Chill When You're Feeling Insecure | Secrets of the Chill People

Many of us live with an inner critic.

The voice that says:
You’re not good enough
You’re doing everything wrong
Everyone else has it figured out except you

In this message from the Secrets of the Chill People series, Mackenzie Carter shares her personal journey with insecurity—and how Psalm 62 reveals the path to real peace.

When David felt overwhelmed and under pressure, he discovered a powerful truth:
“For God alone my soul waits in silence.”

Instead of reacting, defending ourselves, or spiraling into anxiety, God invites us to practice something radical:
Waiting quietly on Him.
Because real security doesn’t come from proving ourselves.
It comes from trusting the One who already knows us.

✨ In this message you’ll discover:
Why insecurity feels so loud in our lives
What the Bible teaches about quiet trust
How to stop reacting and start waiting on God
Where real confidence actually comes from

🙏 Take a moment to ask God to quiet your heart
💬 Comment “God is my refuge” if you’re trusting Him with your insecurities

🔔 Subscribe for more sermons from Fierce Church
👉 Watch more messages: https://www.youtube.com/@FierceChurch

You don’t have to silence your inner critic alone.
God is ready to meet you in the quiet. ✨

Transcript

eeting Your Inner Critic

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good morning. So today we are going to talk about how to stay chill in the midst of insecurity. How many of y'all have some insecurity? Okay, I see a few hands. I bet it's most of you. So have you ever felt like someone was out to get you? Like maybe it was a friend who said something to you who thought it you thought it was like a really dear friend. You trusted that person and they said something to you and it cut your heart and it still hurts you today. Maybe there's somebody who did something to you, blobbed a judgment out about you in front of other people, and they didn't even know your heart. And now it's just sitting there in the atmosphere. Have you ever felt like someone has hurt you and you're holding that insecurity? I have a person like that, and she is always on me. Her win seems to be to convince me that I do not belong in any room that I'm in, that I should get out. I don't deserve to be there. I don't deserve to be here. She demands that I be a perfectionist. And therefore, I make more lists and I check off more things. And I'm like, here, see, I did it, I did it, I did it. And she says, that's not good enough, that's not perfect. And so I walk around and I feel stupid and I feel unworthy and I feel wrong and like a failure. And she says that I'm too much and yet I'm not enough, and that I can't do anything right, and that I can't do anything the right way or say the right thing. Do you have anybody like that in your life that just treats you so wrong? Honestly, there are some days that I feel like she's running after me, judging me and criticizing me all day long, and I can't even get up sometimes. It hurts so much. Now, let's have full disclosure here. This person is me. It's the critic that lives inside my head. Does anyone else have a critic that lives inside your head? Yeah, it's horrible. I hate her. I literally hate her. My daughter said this morning she hates her critic too, and she wishes that she could come out of her body so she could smack her in the face. That's how I feel. Like, what in the world? Right? Those things aren't true. Nobody talks to us like that, but it drives us crazy. So, what do we do with the critic in our head or real people that are walking around in our lives that are making us feel small or that make us feel insecure or that say things about us that aren't true? We're gonna look at a psalm today. David wrote this psalm, it's Psalm 62, and David was running for his life, trying not to get killed for most of his life. But now in this psalm, it's almost like someone's trying to kill his character. And we're gonna read and learn about what to do when we face insecurity. So I'm gonna read through Psalm 62, 1 through 12. It says, I wait quietly before God, for my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken. So many enemies against one man, all of them trying to kill me. To them, I'm just a broken-down wall or a tottering fence. They plan to topple me from my high position. They delight in telling lies about me. They are friendly to my face, but then they curse me in their hearts. That seems very true today. I wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. Oh my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge, from the greatest to the lowliest, all or nothing in his sight. If you weigh them, on the scales they are lighter than a puff of air. Don't get rich by extortion or robbery. And if your wealth increases, don't make it the center of your life. God has spoken plainly, and I have heard it many times. Power, oh God, belongs to you. Unfailing love, oh Lord, is yours. Surely you judge all people according to what they have done. David gives us the recipe for chill insecurity. When you feel unrest or that an uninsecurity rising up within