With The Perrys - Fear of Death, Social Anxiety, and Other Angsty Things

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

At the root of anxiety is one tiny word that has the power to suck joy and contentment out of saints and aints alike—fear. Specifically, fear of what we cannot control. We examine why Adam and Eve l...acked anxiety in the Garden and what we can gain from them to lead less anxious lives.  Book Reference: The Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up y'all? Hey, Saints and Ate. How art thou? I have a question for you. What's up? Do you ever, like, find joy in the fact that, like, no matter what you wear to use the restroom, all you have to do is stand up? That's so random. No, because I've been doing that my whole life. I'm just saying, like, because sometimes I won't go, because I just don't want to have to go through the whole ordeal of sitting down and,
Starting point is 00:00:35 doing all the stuff. But y'all just go in there and just stand up. It's just, you just stand. Well, you gotta take the kids, swimming. You definitely sit down when you, you know. So when we potty trained August, is that going to be my job or yours? Because I really don't know what that's like to potty train a little boy. I've heard you put Cheerios in the thing and let them aim for it.
Starting point is 00:01:03 Well, I think one of the things that we can do, this might be TMI, but he just take them with me. It's like, oh. No, that's how I probably trained Eden and all. Because they have to see and observe. Yeah. But I just, I didn't know with boys if there was a, another strategy. Now, shake, son. Wow.
Starting point is 00:01:26 On his shake. So anyway. I'll go shimmy. Today, we're going to discuss. anxiety. Anxiety is really, you know, another way to discuss even the subject of fear. I think a really helpful definition to begin with is from Dan Allender in his book, The Cry of the Soul. He says, worry and fear are first cousins. They vary in intensity, but are both forms of the same emotion. Different people fear different things with different levels of intensity,
Starting point is 00:02:00 but all of us fear what we cannot control. Fear is our response to uncertainty about our resources in the face of danger. When we are assaulted by a force that overwhelms us and compels us to face that we are helpless and out of control. Fear is provoked when the threat of danger, physical or relational, exposes our inability to preserve what we most deeply cherish. Wow, that's so real. When you think about anxiety and the different ways that you have experienced it within yourself or anxiety as experienced with people that you're in relationship with or have done. ministry with would you say that it looks that way as in like this fear of not being able to control a particular thing that uh that that it's that like looks different on different people you know
Starting point is 00:02:47 what I'm saying yeah for sure basically for sure and what's crazy is I mean that's such a great question I will I will you know toss that same question back to you because I will love to hear your thoughts when it comes to that but yeah it's it is this um this constant fear throughout my life of not the unknown and not being able to control outcomes because I think that's I think that's really one of humanity's biggest issues is our inability to be God and our inability to be all knowing right and our inability to know the future and it's like it is a very like creation like we're automatically called to be vulnerable because we're created.
Starting point is 00:03:37 And so we're outside of space, time matter. Like we're outside of these things that limits us. You mean inside. I'm sorry, we're inside. That's what I'm going to say. We're inside. And God is outside. Yes.
Starting point is 00:03:51 And so because we're inside, it's like we have very little control, you know. And so I think that's one of humanity's like biggest issues. And so I think for me, you know, I fear so much, man, of like, like, even like my, my love for oceanography, like, it scares me, like, when we're on the ocean. And to think about, like, how deep this ocean is and how we don't really know how deep it is. When we think about the galaxies, we don't know, like, a bit God created this. And so, like, even this world that we live, I know I'm getting deep, but I'm just saying, like, it's so much to be anxious for if we don't surrender it to the Lord and then you take that to your
Starting point is 00:04:36 personal life it's like man we don't know when we're going to die we don't know how we're going to die we don't know how our loved ones are going to die and so like it's just like if you don't I think surrender these things to God I think that you could be in a constant state of fear and anxiety you know and so I don't know I don't know if that even made sense all the way but yeah that we live in a world that is controlled by a lot of different things that we ourselves have no control have no control over absolutely um i wonder though when you were talking because i always go back to the garden because i think the garden is just really a good way of understanding what things should have been yeah and why things are so different and you don't see any hints in the
Starting point is 00:05:26 text that there was fear or anxiety present within either Adam's soul, mine, Eve's soul, mine, or even like within their relationship. Because there are things that they potentially could have been anxious about. Yeah. Right. Like, okay, you told us to have dominion over the birds of the sea and the, the, not the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, you told us to cultivate and subdue. Like, you gave us a job.
