What To Do With Anxiety

Chapters

• 0:00 Honesty As The Path To God
• 2:03 Anxiety In My Family Story
• 4:18 School Transitions And Early Panic
• 7:05 Performance Pressure And Sports Fear
• 7:45 Therapy At Twenty-Nine
• 10:05 Naming The Now: Community And News
• 11:20 Misunderstanding: Is Anxiety Sinful
• 14:24 Jesus’ Distress And True Faith
• 16:24 Cast Your Cares: 1 Peter 5:7
• 18:07 Threats In The Psalms: A Map
• 20:00 Threat To Body: Health Anxiety
• 21:10 Threat To Future: What If It Lasts
• 22:40 Threat To Safety: Enemies And Attack
• 24:05 Threat To Relationship: Abandonment
• 25:22 Threat To Provision: Scarcity Fears
• 26:50 The Psalmic Pattern Of Trust
• 28:06 A Prayer Process In A Panic
• 31:10 Reflection Questions And Practice
• 34:14 Closing Prayer For Peace

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Good morning. Welcome. It's good to be with you. My name is Mac. I'm one of the pastors on our team. Also, want to welcome all of you who are joining us from home. Thanks so much for tuning in this morning. We're in a series right now called Honest to God. The big idea of this series is that honesty is a key ingredient to relationship with God. So God wants a relationship, a personal relationship with each and every one of us. A deep and meaningful relationship. And that is only possible to the degree that we relate to God with honesty and authenticity. And so the through line of this entire series is that God wants you to be 100% honest with Him at all times. And we're looking at the Psalms to give us a template for this because the psalmists consistently and repeatedly show up with raw and brutal honesty in their prayers. They just come to God. They don't sanitize their feelings, they don't clean up their emotions and then go to prayer. No, no, no. What they do is they go to God right in the middle of all their messy emotions, all their feelings, and they just lay it out before God. Even, quite frankly, at the risk of saying and sounding pretty offensive. This book of 150 Psalms, prayers, is designed to teach us how to pray. And one of the deepest theological points of the Psalms is that prayer is not first and foremost about right theology, it's about radical honesty. And in fact, it's only as you come to God honestly that God can change your theology. So we need to learn how to go to God with the raw stuff that's happening in our lives so that God can meet us there and transform us. Today I want to talk to you about how to be honest with God when you're fearful and anxious. There's a difference between authenticity and transparency. So I've always tried to be authentic about my journey with anxiety. Okay? Transparency is how much you're sharing. And over the past few years, I've felt um a conviction for you all to be more transparent about my journey with anxiety, to hopefully be of some help to you. And today I want to continue that. I started this summer a little bit. I preached on a sermon called Dealing with Anxiety, and today I want to go a second step uh further. But anxiety has been an ever-present reality in my life. In fact, it was even there before I was here. Um there's anxiety that uh sort of goes through both sides of my family tree. There's anxiety on both sides, it shows up in different ways. On my dad's side, it's more like OCD type stuff, um, which of course is rooted in anxiety because you have to do all these things to prevent bad things from happening or control your environment really strictly, because otherwise you would kind of spiral out of control. On my mom's side, it's more of a generalized form of anxiety. That for sure goes all the way back to my great-grandma Borelli, who was uh everybody knew was a worry wart, and it probably predates her. But I can literally look at my uh genogram, my family tree, and trace anxiety back to my grandparents, then see how it impacted my aunts and uncles on both sides, and then their kids, so my cousins and so on. I can see my nuclear family that I grew up in, how it impacted my sisters and now my nieces and nephews, and how it shows up in my own life and my family. So my youngest son, I joke, he's brilliant. My oldest son, he started a car detailing company and he named it OCD, O'Connor Car Detailing. And he crushes it by the way. But there's a there's like a not so funny pun about it. Like he is very detail-oriented, and um it kind of rings true. Uh I remember from a young age experiencing intense bouts of anxiety. Um, it became unmanageable for me in the fourth grade. Um, that year I experienced some transitions. Um, one transition was to a new school, and then at the same time, our family moved into a different neighborhood. So, same community, but different neighborhood. And in both places, I was sort of an outsider looking in on social circles that had already been well established, and with that came some mistreatment, some bullying, and so on. So I began to experience some social anxiety. In addition to that, the school that I uh transitioned into was way further along academically, and I didn't even have a concept of homework at that point, like I had no idea what that even meant, and I fell behind really quickly. I remember taking a uh a test on the the state capitals, like you had to put the names of the states and capitals. I got Minnesota right, and that's it. That's where I lived. So um I began to experience some learning anxiety. I remember that's when