Journey Through Anxiety

0:58 Do you get anxious? Do images of you stranded on the interstate in a downpour with no cell service start to flash through your mind? Do you get the sinking feeling that all of a sudden you're driving a 2,000-pound ticking time bomb? or do you assume that it's probably not a big deal? It'll clear out on its own eventually. I suppose it's part of the providence of God that if you have two people sharing a car, usually you balance each other out on this question. One of you wants the check engine light fixed yesterday. The other would be content to cover it with a smiley face sticker. But together, sooner or later, you'll get it to a car mechanic who can tell you what you actually need. The blessing and the curse of the car warning light is that sometimes it steers you away from potential danger. Other times, however, it's a false indication.

1:57 Because there's a glitch in the system. Or maybe you didn't tighten down your gas cap, which is a common cause for the check engine light, but doesn't tell you anything about the functionality of your engine. or maybe the light came on because the humidity or temperature outside changed and it has nothing to do with the car at all. There are thousands of possible causes for a car warning light and sometimes you need a qualified mechanic to help you sort it all out. But maybe I avoid the mechanic because I'm afraid of what it'll cost me. Or maybe I'm too preoccupied or proud to admit that I need help. Or, maybe, in a few decades, car warning lights will be irrelevant for most of us Maybe all cars will be self-driving, and somebody else can worry about fixing them Self-driving car companies tell us that their robo-taxis are already safer than human-driven cars One company reports that their data has shown a 90% decrease in serious injury or worse crashes for its cars compared to the average human driver.

3:06 But also, passengers have shared videos of themselves trapped inside robo-taxis that are stuck driving in circles or lost in parking garages or frozen by some false indication. The same companies that tell us their self-driving cars are safer have to continually roll out new software updates because robo-taxis illegally passed stopped school buses or witlessly drove through flooded streets. In Austin, a self-driving car blocked an ambulance responding to an emergency. In San Francisco, a cat was killed by a driverless vehicle. In California, a child was struck. The child survived with only minor injuries. When the self-driving car detected the child darting out from behind a double-parked SUV, it braked hard, reduced its speed from 17 miles an hour to 6, perhaps much quicker than an average distracted human driver would have, possibly saving the child's life.

4:07 Whether or not you're sold on autonomous vehicles, the conversation here reminds us that when it comes to driving, there are bigger issues than check engine lights. Issues like who owns the vehicle and who is responsible for it? Who tells it where to go and how to get there? I bring all this up not because I want to talk with you about cars. I bring it up because I want to talk with you about anxiety, which, like a flashing check engine light, alerts you that something needs attention under the hood, but also there are bigger issues in the background.

4:55 Anxiety is like a warning light for your soul, but we have indications that our culture may be suffering from an epidemic of chronic anxiety, a warning system that's out of control. Consider the 2024 book by psychologist Jonathan Haidt titled The Anxious Generation, How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, which cites studies that show how rates of anxiety for people under 30 have been steadily climbing for the last 15 years since the introduction of the smartphone. Anxiety has been climbing like a steady slog up Mount Doom. But it's not just young people. Even among people close to this program, the Lutheran Hour Who tend to be on the older side Of all the booklets that we offer Booklets about God and Jesus and differences in Christian denominations And views on the afterlife Of all the booklets that we offer The most popular, the most requested and downloaded are two One titled, Journey Through Depression And the other, Journey Through Anxiety If you are someone who struggles with depression or anxiety, you're not alone.

6:17 And if you're not currently struggling in this way, someone close to you probably is. That's why we're talking about it. Next week, we'll talk about depression. This week, we're talking about the journey through anxiety. Mental health professionals define anxiety in relation to fear. Fear is an unsettling emotion in response to a present threat, whether real or perceived. Fear is present tense, but anxiety is future-oriented. It's a response to a potential threat. The threatening thing hasn't happened yet, but it could happen. So anxiety is like a warning light. The light tells you that it's possible something bad will happen in the future, so you should see what you can do about it now. Or it's also possible that the light is a false indication And the system needs to be reset And the codes cleared out and the light turned off But probably not covered with a smiley face sticker Yeah, don't do that So what does the Bible have to say about anxiety?

7:32 In the Bible, the word anxiety, sometimes translated as worry, also has the more neutral meaning of care or concern. For example, in one place, the Bible uses this word to describe how a loving husband and a wife are concerned for each other, recognizing that a married man is anxious to please his wife and that a married woman is anxious to please her husband. 1 Corinthians 7, verses 33 and 34. Being anxious here doesn't mean something bad. It just means that you care, that you're concerned. So if the check engine light is making your wife nervous, take it to the mechanic already. Show her you care. preaching to myself here.