Starting point is 00:05:55 Yeah. gave us a work. Anytime someone tells you to do a thing, especially a big task, there's fear. Yeah. But you don't see them tripping off of that. You know what I'm saying? And I think it's because they already had a really distinct and keen awareness that in all they're doing, God was with them.
Starting point is 00:06:12 Yeah. And I think because of the fault, that is really the thing or the missing piece that it takes faith to say, oh, God's actually like with me all the time. That's such a deep thought life. I'm so sorry. It's just like, that's such a deep thought. Yeah, that was overwhelming. YouTube side.
Starting point is 00:06:30 No, the reason why that's such a deep thought is because it's like when God created us, there was literally no need to be anxious for anything. And so the absence of, yeah, like God not being with us in the same way, like anxiety automatically and fear automatically being present, it's so deep to me because it's like, Jesus coming back to restore our relationship back to the Father, especially saying that in the same way, it's like, no, not only did I come to restore you back to the Father and bring you salvation, but also if you put your hope in me, I can give you that same security that I, that you
Starting point is 00:07:12 had with me when I first created you in the Guard. But it's so hard. We lose sight of that. We lose sight of the fact that God wants us to be in peace. Because this is one of the major differences between us. That's so deep to me. Us as in people and them as an adamanty is that the similarity is they, everything that they had to work with was given to them. Right? The earth, the birds, the, the fish, the land, the garden, their bodies, their bodies, their hands, their mind. Like, all of it was provided. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:50 And so there was no lack. Yeah. Everything we have, our bodies, our hands, the land, our gifts. our intellect it's all given to us and so we don't really have the fear lack in that sense but the first time you see fear is when sin enters and he says Adam where are you yeah and he's like oh I hid because I heard you coming and I was afraid yeah and that's what I was just thinking about like I hope you're going to connect to my point because I was still going oh I'm so sorry I'm sorry you know I was just thinking about the anxiety and fear that you had to feel of like hearing
Starting point is 00:08:23 God walk in the garden towards you and just like how like like they felt anxiety and fear for the first time and I just I can I couldn't imagine never feeling that feeling ever before and feeling it and feeling it but yeah it had to be very uncomfortable it's like a to feel stress to feel stress for the first time that has to be really weird ain't that weird to to sweat or to feel like you know your throat tighten up or your mind race like to to to to be able to able to experience what peace, what it's like to not have peace. Yes. Not only in yourself, but to not have peace with God, but also not to have peace with your spouse.
Starting point is 00:09:04 Yes. So it's all this angst in between all these different parties. Because we're born in the sin. We have those feelings at a very young age. Yeah. We know how it feels to be four or five and to feel uncomfortable or to feel anxious. But all they knew was peace. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:22 And then at an instant they didn't feel it. Yeah, I mean, I guess one thought could be is that observing how when Adam voiced his fear, it was when there had been a breach between his relationship with God. But even his fear was not a right kind of fear. Because if he was reverential towards God, he wouldn't have ran or hid from God. He would have ran towards him. And so I say that because a lot of times, especially nowadays, so I'll say it. Let me back up.
Starting point is 00:10:02 The way I tend to deal with my anxiety is not to be more humble, but to become more productive. And so I try to work myself out of the things that are making me anxious. Oh, I'm afraid of my provision. Let me work more. Oh, this isn't working. Let me try to strategize my way to peace. That's good. when oftentimes the way to find peace in the midst of a struggle is to simply submit.
Starting point is 00:10:28 But that's hard. It's easier to work, actually. It's very hard. It's harder to take a Sabbath. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, because at the end of the day, I think when we feel anxiety or fear, like what God is really after is our rest. But we feel like we feel like we have to kind of work to get out of the place that we're in.