I first downloaded the belief that I was stupid. I remember in this new school, it was further away from my house, and one of the things I was really scared about was missing the bus on the way home. Because at my previous school, I could walk home, and this was like this was my only way to get home, and it didn't help that our teacher would always let us. We were like the last class every day to get out, and sometimes I'd make the bus with just seconds to spare. And so every day, right around lunchtime, that's all I could think about. It was like, am I gonna make the bus? One time I missed it, and my little sister Laura started sobbing, and the bus driver turned around to come get me. And so crisis averted thanks to my sister sobbing, you know. Um, but this was this was kind of like, you know, a lot was happening in this in this season, and my sweet mom, she was so uh tuned into this, um, she gave me a picture. I wish I still had this. She gave me a picture of a mountain, and the front of this mountain looked like a face, like almost like the face of Jesus. And she told me to tape this to the top of my desk, and on the back, in her cursive handwriting, she had scribbled down the verse Philippians 4, 6. Like, don't be anxious for anything, everything was through prayer and supplication. And it was kind of like our little secret. Anytime you're scared or you're anxious, you can just look at the face of Jesus and remember he's with you. The problem is, is you know, you'd hope, like, okay, there's just a lot of transition here, and maybe it's just like a season that you'll grow out of, but I counted it up. I had five different schools by the time I was in ninth grade. So the transitions uh just kept coming, along with the learning anxiety of constantly adjusting to new schools and whatnot. And it didn't slow down. I was um I was uh a goalie for the varsity hockey team. And look, when you mess up as a goalie, everybody knows. And we would we would play in front of three to five thousand people each week. And I remember that's when like sports shifted from being fun to like don't mess up, um, and and experienced a lot of like performance anxiety going into those games. It wasn't until I was 29 that I decided to get some help. Um, I actually asked Terry Koshnik, who's part of our community, if she had a referral for me, and she did. Um, and I'm so grateful. I've been with my therapist for 14 years now. Um what brought me to the place where I was like, I think I need to talk to someone about this was you all. I'm joking, but it was. It was my job here at Cross Point. Um, it got really hard. Uh, part of it was that I was 29 years old at the time and was promoted to our associate lead pastor, like kind of an executive pastor, and I went from being a peer on staff to being uh in charge of supervising a bunch of staff. When you go from a peer to a supervisor, that doesn't always go well, and all of them were older than me. In addition, I'll just tell you, I won't go into the details, but our staff had so many dysfunctional relational patterns, it became a real mess to figure out how to navigate that with any degree of integrity. And so I ended up um going to a therapist. And I remember the first time we sat down. I'm trying to describe to her why I'm there. And she says, Okay, Mac, how much time um in any given day do you spend worrying? And I kind of thought about it, and I'm like, uh, I don't really think I worry too much. Um, but I do spend a lot of time analyzing things, like interactions, dynamics, things like that. And and without skipping a beat, she goes, Okay, well, analyzing, how much time per day do you spend analyzing things? Boom, roasted. Um, but I remember sitting there and like tears started to uh well up in my eyes because I said, I I can't think of when I'm not doing that. And so um that began my journey, a journey that I'm still on. Um even to this day. My therapist calls it a pine boxer. You're gonna struggle with this until you're put in a pine box. I will confess to you, I'm very anxious right now. I'm very anxious right now. Um gosh. You know the stuff that's happening. I grew up in Minnesota, you guys. And the incident that took place yesterday took place right outside a grocery store where my niece works. She wasn't there. You guys, this is just painful stuff. And I want to be a pastor to our community. I want to point people to Jesus, and that comes with a cost. Because we're divided by politics rather than being united by Jesus. So it's hard stuff. If you're here today and you feel imprisoned by anxiety, this is part of your story. Um, I want you to know you're not alone. I get it. I feel like I'm on the inside of it with you. I see you, I get it. But I also want you to know that there's freedom, there's hope. God hasn't left you alone and he'll give you resources so you can experience peace. Doesn't mean there won't be bouts. I'm in it right now, but I want to provide a way through it. And so what I want to do is I want to preach on the title, What to do with anxiety. And similar to my series or sermon on anger a couple weeks ago, I want to do three things. I want to deal with a common misunderstanding about anxiety that really doesn't do good work. Then I want to look at how fear and anxiety show up in the Psalms, very prevalent in the Psalms, and then I want to provide, in light of that, a roadmap for here's how we can pray through