8:26 We feel concerned for the future because God created us with an internal warning system. We were made by God wonderfully and fearfully, the Bible says, which means that unlike non-human creatures, we have this God-given capacity to care about the future. So in the right context, some anxiety can be good when it functions as cautious concern. It's a biological God-given response that helps keep you and others safe. As the Bible says, the prudent person sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it. Proverbs 22 verse 3.

9:18 In other words, check your tires before you drive. The blessing and curse of these warning lights for the soul is that sometimes they steer us toward appropriate caution, but other times they malfunction. If you've ever struggled with anxiety, as I have, you know what this is like. You don't know what the future holds, but you assume the worst. Your mind spins, your heart races, your palms sweat, you feel a pit in your stomach, you can't sleep at night. No matter what you do, the warning lights won't go off. And you can't tell the difference between real danger and false alarms. you're driving in circles lost and someone somewhere needs to send over a software update. You don't need the Bible to tell you that this is not a good way to live.

10:19 Any wise soul mechanic will tell you the same and maybe a well-trained mechanic could help you sort some things out in your soul. The study of soul mechanics is traditionally called psychology. psychology means study of the soul psychologists and other trained mental health professionals are like soul mechanics some are more reliable than others but in general they have studied the human psyche and they have fixes that can help us run more smoothly psychology is focused on the inner workings of individual vehicles and how these vehicles can share the road together without crashing into each other. But psychology, as a discipline, does not help us with those bigger concerns like who owns the vehicle, who tells it where to go. Those aren't questions of soul mechanics. Those are questions about the destination. And once you start talking with someone about the destination, about life's value and meaning and purpose, you have left the discipline of psychology and entered into the territory of theology. The word psychology means talk about the human soul. The word theology means talk about the destination.

11:54 Theology is traditionally defined as God talk, but we can put it in these terms too. Theology is talk about where you're headed, where you set your sights, what you seek. Martin Luther, the German theologian after whom this program is named, said it like this, a God is that to which we look for all good, that to which your heart clings and entrusts itself, what you seek first, that is your God. For example, it's common to hear this advice. Just follow your heart, or you have to find yourself, or this above all, to thine own self, be true. If someone shares that advice with you, realize that you have left the topic of soul maintenance and entered into the field of theology because they're telling you to make yourself into your God.

13:02 Sadly, this is what some mental health professionals advise. They practice as misguided theologians. But to be fair, some of us theologians practice as amateur soul mechanics. For both, it's better that we stay in our own lanes, which is why, as a theologian, I am not going to give you much practical advice on how to manage your anxiety. But I am going to talk to you about God. And I will keep calling you away from that little God we call the self. That poor, miserable, misguided creature trying to be a self-driving vehicle who keeps getting lost in parking garages. In several places, the Bible calls to us, don't be anxious. Some hear this as just another religious condemnation or maybe a bit of self-help advice, but the Bible is not a book of soul mechanics.

14:06 It's not trying to fix your soul in isolation as an autonomous vehicle. the Bible is always talking theology, the relationship between the soul and her creator. The Bible is an account of the journey that we have all begun with our creator. We all have the same creator, which means that we all have the same origination. But while there is only one possible origin, there are two possible destinations. Either we return to our creator or we try to replace our creator And the second option will never work Because only our creator knows us Only our creator can fulfill us Only God can bring us home Your self can't fulfill you Any more than a robo-taxi can function without an internet connection But human beings aren't cars We're living, breathing, relational, responsible beings We were made to relate to our Creator And God doesn't try to control us like automated vehicles God talks with us Like a loving father relates to his children And when we turn away from him He sends us signs to turn us back Warnings to get our attention When Jesus of Nazareth appeared on the scene, he offered both signs and warnings.

15:46 For those who trusted Jesus and followed him, his words had a recalibrating effect. He helped people sort out which threats were real and which were false. Listen to this portion of Jesus' teaching reported by an early follower of his name, Matthew. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus said, I say to you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Life and the body are more than food and clothing, aren't they? Look at the birds of the air. They don't plant or harvest or gather into barns And yet your Father in heaven feeds them And you are worth much more than birds Aren't you?