Starting point is 00:10:49 But that's deep. One of the things that I thought about to your original question, was being in a place of feeling anxious or fearful because of my lack of control. I know for me when I first started therapy, it took a while for my therapist to really, you know, pull these things out of me. But one of the things that she pulled out of me in our sessions was how all my life I was kind of faced with this idea of death, you know, seeing friends die, having guns. put out on me and I got into this to this routine of thinking that I can die in any moment and I thought
Starting point is 00:11:29 that I wasn't as afraid of death you know like I was you know when I before I started you know living the life that I live because I've been through so much but I remember the first time I had a panic attack I don't know if you you remember I'm of course you remember I had a panic attack or whatever and I told my therapist about how I had a panic attack about dying I think it was like a second first year marriage. No, Eden was turning two. Yeah, yeah. So second year.
Starting point is 00:11:59 Second year. Second year marriage or whatever. And I told her, I was like, I don't know what that came from. And so she did some digging. And one of the things that I found out was like my whole life I had, you know, had to like avoid death in the, in a sense. And when I became married, I got a family, and I felt like I had more to live for my, this, this, this, this stress. and this trauma of dying became hype. Like, I was just...
Starting point is 00:12:27 And what is the fear? The fear. Because it's not death. It's not, it's not, it's... It wasn't death per se. It was the fact that before, when I only had myself to think about, I, uh, low-key felt like, I don't want to sound morbid, like, I didn't care if I lived to die. Right.
Starting point is 00:12:48 But I, but I think if you, if you put in, if you put in enough situations, you kind of like come to grips with the fact that like, oh, if I die, I die, you know what I'm saying? I don't want to die. I'm still afraid of dying in a sense, but if I die, I die, but when I had a family to live for, you know, and I'm getting emotional even thinking about this, you know what I'm saying? Like, if I had a family to live for now and, you know, like growing up without a father in my home, I think I started to just be super fearful of the idea of dying and leaving my life. wife and my kids and it was just like why what happens if you leave I'm just trying to get like to the
Starting point is 00:13:28 bottom so you being my therapist now I think I think one of the things I started to think about was um that if I left this earth how impacted my children would be because of it and how impacted you would be because of it and not being around to even see them you know um grow up and to live. And so, like, as you know, because you were with me, I had this, this constant anxiety of dying for a couple of years. And to the point where, like, I started to have panic attacks. And God just had to show me, like, no, like, I'm calling you to trust me in a particular
Starting point is 00:14:15 type of way, not just with your life, but also with your family. Wow. and I had to like I had to come to grips with like no like God God you're calling me to trust you with my whole life you know I'm saying
Starting point is 00:14:30 because it's different I think it's different when you when you not only in control of or not only managing your life but the life of your family now and so like I just had so much anxiety and it wasn't until I like really was honest with the Lord and was saying
Starting point is 00:14:46 God I know I spent this time trusting you with my life. Not only do I trust you in my life, I trust you with Jackie's. I trust you with Edens. You know what I'm saying? And so just surrendering, you know what I'm saying? Those things to the Lord. It's interesting to consider how different things make different people anxious.
Starting point is 00:15:09 Yeah. So you are anxious of death leaving your family, which is actually really noble. It means like you love them. it could be ego there because you're saying they are most provided for and protected if I'm around but on the surface
Starting point is 00:15:28 it's actually really good that's really good yeah but when it comes to me I don't be tripping off dying I just don't it would actually be really convenient if I just go I do think about my kids I'm also a little self-centered
Starting point is 00:15:43 where it's just like take me the glory we can skip all this like critical race theory and social justice warrior arguments and like we could just be good and it might be talking about me no more well people still will be talking about you because you know they're losers i'll just be fine did you call them losers yeah i mean if you talk about somebody after they go into glory and you're still talking about oh she was a critical race there's i mean we do that with johnson edwards what you're talking about that anyway so my point is the way you're anxious towards debt i deal with anxiety socially right
Starting point is 00:16:15 And so I have super. Let's talk about it. Social anxiety. And you just be out here fearless. Like you just be talking to Mormons. You're like, hey, let's sit down and talk for three hours stranger. What's up, y'all? So I've had a couple of great experiences with compassion.