you, when those accusations come flying at you like arrows, or when those lies start to fill your mind, we first run away. No, we first wait in silence for God only. Wait, yeah. We wait. We come before God, our Savior, and we wait before him. Remember in verse one, it said, I wait quietly before God, for my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. And then in verse five, it says, I wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. What David describing is describing here that waiting quietly is the Hebrew word dumia, which means motionless waiting. Motionless. Our minds still, our emotions still. Our physical bodies still. Can you imagine motionless waiting? No, I can't either. Motionless waiting. My mind is going a million times a minute, y'all. Like I'm like, like all the time, right? Oh my gosh. But that is what God is calling us into. He is inviting us into this. It is the opposite of frantic activity. It's the moment when we say, when we come before the Lord and we say, God, I am trusting you to save me. I am trusting you to be my defender right now in the midst of this judgment, in the midst of this insecurity, in the midst of these lies, I am trusting you. It is like a hurricane around us, life is, isn't it? It's swirling and whirling around us, and it's chaotic, and we don't know which way is up or down or around, and we're stuck in it. But when we wait quietly, we can hear God's voice over us. When we fight, when I'm trying to fight in my own strength, I'm in the hurricane, and I can get lost really easily, and I can get really exhausted trying to find my way out, trying to find the truth, trying to speak life over myself. But God is calling us into this holy inactivity where we are standing on holy ground before the Lord. And we do this because we know who God is. We know who God is. We know that the Lord is God Almighty, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is in control of everything. He is sovereign over everything. He is the first and the last in the elf and the omega. And so when I come before him, I know who I'm coming to. I am secure in Christ. I know who he is. And that's why I can come before him and I can exit out of that hurricane into the eye of the storm. And did you know that if you're in the eye of a hurricane, it is still, it is quiet. You can look up and see blue sky and the sun, and it's completely still. And that is where Jesus is inviting you. No matter what is happening around you, Jesus is inviting you into that center, into that stillness, into that presence of God. Because there's power in the stillness, right? When we are still and quiet, we can hear his voice. He's voice is still and quiet. And so when we still ourselves, we are more able to hear him. There is freedom in waiting. We don't have to make decisions right away, right? We're our our world is like, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? I don't know. I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait on God because He knows what to do. I don't need to make a decision right now. I don't need to fix this. I don't know the answer yet. This is not passive, this waiting. This is active. I don't have to respond. It is an intentional way of responding. I'm waiting on God. So this dumia, this motionless waiting, it means stopping the frantic response because that's our usual, right? Our frantic response, right? We need to defend ourselves if someone attacks us. We need to explain everything to everyone. Y'all need to know what happened, okay? So you know the full story so that no one knows, so everyone knows what really happened, right? We need to prove them wrong and gather allies around us and control the narrative at every side. It is exhausting. But David says the stole, the soul, our soul can be still instead of scrambling. Not because the situation isn't serious, but because God is already our fortress. He is our impenetrable rock that we're standing on. Nothing can get at us. We are safe in him. And so we can wait and be still. We are already defended. That's freedom. Dumia, that silence, also means refusing to grab the steering wheel. We always are grabbing the steering wheel, aren't we? Waiting silently means not complaining. Yeah, not complaining, not plotting revenge. We do that, don't we? We start to think about like how angry that person made us. And then we stew on it a little bit. And then we'll talk to them about it. And then this bitterness starts to grow. And then this vile, like hatred that like is not us, starts to come out out of us. And we're like, what the heck is that? That is not God. But yet it is coming out of us because we're giving ourselves to it instead of allowing the Lord to work in us. We're not manipulating outcomes anymore, we're not trying to force deliverance. We're saying I trust God to handle this better than I can. Yeah. Stop being your own savior and you wait on him to act, not react. Don't we react all the time? Oh my goodness. So we had a dog before Max and Chester. His name was Jedi. Oh, we have, oh look at him. Oh, we love you, Jedi. Rest in peace. Um, so we were on a walk with Jedi in the