our fear and anxiety. So let's start with a misunderstanding. Same misunderstanding as when it comes to our anger. There's a common misunderstanding out there that anxiety is bad. Again, some of this gets downloaded during our first formation. Uh, messages can be communicated to us that anxiety is not a good thing. Um, unfortunately, this is a very prominent message in many churches, and there's sort of like a spectrum that comes along with this. On the mild end, it's sort of like, hey, anxiety isn't helpful, right? Um, like Jesus said, do not worry. Because what good is worry gonna do? You're not gonna add a single day to your life by worrying. So on the mild end, there's sort of this message that anxiety is unhelpful, but on the more aggressive end, there's this message that people often download that it's in fact sinful and wrong because it reveals a lack of faith. If you really trusted God, if you really had faith in God, then you wouldn't experience anxiety. That's a common message that people download. And I'll just tell you it's not a helpful one. For one, just like anger, we often don't choose anxiety. It's part of a built-in alarm system that God gave us. And second of all, um, when you just tell people not to worry, it usually doesn't work and it actually adds a burden. So now, honestly, as someone who's received this message, now I'm not only dealing with the anxiety I don't really want, because it's an uncomfortable emotion, but now I have to work through this added layer of meaning that you've given me that I have this anxiety because I'm a spiritual failure. Because I don't have enough faith. If my faith were stronger, I wouldn't have this emotion right now. It doesn't help that people reach for Bible verses to support this message. Do not be anxious about anything. Jesus said, don't worry, and so on. This is a common message. That worry is unhelpful and at worst, sinful. Because you don't trust God. So just stop it, just knock it off, move on. But here's the thing anxiety itself is not the problem, it's our response to it. So, similar to anger, experiencing anxiety in itself isn't the problem, it's how we respond to it. Anxiety, you guys, is a God-given human emotion. It's simply part of being human. All of you have experienced it, just like me. It's part of what it means to be a human being, and it's part of that built-in alarm system to alert you to a threat or danger. So it's actually a God-given human emotion, and it's a gift to you designed to protect you and keep you safe. And if you need proof that it's not sinful, guess what? You need to look no further than the person of Jesus. Because as you read through the gospel writers, you'll note that the gospel writers record Jesus being anxious. The best example of this is in Luke's gospel. The night before Jesus went to the cross. So he's about to die, a brutally painful death, and he's spending time with God, praying himself up for this moment. And Luke, who actually was a physician, notes some physiological things about Jesus. He notes that Jesus is sweating drops of blood. He's so much in distress, so much anxiety that blood is mixed with his sweat, which is a real physiological response to extreme anxiety. And that's encouraging to me because I think it reveals as a human being, Jesus experienced the same range of emotions we did without sin. And one of those was anxiety, and he experienced, I've never sweat drops of blood. So that means he experienced anxiety in even a more extreme form than I have. So he's experienced the entire spectrum, which means I can experience the entire spectrum and remain in right relationship with God. Anxiety, you guys, is not the problem. What we do with it is. Moreover, anxiety is not a sin, nor is it the opposite of faith. Faith is not never being afraid, but rather knowing where to bring your fear. Faith isn't never being anxious, but rather it's being willing to work through your anxious thoughts in God's presence. And so here's our bottom line for today. If there's one thing you walk away with, let it be this. God invites us to bring all of our fears and anxieties to him, all of them. Whatever fear, whatever anxiety you have, no matter how silly you think it is, God invites you to bring it to him, right into his presence, because he loves you and cares for you. You know, the scriptures that tell us not to worry, like Jesus in Matthew 6 and Philippians 4, 6, and so on, I think rather than seeing them as uh sort of condemning our worry and anxiety, I want to flip that and actually submit that they're invitations of what we should do when we're experiencing fear and anxiety. Namely, bring those fears, bring those anxieties to God in prayer so that we can receive his peace that surpasses understanding. If you're going to talk about what to do with your anxieties and you're gonna look at scripture to be your guide, one scripture you ought to bring into the conversation is 1 Peter 5, 7, which says this, cast all of your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Cast all of your anxiety onto him, onto God because he cares for you. Notice that it says, cast all of your anxiety on him, which presupposes that you're gonna have some anxiety. 