Starting point is 00:16:36 The one that sticks in my mind the most is my trip with him to Kenya. Not only were we able to visit a couple of the kids that we sponsored through our tour, But we were also able to visit a family of a teenage girl that we sent to college. And seeing the joy on her face being able to be the first person in her family to go to college was just something that I'll never forget. Compassion International is working to release children from poverty in Jesus' name through its one-on-one child sponsorships. When you sponsor a child through compassion, your $38 a month will provide food, clean water, education, medical and dental checkups, and above all else, the ability to learn about Jesus and flourish through the local church.
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Starting point is 00:17:47 The link is also in the show notes. That's compassion.com slash Ivy Media. Like we were on a flight, what was that, two days ago. Yeah. From London back to the States. And I went to Preston's seat and took something from him that the stewardess had gave him. And he was like, why are you taking that for me? And I was like, because you can just ask them for it.
Starting point is 00:18:11 He was like, why you can't ask them for it? I was like, because I have social anxiety. Like the thought of me saying, hey, stewardess, can you get this for me? It just makes me really anxious. No, like, it's deep. And speaking of flights, I remember one time he was on a flight and, you know, two Mormons said next to me. And I'm looking like, this is Jesus.
Starting point is 00:18:32 You excited. I looked at Jackie. Jackie was like, he's going to talk to him. And so she just like crawls up into this ball. And so I know like not to ask my wife to join this conversation. I can't take it. Okay. So what does that come from?
Starting point is 00:18:47 Like what like why is there anxiety there? Yeah. When you feel like you're in a situation where you know, you're somebody that you don't know. What is what is so funny is that the Lord has literally planted me in a life. In ministry. where I am constantly talking to and exposed to strangers. And so I think it's a lot of factors. On one end, I think it's personality.
Starting point is 00:19:16 And I only say that because when I look at Autumn, for example, I see a lot of timidity and anxiety in her when it comes to strangers. Yeah, Autumn's our four-year-old daughter, just FY. The difference between Autumn is that Autumn has constant practice with being introduced in having to do life with and have fun with people she doesn't know. Yeah. Or just being exposed to other people because she has siblings. We have people over the house all the time.
Starting point is 00:19:43 And so imagine me being autumn with a kind of innate timidity, but alone. Only child. Alone. Yeah. All the time by myself. Family ain't coming over. Ain't no friends. Ain't none of that.
Starting point is 00:19:56 It's just me, myself, and my thoughts. Then you add to that being a timid, kind of mild-mannered child in school and then bullied. Yeah. And so now I feel like, oh, strange and new people aren't safe. And so I think all of that together has made me this person who is just really, I think it's a trauma response, honestly, that when a new person comes around, I can't trust you. I don't know what you about.
Starting point is 00:20:24 I don't know what you think. I don't know what you might do. And so I have to guard myself. And so I, because it literally feels like when I'm around certain people or newer people, that I, it's a, it's a circumstance I can't control. So like in ministry, if I go to a conference, I don't have that much anxiety because I've already prepared myself to be in this place. Yeah, it's when you get caught off guard.
Starting point is 00:20:44 It's just out in the regular world at the grocery store and an Uber at the mall and the airport that I just, I don't have control. And so I feel extremely tense. And so all I can do is either avoid you or crack jokes. No, because it wasn't until our first year of marriage because I think we and you before we got married we had you know mutual friends and so i always saw you around people that we were cool with but it wasn't to our first year of marriage when we started to do ministry together and i would see you clam up and like oh what is this about like why you know it actually then i looked it be i was
Starting point is 00:21:18 mean yeah yeah but that's deep two things that you said though was that one you said that you didn't have anybody around you to help you and i think about autumn because i for your daughter is like you in so many ways, but she has an older sibling, Eden, who's extremely extroverted. And I can see how Eden is slowly but surely helping her come out of her shells in a lot. She feels secure. And she feels more confident when Eden's around. When Eden is not around, she is like, I'm not talking to nobody, you know. And so that's deep.
Starting point is 00:21:48 But also, too, I think one thing that I heard you, when I heard, when I was hearing you speak, one thing that I thought was dope is how self-aware you are, why you're anxious and because the fact that you're able to recall all the times you're anxious and how you're anxious and why you're anxious. Because anxious people are super hypervigilant. Yes. They become anxious about being anxious. But a lot of people, but it's also the work that you've done, you know, throughout the
Starting point is 00:22:15 years of like, yeah, because a lot of people don't even know why they're anxious or can't identify it. And I think the fact that you can identify it has made you become better, you know, in a lot of ways because you are way better in your anxiety than you used to be when it comes to interaction with people. You probably don't see it, but you're way better. You know what I'm saying? Because you're aware.