forest preserve, and there happened to be a horse that decided to walk by, and my dog decided to run at the horse, to attack the horse. Okay, that was unwise. But my reaction in that moment should have been wait, call Jedi back, look around, make sure I know what's going on. Nope. Is that what I did? Nope. I ran after Jedi at the horse who reared up. I could have died. I could have died. I grabbed my dog and I reacted because it was my dog, but I could have died in that moment. Y'all, we react so fast, and so many bad things can happen when we react, right? We can hurt the people around us. We can say things we don't mean to say, we can do things we don't mean to do. We need to be still before we act so we hear what God actually wants us to do because moving hastily can make things worse most of the time. We're usually reacting in hurt and anger instead of in peace and stillness and wisdom from God. So easy to react, to fly off the handle at someone. But God is calling us to something better and something higher, something holier that only can be done when we are in Jesus, when we are in his presence. Silence comes also from knowing where your security actually is. David can wait quietly because his security is already settled in God. He knows whose he is, right? He knows he belongs to God. And therefore, because he knows whose he belongs to, he knows he is safe with God. He knows his standing with God. No matter what anybody says, no matter what any lie comes against him. He knows, I know I'm a child of God. Nothing can come at me. Nothing can change that. Nothing can change the fact that you are a child of God. Nothing can change God's protection over you. You are fully protected by God. Nothing can change God's justice towards you. That he is going to make all things right, that he is fully in control, and that nothing is going to change God's timing. His timing is perfect. He knows the way. He knows the perfect time. He knows the perfect way and way to do it. So he says, My soul finds rest in God alone. And that key word alone or only is the Hebrew word ak, which means truly, surely, only alone. So we learn here, it's like he uses a highlighter pen and he keeps highlighting these words, um, the same truth that God is not a refuge among many, but he is the only refuge. He is our one rock, he is our only fortress, he is the only true place where we can go and find that protection and that wisdom and that strength and find truth in the moment. But there is a danger here in mixing God with backup saviors. And we do that, don't we? We hedge our bets. We're like, God, I trust you, but I'm also gonna manipulate the situation over here. I'm gonna send this email so they know it was me, right? We do that. We also say things like, I trust God, but my security is in my money. So as long as everything is okay, I'll trust you. But if this gets off balance, I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know, Lord. I trust God, but I need to control the narrative. I need to be in control. But what happens when we do that, when we put in that supplementary savior that has no power at all, we actually step back into the hurricane because we've grabbed the wheel back and we think we can drive this. We're back in the chaos, we're back in that insecurity once again. I totally fall prey to this, y'all. Sometimes we have these backup plans, whether they're out of fear or whatever they are. Um, so for me, when something happens, when I feel insecure or something's going wrong, I have two reactions. I will either flee or I will fight. Okay, so if you know me, if you've known me any amount of time and you've heard anything said about my family, if something says something about my kids, my husband, whatever, I'm like, you want to go? I'll take you. I'll take you. Like there is like this thing that rises up in me, like, hey, pop team and hunters, like, I'm gonna take you down, right? That's real. I don't really know that I could, but that's what comes up out of me. But I'm not proud of this, but there are a lot of times that I just want to flee. Being a nurse, I'm a nurse. I'm a nurse. Hey, I've been a nurse for about a year now. I work at Condel and I work on a floor that serves oncology patients, general surgery patients, and then a mix of med surge, a whole gamut of patients. And they're very high acuity, which means that we have a lot of really sick people. It's really hard and it's really sad, and it's it's very challenging work. And so there are days when I, Mark can tell you, probably in the last year, I've said 300 times, when I get really stressed out and I have my stethoscope on, and I come home and he's like, How is your day? Do you love it? Is it wonderful? And I'm like, it was fine, but it's too much. It's too much. And I say out loud, I could just quit. I could just quit. I could just quit. I could just quit. I I've literally said that like 300 times. I could just quit. It's fine. I could just quit. How many times have you said that too? Or something really hard, something that's challenging, yet God is calling you into it. And your backup plan is, well, I could quit. God has