1 Peter 5, 7 is assuming you're gonna experience anxiety because you're a human being. And then it tells us what to do with it. When you experience anxiety, not if, but when, bring it to God. Why? Because God is within casting distance to you all the time. God is right next to you all the time, and he's present for your good, and he cares about you enough to want to carry the burden alongside of you. In fact, he wants to exchange your worry, your fear with his peace and his trust. Cast all of your anxiety on him because he cares for you. This is exactly what we see in the Psalms. I think that the psalmists uh demonstrate and show us exactly how to practice 1 Peter 5, 7 in action. They show us what it looks like to bring any fears and anxieties and uncertainties that we're experiencing in life right into God's presence so that God can speak to us, meet us where we are, and transform us. So I want to show you some examples in the Psalms, but I need you to kind of follow the logic here for a moment, okay? Remember that fear and anxiety spike when a core need is threatened or endangered, right? So in the Psalms, we don't just see anxious feelings. We don't just see anxious emotions, we see anxious situations, we see these writers uh facing or experiencing threats or dangers from different places and in different directions, which then provoke fear and anxiety. And so in the Psalms you see the writers narrating the threat or danger they're experiencing and their anxiety in light of that. So that led me to put together a list of the different types of threats and anxieties that you see that we see in the Psalms. This is not exhaustive, nor are these in any particular order, but I just want to give you some examples of how this shows up. The first one I noticed is what I would call a threat to the body, a threat to the body, and this provokes what's called health anxiety in common vernacular. So there's some sort of threat happening to a person's body. There's something wrong. My health is failing, I have a disease, I have a sickness, whatever, and I can't control it. And this creates anxiety rooted in fear and sort of vulnerability of what's gonna happen? Am I gonna be okay? Here are some examples of this. Um, Psalm 6, 2 and 3 says, Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint. Heal me, for my bones are in agony. Here's another example. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low. All day long I go about mourning. My back is filled with searing pain. There's no health in my body. Any of you ever had back pain before? It is the absolute worst. There is nothing more dis like disabling than it. It just takes all of your focus, all of your energy. It is awful. So I imagine most of us can relate to this kind of anxiety because at some point you've probably experienced some sort of sickness or illness or threat from maybe on the mild end to maybe something more serious, like a possible diagnosis or whatever it might be. Some of you might be sitting in that space today. This is a kind of anxiety that we see in the Psalms is people wrestling with their health and then bringing that into God's presence. And we all will experience this one because at some point our bodies give out, don't they? Here's a second one is a threat to the future. This creates what I would call anticipatory anxiety. So with this one, there's some problem in the present, there's some crisis that's happening. And what happens is the person goes, What if this isn't resolved? What if this crisis doesn't go away? What does that mean for the future? And that then creates worry and anxiety about what's going to happen. So let me give you just one example of this. This is Psalm 77, verses 7 and 8. It says, Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? So notice this. The problem in the present is that this writer feels, and he's writing on behalf of all of Israel, that God has rejected Israel. That his favor is gone, that his love has vanished forever, and he's going, okay, and what if it never is regained? What if things stay this way, where God rejects us forever, where we don't sense his presence, and so on, and that's creating internal anxiety. I don't know what I'm going to do if things stay the way it is right now. This is anticipatory anxiety. And once again, notice it's not being ignored, but rather it's being named and brought into God's presence. There's this problem right now, and I'm worried about what this will mean for the future. Here's another one is a threat to safety. So this category, it comes, it pops up all over the Psalms. Is there some form of opposition, some external threat that is acting on the writer, and the writer is bringing this into God's presence to name their fear and anxiety about this opposition, this external opposition they're experiencing? I'll give you one example of this, Psalm 56. David says, Be merciful to me, my God, for my enemies are in hot pursuit. All day long they press their attack. My adversaries pursue me all day long. In their pride, many are attacking me. You ever felt attacked by someone before? This was David's entire life, you guys. You read the story of David, he wrote most of the Psalms, and he spent the vast majority of his life being attacked. On the run from Saul, from the Philistines, from his own kids. And I didn't read, I'm saving it. The third verse in this says this. I love this. He says, When I'm afraid, I trust in you. Notice how powerful that is. Fear, noticing fear becomes the pivot for trusting God. When I'm afraid, that's a reminder I'm going to trust in you. Here's another threat we see in the Psalms