Starting point is 00:22:38 Yes. Because self-awareness does help you become better. I'm not mean. Yes. I didn't want to say that. I was trying to avoid saying it. It's fine. I used to be mean because it's just like, stop talking to me.
Starting point is 00:22:51 I don't know who you are. I don't want to talk about the weather or how the flight was. me alone. Small talk is the most irritating they do it. So let me ask you something, because I think this can be a lot of anxious people out there. The meanness, when the meanness happens, what causes the meanness? Are you saying, I'm going to be mean because this could stop it quickly or I'm being mean because I'm really irritated?
Starting point is 00:23:23 It's not a conscious. decision to be mean. It is simply my body's response to this intruder. Wow. And so it's, I need you to get away from me and stop talking to me. And so now I recognize that love is what God likes. And so I need to walk in love at all times and trust him in that moment, right? And so one of the reasons, I probably should start praying this more when I go out in public.
Starting point is 00:23:59 One of the reasons why when I'm at conferences or whatever is two reasons why I'm able to kind of temper the anxiety is that I've already prayed in advance because of it. I've said, God, help me be loving, help me have compassion, help me care about people. Because anxiety will make you very self-centered because all you're thinking about is how you feel, how they're in your space and they're making you do this and making you talk more than 10 minutes. And it's just like, that is really egotistical and mildly narcissistic. Yeah. And so love kind of makes you an other-centered individual. That's good. Where you're able to move towards people in spite of your fears.
Starting point is 00:24:34 But on the other end, it's also low-key in a conference setting. I also have a bit of control, right? Because I'm at a place where I'm about to speak on this stage distant from you. And all I can say, oh, can I sit in the front row where I don't have to be around people? So it's like having all of this control doesn't even. to make the discipline of learning how to overcome anxiety that much of a challenge as it would be when I'm going to the airport. So I just need to start actually praying when I go out in public for the same power.
Starting point is 00:25:05 Yeah, that's good. That's good. But I also see God's, you know, hand in provision not just on our lives, but also in the lives with so many other couples that I know, particularly married couples. I'm so glad I'm married the extrovert. Yeah, because that's what I was just about to say. Oh, man, every Uber ride is such a blessing with you. That's how I'm just about to say.
Starting point is 00:25:22 Every introvert that I personally know has married an extrovert. And because introverts, they get anxiety quick, you know. And so, like, God knows how to pair, I think, in a lot of ways to people together because I'm your buffer in a lot of ways. Question. So what is an extroverts? Because you're a different extroverts. So I know some extroverts, they get anxiety from silence.
Starting point is 00:25:50 No, I'm not down. I don't do well with them. Because it's just like, oh, oh, you, you got to talk all the time. That's the reason why I'm such good friends with introverts. So I'm saying what, in a public setting, what would be, well, your anxiety would probably be, I don't want somebody to come up in here and shoot me. It would be associated with death and violence. No, my, no, my anxiety, my anxiety takes place when I'm around people,
Starting point is 00:26:16 well, I don't, I can't read them and I don't trust them. Interesting. And so like that's that that's my anxiety And because you can't read them and can't trust them What is the fear that they will do what? Anything I don't know I'm watching you because that that's You don't think that's associated with violence and fear of death?
Starting point is 00:26:35 Yeah I think it is Yeah That's what I say your fear is always kind of land back on violence and death Well not even violence and death Just anything that's distrustworthy Like you might steal something of minds or you might steal something of my wives. You might try to hit on my wife.
Starting point is 00:26:54 I don't know. I don't know you and I don't trust you. But if I feel like I can read a room and if I feel like I can read my environment, I'm not as anxious. Interesting. You know. And so, yeah, but I don't have a fear of, like, you know, having a conversation with somebody. So in the scriptures, there's a lot of passages and scenarios and narratives around anxiety.