called you there, and God has purposes for you there. Whatever it is, God wants to do something for you there. And so when we get before the Lord, when we get still before him and we wait before him, there's something so powerful that happens. He starts to remind us of who we are, he starts to remind us of the vision that he first gave us, and it's like a power-up in us. And we're like, oh, okay, I can keep doing this because God is with me. He has spoken to me, but I only get that if I go before him and quiet myself. Chill people don't rush to save themselves. They wait quietly because they know that God is already their fortress. So David can wait in silence because he knows something. He knows that God is his fortress. I think about the Israelites when they were about to walk up to the Red Sea, they had no idea what was gonna happen, mind you, right? There's just a sea. And it's amazing because Moses called the Israelites to camp before the Red Sea, facing the Red Sea, but he didn't even know what was gonna happen. He just knew that God was gonna get the glory. And then he hears this commotion behind him, and the Egyptians are coming to kill them, right? And so in that moment, he says something out of faith because he believes God, because maybe he got in that still quiet place. And he says in Exodus 14, 14, the Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. The Lord will fight for you. Whatever you're going through right now, wherever you find yourself, whatever trial you're in, whatever lies you're believing, the Lord will fight for you. You only need to be still. God is fighting for you. The God who did park that Red Sea is the same God today that is in your life, that is moving mountains for you. He's here, he's real, he's powerful, he hasn't changed one iota since the beginning of time. He was at the beginning of time, like he's infinity. I don't even know. He's awesome. All right, so how do we do this? How do we get still? Well, I would propose to you that we need to practice. We need to practice, and that might mean taking one minute every day and setting your clock so you stop looking at your clock and just sitting quietly before the Lord. Just turn off your mind. I know it's hard, but we can discipline ourselves to do that. Quiet your mind, lay it down before the Lord. Quiet your emotions, lay them down before the Lord. Quiet your body and just sit there for one minute. Just wait. He might speak, he might not. But what are you doing? You're practicing because when the time comes, you're gonna need to know what to do. You're gonna need to know how to get in that restful place where you can be still before God because things are gonna come up, hardships are gonna come, trials are gonna come, things are gonna be said about you and me, lies are gonna come from your critic, and you're gonna need to know I can come before Jesus and be still. And you've practiced. What else can you do? Well, you cannot rush to respond. That's another thing. And we can wait to hear our Savior's voice because he is the way, the truth, and the life. He has the ability to fix this. So we're gonna say out loud, I am not going to react to try to fix this in my own strength, but I'm gonna wait on God to get me out or show me what to do. Because that's what he's gonna do in that space. Now, waiting silently doesn't mean pretending everything is fine. David isn't emotionally numb. He's honest about what's happening right now in his life. So silence before God doesn't mean hiding your feelings from God. Instead of bottling them up, we number two, need to tell him our troubles. Tell him your troubles. It says in verse 8, oh my people, trust in him at all times, pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge. That means don't hold anything back, don't bottle up your disappointment, bring all of it to the Lord, your frustration, your bitterness, the fact that that didn't go the way that you wanted it to go, the fact that it was hard, the fact that it hurt, the fact that you don't feel like your questions are being answered, or you're exhausted, you don't know the next step. Bring it all before God. You know what you don't have to do? You don't have to filter anything for the Lord. You can be honest, brutally honest before Him. I think of it this way: like, you know how sometimes we have to write an email to our boss and we're like taking our time, making sure it's all curated perfectly. Like, did that sound okay? Is it professional yet warm? I'll send it to chat. Does that sound okay, chat? Okay. And then we like look it over again and we send it off. That's not what this is. This talking to God is like, ah, it's everything. It's coming out of us, it's pouring out of us. It's like a voicemail. You send your friend or your husband or your wife. About, like, I need eggs and milk, and what did you say last week? And I don't know what to do. It's everything, it's the real stuff, the gut-wrenching, real, unfiltered. It's like an honest conversation instead of a religious performance. Chill people don't bottle up their pain, they pour it out to God. So when we're pouring it out to God, it's