16:46 And which of you by being anxious can add a single step to the journey of his life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow They neither toil nor spin thread Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he not clothe you, O you of little faith? And so do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? because the nations seek after all these things and your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom, the rule and reign of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

17:49 So do not be anxious about tomorrow because tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew chapter 6 Jesus assumes that in this life we will have anxiety both the healthy, cautious care kind and the unhealthy, worrisome variety Jesus knows that for a long time now we've been trying to drive ourselves on corrupted software speeding toward a dead end that will destroy us Our God-given warning systems have been decalibrated. But even functioning well, the warning lights won't tell you where to go. They may help or hinder you on the way, but they won't tell you which destination to seek. They won't tell you how to get there, and they cannot tell you who owns the car.

18:48 That information has to come from elsewhere. Jesus. He is more than your soul mechanic. He said things that only the owner has the right to say. He did things that only the creator can do. He gave himself as the beginning and the end, your origin and destination. He's the king. Come to recalibrate the world. because somewhere along the way, humanity took a wrong turn. We got headed in the wrong direction, away from God and into ourselves, and Jesus is God's sign. Turn back to me, he says.

19:31 But when he came, people, people just like us, people got so upset, so scandalized that a first-century donkey-driving Jewish day laborer would have the audacity to tell us how to drive our high-performance autonomous selves that we had him killed.

19:54 Crucified. Three days later, though, God his Father raised him from the dead. Because Jesus is more than a sign. He's your only way home. Sometime back in the mid-1980s, before there were standardized warning lights on dashboards, my family was caravaning cross-country with another family somewhere out west in the mountains. We were riding along a gravel road, and without warning, both vehicles, each at the same time, blew out a tire. And we were stranded on the roadside in the middle of nowhere for an hour or more. And I am sure that it was stressful for the parents. But for us kids, it was just an opportunity to get out and stretch our legs and look around and climb around and play in the creek to have one more adventure on our way back home.

20:59 When Jesus calls you not to be anxious, It's not a demand to fix yourself It's an invitation to rest Like a child And let God, your father, deal with whatever comes tomorrow You're not a self-driving vehicle But you are part of God's fleet And sometimes you are called on to be the driver And the problem solver To help get God's children home again In that context, some anxiety can be good when it helps you care. But anxiety will not be doing its God-given job until it leads you to take it all to the Lord in prayer, to cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you, because you're worth it to him, more valuable than birds or cars worth dying for.

21:56 And even better than a mechanic, your father knows exactly what you need in the name of Jesus Amen

22:34 Lutheran Hour Ministries. Chris serves as our U.S. Ministries content manager. Thanks for joining us, Chris. Great to be here. So I briefly mentioned in this message that this is the beginning of a three-part series following this theme of journey through. So we've got journey through anxiety, journey through depression, journey through ambition. And these messages are meant to cross-pollinate sort of with other ministry resources that Lutheran Hour Ministries does and offers. So would you just tell us a little bit about those resources? Yeah, sure. So we have a Project Connect booklet ministry. And so each of these messages are also in booklet form. We actually have four. So journey through anxiety, journey through depression. We have a journey through addiction and journey through ambition or what we call the rat race. We also have LHM learn courses. So these are online courses that have similar content, but they're in the form of an online course. And so you can access them digitally on your phone or on your computer, those kinds of things. And then we also have something called a Nurturing Your Faith Study.

23:37 This is a study that's both printed in the Lutheran layman and it's online as well with a video component and study questions, those kinds of things. So how might someone use these booklets as a ministry or outreach resource? We have a lot of churches who use Project Connect booklets in their ministry in different ways. A lot of them have displays at their churches in the lobby, and they have multiple booklets on there, and people can take the booklets for free and just see that they're booklets, not just for these four topics, of course. We've got dozens and dozens of topics that churches can order. And so that's one way. It's just a free resource for people to grab. Another way is for churches to use them at outreach events, at a festival or something like that. They would be at a booth and they might hand these out as free resources to help people. Another way is for churches to use them as visitor gifts. And so they might use the booklet, who is Jesus? Or why did Jesus have to die? Very basic Christian understanding. Or why do I have to go to church? Topics that someone who hasn't been to church in a while or who is new to church might benefit from. And they can get a little understanding of what the church believes is important. Another way is individuals can use them just as a resource to give friends who maybe either they don't know Jesus or they're going through a particular season in their life.

24:59 You know, we have booklets on breast cancer and again, these mental health issues, that kind of thing. Lots of ways to go deeper with these mental health kinds of topics. And it's all available there at LHM.org. Exactly. Thanks for joining us, Chris. Thanks. What a friend we have in Jesus All our sins and griefs to bear What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer Oh, what peace we often far find Oh, what needless pain we bear Oh, because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer

26:50 Now Dr. Ziegler invites you to join him in praying the Lord's Prayer. Jesus, remember us in your kingdom and teach us to pray.