Starting point is 00:27:20 So there's the passage that says, be anxious for nothing. There's castor cares on God for He cares for you. There is Matthew 6, I believe, where God talks about, you know, caring for the birds. I need the soul nor reap. And so don't be anxious about what you'll wear and eat. God that loves them and all that. He loves you. It's one of my favorite.
Starting point is 00:27:42 I'm all over the place. Then you have, I think, narratives that can kind of focus on fear, like even David and Goliath and 1st Samuel 14, I think, where you have this big old giant coming to face Israel and it says that the people, including Saul, were afraid, therefore they wouldn't go out of fight. Or you have Peter and Jesus walking on the water and Peter is afraid and therefore he sinks. And so I guess what is it about God that we need to trust and believe? And this is a really broad question that can help us over.
Starting point is 00:28:17 overcome our minor fears. Yeah. I think, I think truly believing that he is God once and that he's with us. Because I think to go back to the whole Jesus on the boat, they were literally mad that Jesus was sleeping. Oh, you brought up another one. Yeah, that's good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They were, they were mad that Jesus was sleeping on this boat, even though this storm was happening. And so when they wake up Jesus, they're like, Jesus, aren't you concerned? That we're going to die. And so I think the, I think the beautiful thing that we can see there is that if the God of the universe is on the boat with you resting, why are you not resting? If he's with you, why are you concerned?
Starting point is 00:29:01 And so, like, I think what that shows us is if God is here and he's resting, we should be resting just like him. And so like, what is the E? I felt it. Yeah. And so I think that's, I think, I think, I think. think that I love that story because it's like, man, like God is sleeping. And so the fact that God is sleeping, I feel like they should have known like, man, we're good. And we have to remind ourselves to the same thing that no, like if God is with us, why are we? Wow. What's helpful
Starting point is 00:29:35 there is anxiety is both sometimes logical and emotional. Yeah. And so if you're on a boat with winds and waves and it says that the water was going into the boat. Yes. And it's moving and going crazy. It's fair to be afraid. We're about to be on the bottom of the ocean. We're about to die. In a minute.
Starting point is 00:30:10 That's the logical part. And the logical part engages all your fight or flight responses. And so your anxiety is up. And so that's probably why they came to Jesus all crazy because they're not. They're not thinking right. You don't care about us? That's probably what they did when they walked to Jesus. You don't care, but you don't see the wind?
Starting point is 00:30:28 You don't feel that? I'm trying to be serious. Okay, yeah, yeah. I think a part of like trying to, because overcoming fear and anxiety, I think it's going to be a lifelong thing for all of us while we exist in this volatile earth. But I think a part of it is developing a discipline of the mind where you have to consider reality in the moment. And so the reality is God is here. What does that mean?
Starting point is 00:30:57 It means that he is sovereign. Over what? Over winds and waves, but also my life. Also, why is God here? He's here to die. Where? On a cross, not a boat. So all of these factors help us to realize, if I am here with him, the winds and the
Starting point is 00:31:13 waves have someone that is more supreme than them. And the winds and the wave have someone here that will not overcome us. Because if it overcomes us, then it overcomes him. And he's not here to die. in this moment on this boat yeah that's that's so good so it let me let me get yeah yeah yeah so I think I say the point of like what do we believe about God because I'm not saying that it doesn't make anxiety go away I'm not saying that it doesn't make the feelings unreal I'm saying that it helps us to move through them where the anxiety isn't debilitating us and controlling all of our behavior
Starting point is 00:31:46 that's what I mean yeah that's so good that's so good and what that may be just think about is just how how God created me. And I know I'm a very logical person, which is the reason why I love apologetics. I love studying science and oceanography and space. Like I like to, because I love to come with logical arguments to try to reach people, right? And so a lot of times, you know, my fear in the same sense, because God has created me that way, my fear comes out of thinking about things logically. Like if this happens, like, it's rational.