not like, you know, on Instagram how they like have this beautiful woman who's like doesn't have any frizz, dressed so beautifully, and she's like, I'm gonna pour my my heart out to God. And it's like, oh yeah, no, no. It's like this I'm pouring my heart out to God. That's what this is like. It is everything in us being poured out before the Lord. So often we succumb to the I'm fine, don't we? I bet you were asked three times today, how was your week? How are you doing? What's going on? I'm fine. I'm fine. No one's fine. No one's fine. I mean, we have some great things in our lives. We have some wonderful things that we are like so blessed and so thankful for, but there's also some really hard things, okay? We're not all just fine. No. Okay, so we need to be real with God, with one another. When people carry stress, anxiety, and frustration or anger, but never express it, what happens? It starts to bottle up like a pressure cooker. It starts to right and then it explodes and it explodes over whoever is around you. And they didn't even know it was coming, but it was coming all the time. It will burst. But when people talk about what's bothering them, when people let it out, something miraculous happens. We start to actually look at the words, we start to listen to ourselves, and we have we're like, hey, they said that about me, but I know their heart. And I don't think they really meant that like that. Or we remember that lie we heard from our critic, and we're like, God would never say that about me. That's a lie. I'm taking that thought captive and making obedient to Christ. That has no place here. And there's power that comes from letting it out because then we can process it out loud before the Lord. And that's essentially what Psalm 62 invites us to do with God. Pour out your heart before God, not carefully, but emptying. It's the kind of honesty that God is inviting you to. You don't need to make your prayer sound spiritual, you don't need to edit your emotions. God is not fragile. He's not fragile, he's strong. He can handle your fear and your frustration and your exhaustion. So about three weeks ago, I had the worst shift I've ever had. It was so hard. Um holy cow. So we had come off of some really hard shifts. And I had my first patient die earlier that week. It was really hard. Um, I had just some really hard patients that I was, I'm still learning. And so, like, it there's a lot of stress involved. And so I would, I was getting so emotionally tired and physically tired. And then I had a patient that was violent and that went to hit me. And like, that's a lot, and it was traumatic. It was super traumatic. And I held my tears all day. I would go into the bathroom and I'd start to cry. And I'm like, Kenzen, don't cry. You can't cry. And then I'd get in my car. I got in my car that night, you guys. And I don't know if I've ever done this before, but I scream cried home. I scream cried. Like, I don't think I've ever been that vulnerable with the Lord before. But it was like the real, like, I don't know why you have me here. I don't want to do this. This is not what I signed up for. Why? Why? Why am I here? That's what came out. The real, the hard. So what are you doing, God? Why? But you know what happened in that moment is that as I expressed that to the Lord, who can handle it, is that He I stopped carrying that pressure alone. He was right there with me. And he held that with me, and he let me scream, cry it out, because he loves me and he's with me in it. God is a refuge, not a judge waiting to silence us. First Peter 5, 7 says, Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. So we tell God what we're afraid of. We tell God that we're afraid, and that doesn't weaken our faith. It actually strengthens it because we're inviting him into it. So I would encourage you, get a journal. If you're like a paper pencil person like me, get a journal and write about what is going on in your life, what is hurting right now, what are you afraid of right now? If you're a digital person, then get your phone out and talk to it. You know, put it in Evernote, put it in your notes, but let it out. Or take five minutes at the end of the night and tell the Lord what was stressful that day, what happened that day. Do you need to tell God about something that's going on at work? Do you need to tell God about something that's going on with your spouse that is super hard? Or maybe you have a child that's far away from Jesus right now, and you just need to talk to the Lord about it. Maybe you need to invite him in to your confusion or your pain or your bitterness or your midlife crisis. He is with you in it, and he will meet you in the middle, and that is where your healing will begin. He's here for it, my friends. He's here for it. So once David pours out his heart to God, he starts thinking clearly again. And when your mind clears, you begin to see something important. The things that we instinctively run to for security can't actually hold us. So David takes a moment to remind himself of the hard truth, which is number three, stop leaning on what can't hold you. There are a lot of