a threat to relationship. So here the concern is abandonment, a loss of relationship, I'm alone, that type of a thing. There's actually two dimensions to it. The first is vertical, feeling abandoned by God. I actually preached about this in September on the topic of the hiddenness of God, when God feels hidden from you. But it also happens on the horizontal level. If you've ever been relationally betrayed or rejected by someone, this also shows up in the Psalms. So let me give you an example of each. Psalm 88, verse 14 says, Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? That's the vertical. The sense of abandonment, loss of connection with God. And then Psalm 41, 9 says, even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me. You ever been abandoned by a friend, rejected by a friend, hurt by a friend? This is that type of anxiety that comes with that feeling of rejection and relational loss. The last one I want to mention is a threat to provision. Okay? And so here it's about, it's concern about having one's financial or material needs met. Okay? And at the heart of it is sort of a scarcity mentality that, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna have everything I need. What if things run out? What if I don't have enough money to buy food or pay my rent or whatever it might be? And one of the things I noticed as I read some psalms on this is that the psalmists don't spend a lot of time expressing their fear on this one, but rather just go right to the faith that counteracts it. I'll give you the best example of this because it's perhaps one of the most famous psalms there is. Psalm 23, verse 1 starts out by saying, The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. The Lord is my shepherd, so God is my provider, He cares for me, and because of that, I know I never, I I won't find myself in lack. But notice that saying I lack nothing really carries no punch or significance unless you fear that you might be lacking something. Right? So the very power of saying the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing, only has weight or gravity to it if there's something acting on you that you might think I might lack something. Make sense? So those are some examples. I am sure there are others. Okay? I didn't read all 150 Psalms through this lens of danger and threat, but you could do it. Um if you do it, I'll give you a cookie, okay? You can read all 150 psalms through the lens of danger or threat and go, what are some other forms of danger or threat that show up? How is it provoking anxiety and so on? We could we could do more work here. But what I wanted to show you is just that this is a normal thing that's happening in the Psalms. The Psalms are, the psalmists are experiencing dangers or threats that are provoking anxiety, and they're actually things we can all relate to. Again, who here hasn't experienced some sort of a health crisis? Who here can't relate to the pain and loss that comes with relational betrayal? Who here has never experienced a crisis or a problem in their life that doesn't seem solvable? And you begin to like project that onto the future and wonder what's gonna happen if it doesn't get figured out or resolved. Like this is all of us. And what I love is that the psalmists don't pretend these fears and anxieties aren't there, nor do they condemn themselves or beat themselves up. Rather, they just acknowledge it. Here's the threat, here's how I'm feeling, God, here it is. They bring it into God's presence. And they let God be the one to speak to it and to carry it with them. So I want to close by giving you guys a little roadmap. Um, a roadmap for how to deal with fear and anxiety when it is plaguing you. A prayer process when you're in a panic. I'll tell you, I slept for about an hour and a half last night. That's it. I went through this process four or five times. So this is real, okay? Step one is you name it. You name it. You can't bring to God what you can't or are unwilling to name. You can't give to God what you're not willing to name. So the first step is to name it to God. I'm feeling anxious right now. Which sounds easy, but I assure you it's not. On our preaching call just this week, there was someone on our preaching team that said, I don't think I realized what anxiety felt like in my body to the point where I could identify it until I was in college. That was like the first time I was like, Oh, this is what people mean by anxiety. And if you've spent like a lifetime um stiff arming anxiety like a Heisman Trophy winner, because you think it's bad, it's gonna take some significant work to resist that default and go, hey, I'm not treating it as something bad. I need to name it, I need to move toward it. Making sense? Yeah? Number one, name it. You can't give to God what you're not willing to name. The second step is to source it. To source it. You've named it, I'm experiencing anxiety. The next step is to ask, well, why is it there? What's it doing there? Why am I anxious? What is the threat or the danger that's provoking these feelings of anxiety or fear inside of me? So key questions: what am I afraid of? What feels out of control? What am I imagining might happen? And and similar to what I said about anger a few weeks ago, I want to name the posture at this step. It's one of compassionate curiosity. So often, especially if you've downloaded a message that anxiety is bad, we quickly