or all of these situations that God so faithfully does address and resolve by giving us more of him more of his love, more of trust in him.

Beth

Closer oneness with him and, and that's where we that's where we want to live is getting at that deeper and deeper connection with and relying on trusting in God to know that I don't have to have the answers.

Beth

Just like your little child doesn't have to understand.

Beth

5% of the things that their parents are going to do for them, the ways they're going to protect them and have answers because they can't. They can't possibly compute all the things that their parents are knowing and doing.

Beth

For them.

Beth

And we're really in that kind of position with God.

Beth

And that's where he wants us to live in that childlike level of trust, because we just know that he is who he says he is, and he really is worthy of our trust and worthy of the fall.

Beth

Backwards came that we really can fall backwards, he'll catch us, and he is reliable and trustworthy.

Beth

That's where peace comes from.

John

You know, I think it's pretty unlikely that anyone has a complete well, no one has a complete understanding of God, but I also think it's about it, and that's obvious.

John

But I don't think there's anybody who doesn't have some false beliefs.

John

About God, no matter where you are, you probably have some false beliefs.

John

I've got about God, so you may have a really, intensely wrong setup and interpretation, or you may have just some other things, but.

Beth

Or just limited?

Beth

You know, maybe not screamingly obvious wrong beliefs, but just a limited view God.

John

Well, that's true too.

John

I mean, if you've limited God in your view, then that's a wrong belief as well, so it's hard.

Beth

Right?

John

So pretty much everybody has some wrong understanding of who God is.

John

So I just think it's really important to have a prayer where we substitute those misunderstandings for the truth of who he really is.

John

And so I just think we ought to draw everybody into a prayer to reject those lies and replace them with the truth and just ask him to help us do that, because we don't necessarily know all the truth.

John

But we can certainly.

John

Ask him to engage and invade our heart and substitute the lies which have cut us off from trusting him to the truth which would build the case for how trustworthy he really is.

Beth

How about we just jump in and do?

Beth

That prayer, then all right.

John

Yeah, let's do it.

Beth

Please repeat after me.

Beth

I'm going to say a phrase and then you can just repeat it for yourselves.

Beth

And so I'll have pauses in here so that you can really personalize this prayer for yourself.

Beth

Heavenly Father, I confess that I do not have peace.

Beth

Because of wrong beliefs or limited thoughts, I have about you.

Beth

Lord, I reject any belief that comes from my mother or father character.

Beth

Or behavior.

Beth

That didn't reflect your character.

Beth

Father, please heal them of how they've suffered.

Beth

From false beliefs that they've had about you.

Beth

Please remove any lies about you in my heart.

Beth

From misinterpreting my parents.

Beth

Representation of you.

Beth

Father, please remove these misunderstanding.

Beth

And replace them with the truth about you.

Beth

I declare the truth that you love me perfectly.

Beth

And eternally.

Beth

And that you are absolutely trustworthy.

Beth

To fill my deepest needs for peace.

Beth

You do not 'cause my suffering.

Beth

You redeem my suffering.

Beth

You Lord, do not cause my anxiety.

Beth

You bring me peace.

Beth

Please heal me of how I've suffered from those lies.

Beth

And strengthen me to not return to those lies.

Beth

And Lord, I give you permission to invade my heart with trust for you.

Beth

So that my heart can be at peace.

Beth

I pray this in the name of your son.

Beth

Jesus, Amen.

John

We just want to remind people that if they are having a hard time with anxiety and they need to dig deeper, hopefully this prayer has helped them some, but we obviously have tremendous results in helping folks work through some of this.

John

Sometimes it can be intricate.

John

It can take take more time and maybe take a little bit of help.

John

But then we're here then to please give us a call and we'd be glad to set up a time to have that conversation.

John

About how we can help them.

Beth

Well, thank you for listening and.

Beth

May you have a peaceful rest of your day?

John

Thanks for joining us goodbye.