things that we run to, don't we? Verse nine and ten say, From the greatest to the lowliest, all are nothing in his sight. If you wave them on the scales, they are lighter than a puff of air. Don't try to get rich, rich by extortion or robbery. And if your wealth increases, don't make it the center of your life. David talks about three things in this psalm that we must emotionally reject as being able to save us: people, status, and wealth. We do this often, don't we? We lean. We lean on things a lot. We lean on them expecting to hold us up through the storms of life, but they can't. Think about people. People are such a gift from the Lord. People are there to we are supposed to encourage each other and lift each other up and pray for each other. But what if, like my husband, for example? What if I depended on him to actually carry me? Like he's so wonderful. He's so faithful, and he will listen to me and minister to me and be my biggest support. But what if I actually expected him to carry me around all day? Like, pick me up, hon, carry me all day long, right? I'd eventually get dropped. That would like he would have to come to the hospital. I need to put an IV, hold still, right? Like, no, he cannot carry me. Only Jesus can carry me. Right? We have these, I have some dear friends of mine that we share life with, and we can lean on one another, but we can't carry right one another. We can't be each other's main support. They are not the rock. Jesus is the rock. So if you're depending on someone to be that person that only Jesus can be, it's not gonna work. It's gonna flail around. You're not gonna be steady. And it was never meant to be. Jesus is the only fortress, the only rock. And we also spend a huge amount of emotional energy worrying about what people think. Because a lot of people just have opinions and they're coming at you and you just don't know what to do with them. But we need to, like Star Wars, put our defect deflector shields up and be like, that's lighter than a feather. Doesn't even hit me. I'm like, whoo, there it goes. We need to let things fly by us a lot more, right? And not care about them. So when someone says something to you, you're like, oh, okay, cool. All right, bye. Right? And just put on a smile. We can let things fly by us. I have this Instagram person that I follow, and she does this like Twitter thing where she reads the comments that are not like nice, and then she makes fun of them. Like, and I think it's like light of them, not fun of the people, but light of them. Like they'll say something mean about her and then she'll be like, oh, that's funny. And then she'll do something fun about it. I want to be like that. Like things just fly by me. Cool. All right. What about status? You have a job, great, numerous degrees, wonderful. You might be the smartest person in the world. You might be instaglamorous, but it doesn't matter. It's not the solid ground because we could lose that job or we could lose those followers. But yet, Jesus is our steady. We never lose his, our position with him. He is our security. And what about wealth? Proverbs 23:5 says, cast but a glance at riches and they are gone. For they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. Isn't that the truth? They just are like, oh, money, oh, why? Like it just flies away. But looks like stone security can turn out to be a fortress of feathers. There are times where it looks like something other than God can help you. David's enemies are trying to convince him that they are big and scary, but they are way less than a puff of air. So David's point is simple here. Stop leaning on what cannot hold you. Lean on God alone. So here are some things that might help you. Are you going to people first before you go to God? When something bad happens or when you feel insecure, who do you go to first? Let's try to go to God first. How much time are you spending on social media? Like when you when you need to distract yourself or you feel like you need to distract yourself, do you start to scroll? Or do you go to God? What should I do right now, Lord? If status or applause is tempting to you, ask yourself, am I doing this for an audience of one? Or am I doing it for the applause? Have a heart check. Allow the Lord to do that heart check for you. That you would do everything only for his glory. When you feel shaken by criticism and lies, stop leaning on what can't hold you. God alone is your refuge. So once the false refuges fall away, the true refuge becomes obvious. Number four, trust only in God who judges rightly. It says, God has power plainly, or God has spoken plainly, and I have heard it many times. Power, oh God, belongs to you. Unfailing love, oh Lord, is yours. Surely you judge all people according to what they have done. Two truths stand out here. First, God has power, right? Strength belongs to Him alone. 