move to evaluating it or judging it. Rather than simply noticing and observing it with while being gentle and kind to ourselves. Instead of judging it, just go, oh, I'm just gonna notice it and observe it. We'll figure out what it means later, but I'm just gonna notice what's there, what's true. Once you've done that, so you name it, you source it, what's the source of this fear and anxiety, then you bring it. You bring it right into God's presence. And this is so important because fear and anxiety grow in isolation. When you don't talk about it, when you suppress it, it's still there. And in fact, it strengthens its grip on you. Those of you who are present know. I texted some people in the last 24 hours to go, please pray for me, I'm feeling anxious. That's bringing it into the light. And the first person you need to bring it to is God, bring it into his light. Notice at this step, you've got to pay attention to how God is going to speak to you. Don't do all the talking. You've got to listen at this stage. In light of your fear, in light of your anxiety, how might God want to speak to you? What might God be saying to you in this moment? And I don't know what God will say to you, because it will probably depend on whatever it is you're facing. But I'll tell you, having done this for a long time, here's a through line you can grab a hold of. For me, every time I've experienced fear and anxiety and heard God speaking to it, God always reminds me of his presence. He hasn't abandoned me, and that I can trust him. He's with me and I can trust him. So if you hear a voice that's more condemning than that or accusatory, um, you may not be hearing the voice of God because he's with you and he's for you. You name it, you source it, you bring it to God, and then that leads to the final step, which is you entrust it. The final thread is you, the final step is you entrust whatever the threat is, whatever the source is, right into God's care. Trust isn't pretending that everything is fine, it's giving what's not fine to the God who loves you. Trust isn't the absence of anxiety, it doesn't mean your anxiety will just instantly go away. It's choosing what you're going to do with it. And so the final step is all about in your in this moment, doing the best you can with God's help through his power to entrust it to him and walk forward in faith. God, even though my body isn't cooperating, I'm gonna trust you with it. Even though my voice is hurting and I don't know if I'm gonna be able to preach today, God, I trust you, you're the one who gave me my voice. God, even though there's this mess happening over here in the world and and it's it's grieving everybody, you're the king, you're on the throne. I can trust you with it. Even though I don't know what's gonna happen with my job and I might lose my job, and will I find another God, I'm gonna trust you with it because you're with me and you're for me, and you see me and you're at work for my good. Even though there's this relationship that's a mess, you know what's going on there, and you can work in me and you can work in them. God, I can trust you with it. Whatever it is, and this is the pattern of the Psalms, they name it, they they source it, they bring it to God, and they always surrender it to God and trust. So here's some action steps for you. Uh, first, some reflection questions to bring into your prayer time this week. How are you taught to relate to fears and anxieties during your first formation? You know? What messages did you download? Did you have a sweet mom like mine who put the face of Jesus on your desk? You know? What was communicated to you? What kinds of threats do you tend to get most anxious about? Why is that? Some of us are uh, you know, more pulled towards threats in this area than that area. What kind of gets you hung up a little bit? What fears and anxieties are speaking the loudest in your life right now? Is there any area of your life that you're feeling particularly anxious or fearful? And then the practice is really quite simple. You're just gonna walk through that roadmap of naming it, here's what I'm anxious about, sourcing it, here's the source of that fear and anxiety, bringing it into God's presence, listening for God's voice, and then entrusting it to Him. And if you want extra credit, um, write this out as a psalm, as a prayer. God, I'm writing this to you, here's what I'm anxious about. Here's the threat, here's the feelings and emotions I have. I'm bringing it to you, I'm casting it onto you because you care for me, and now I'm gonna entrust it. Write it out as a prayer. And then you can hold on to that and keep going back to it when you need it. Um, that's all I have for you today. So if you'd stand, I'd love to close us in prayer. Uh God, we thank you that there is never a moment when you are absent or distant. In fact, even when we can't feel your present, God, I know that you're there. And we thank you that you're so close, there's never a moment where we have to carry the baggage of worry or anxiety or fear by ourselves. For you invite us to give it to you. Help us to respond to that invitation this week. I pray for each and every person here, whatever fears and anxieties, whatever worries they're carrying, that they learn how to walk in step with you, surrendering those into your care so that they may receive your peace. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.