Starting point is 00:32:21 It's rational. And so what I think God is also calling us to do is not to be irrational to trust them, but to be logical, but just in a different way, which is to say, okay, yeah, this waves, it's about to overtake this boat and we can die. But the logical thing is not merely reminding yourself that God is sovereign over the waves, but reminding yourself of how God is sovereign over the waves. Because logically, God is the one who created the waves. And so if I serve a God who created the same things that I'm afraid of and he loves me,
Starting point is 00:32:55 logic says he's going to protect me, right? And so I think when we think about God in a lot, when we think about our fears in a very logical way and it puts us into the state of anxiety, I think that we have to think about God in a logical way as well. And it's like, no, the God of the universe who created these waves or it might not be waves in your situation. It might be whatever your situation is. There's nothing that exists that God didn't create, right?
Starting point is 00:33:27 And so if he loves you and he's for you, all things are going to work out for the good of those who love God and call it according to its purpose. And so reminding ourselves of that simple truth that, no, God is for us. And so, like, that's just something that I have to remind myself consistently. then they're like precedent. The God of the universe has your back. I was talking to you about,
Starting point is 00:33:51 because I've been studying David and Goliath for Glory. Yeah. And how it was really getting to me how David comes to Goliath and he says, hey, you know, you come to me with a javelin with a spear, with a sword. You got all these weapons.
Starting point is 00:34:11 You, like, you big in a mug. and you got an armor bear and so for me to fight you I got to fight him first like that's a really terrifying thing I would be afraid too like this dude is like
Starting point is 00:34:24 nine foot tall it's ridiculous but he he comes to do and he says you come to me with all of your resources and I come to you in the name of the Lord of host
Starting point is 00:34:35 I was interested in the fact that he called on God as the Lord of hosts not the Lord of Lords It's not the Alpha and no Mabel. Go ahead and break it down for us. Messiah, not the Savior God. Lord of hosts, which is a military term.
Starting point is 00:34:49 He employs the name of God that represents the fact that God fights for his people. And I thought about that even more. How if he comes to this giant, this big, bulky, strong dude who could rightly kill him, and he comes to him with the military God, that that should, what's the word, pacify all his fears. But then I thought about Matthew 28 and how it says, hey, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. For I be with you. You're going too fast. Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit.
Starting point is 00:35:23 And guess what? I, Jesus, will be with you until the end of the age. You better preach. He says, God has given me all authority in heaven and earth. I say all that to say, so much of our fears are because we forget who's with us. It's like God himself. Can you imagine that? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:40 The sovereign, supreme, all power. powerful, omniscient, strong, loving, compassionate, foreknowing, victorious, Lord of hosts. All of it. Mega God being with you. Because all of those names. In the mall with these strangers? Because those two different things, Matthew 28.
Starting point is 00:36:00 That should be the most courageous person on earth. Yeah. Because Matthew 28 and the David and Galap story is two different situations, but it's God being for his people. What he need for them to be at that. at that particular moment. And so it's like it's nothing that we will go through that God isn't, isn't equipped for to help us and to get us through, whether we're fighting, whether we're making disciples.
Starting point is 00:36:23 And so that's really good. It's, I just, I think it's important. And I've been, I've been meditating on it a lot, like to have the fullness of God's personality with you. That's good. Yeah. That's a, I think if we all, including myself, because I am a very, a very, fearful and an anxious person I think if we just somehow are able to believe that
Starting point is 00:36:49 like moment by moment we would have way more courage than we even know possible and so I don't know yeah yeah that's really really encourage you and I think some people might look at me and you and be like oh pressing it's not fearful and Jackie's fear it's like no we're all fearful no it just manifest it just manifests it just manifests itself differently and so like cash-ha-cares when Jesus. For he cares for you. Yes, he cares for you too, Jackie.
Starting point is 00:37:16 Even when you're in the mall and somebody walk him and say, hey, Jackie. It does. Sometimes it feels like he don't because it's like, why to hear him? He could have solemnly moved him to go the other way. But here we are. All right, y'all. Peace. 30 Minutes with the Perry's is a production of Ivy Media Podcast.
Starting point is 00:37:34 Edited by Angie Elkins, video recording and audio production by Kim Powell, artwork by Hop and Music by Swoop. Join us on Patreon for early access to With the Perry's episodes and other exclusives. You've got two options. You can go to www.com forward slash with the Perrys or just go ahead and scroll. You'll find a link in our show notes. We are the Perrys. Thank you all for listening.
Starting point is 00:37:59 Now go with God.

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