100% of the time, no human power can compare to it. And secondly, God has said steadfast love for you. Not only is he capable of the impossible, but he is also deeply committed to you. He loves you. So put those two things together and you have an incredible reassurance. The one who has all power also has loyal love to you. And that means he can truly save you, he can truly steady you, he can truly judge what is right. And because he is the just judge, he will ultimately deal with those who have wronged you. He will right those wrongs, he will scatter those lies. So when life feels unstable, David steadies his soul by remembering God is most powerful and loving, and he knows how to defend me when the time is right. He knows how to defend me when the time is right. Jesus trusted the Father, and so can we. 1 Peter 2.23 says, when they hurled their insult at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. Remind yourself, our life is not held together by us strategizing everything. It is held together by God's strength and his care. So Psalm 62 puts this choice before us. You can spend your life trying to defend yourself, constantly managing opinions, protecting your reputation at all costs, and scrambling to secure your future, or you can rest in the refuge that God provides. And ultimately, that refuge isn't just an idea, it's a person. It's Jesus. Jesus himself is your unshakable refuge. Psalm 62 began with a man who felt like his life was about to collapse, and maybe some of us are there today. David describes himself like a tottering wall while people are whispering and plotting and pushing against him. And the question underneath the whole psalm is simple: where do you go when life feels unstable? Jesus himself becomes our unshakable refuge. Jesus knows the pain David describes. He was slandered and misjudged and opposed. He faced the combined power of Rome and religious leaders and public opinion. And instead of defending himself, he entrusted himself to the Father. Jesus had the perfect reputation, but he allowed it to be destroyed on the cross. Jesus had no wealth, no earthly wealth, but he yet possessed all authority. And at the cross, he refused retaliation and entrusted justice to God. And then three days later, the resurrection proved something forever. Human power is temporary, but God's power is permanent. God's power is permanent today for your life. Because of that, Christ is now your refuge and my refuge. He already absorbed all of the worst accusations, all of those lies that you hear from your critic, he's absorbed them. He's defeated them on the cross. They are not true. You don't have to take them in. And the Holy Spirit empowers believers to wait quietly for God's vindication instead of trying to fight every battle ourselves. We just can't do it. It's too much. But we have God, and God is able. So after I got home from that car drive home, my scream prayer drive, um, I got home and I told my family and they prayed over me and listened to me and loved me through it. And then the next three days I was off and I spent time with the Lord. I spent time quietly sitting before Jesus. And in that time, he started to reawaken his vision to me. He started to remind me of what's true, of what he had said, about his power, about his love, about how he can do anything, about how he's gonna get me through. And he can do the same thing for you. He can meet you in the middle of your deepest pain, where you feel like you can't go on anymore. Jesus is right there with you. And he has the power to lift you up. He has the power to reawaken what seems like died. He has a way to speak truth over you so that your mind can stop listening to the lies, but yet truth comes and you're able to defeat those lies quicker and quicker because you know God and you're with him. So here's the invitation: stop leaning on things that cannot hold you. Don't lean on them anymore. Stop exhausting yourself trying to save yourself. Bring all of your troubles to God and be still before him and trust the one who has the power to both act and the love to care. Because when your life feels like a leaning wall, Christ Himself is your fortress. Let's pray. Jesus, I thank you so much for your goodness and your presence, God. I thank you that you are so faithful. I thank you that in the midst of the worst times in our lives, you are right there. That we can come before you and we can be still before you. And it is not weakness, it is the perfect place to be because that is where you speak. That is where you meet us. That is where you minister to our hearts. And so, God, I'd pray, Jesus, that we would come before you quietly, waiting on you for your next step, for your way, for your words over us. God, I pray, Jesus, that you'd give us courage to be vulnerable with you, to tell you what really is in our heart. The hard stuff, the hardest stuff, God. And I thank you that you're not fragile and that you can take it all and that you're strong. And God, I pray, Jesus, that you would reveal to us the ways that we are leaning on things that are not you, and that you would gently and mercifully bring us back to your heart. And God, I pray, Jesus, that you would reawaken your vision in each of us. You have called us. You love us, and you'll never leave us. God, we love you in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

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