Struggling with fear? Wondering how to find hope in a world filled with anxiety and uncertainty? Get ready for an enlightening conversation that promises to equip you with spiritual practices to help you navigate these challenging times. Learn how you can become a 'thermostat' - someone who influences the atmosphere, rather than simply absorbing it. Implementing these practices not only helps you manage fear, but also allows you to create a spiritual routine that becomes second nature.
In this episode, we're joined by our dear friend, Israel. We dive into the power of remembering God's past actions as a catalyst to deepen faith and trust in Him. Looking back at God’s faithfulness gives us courage and reminds us that He is in control, irrespective of the circumstances. Israel and I discuss how guarding our time, especially our intake of news and other media, can help manage anxiety and fear. We also delve into the importance of abiding in God, particularly during times of political turmoil.
Finally, we underline the strength that comes from congregating with other believers. We shed light on how it can help us combat fear, build faith, and appreciate the beauty of the house of God. The act of coming together not only provides comfort but also reminds us of God's goodness. Through this conversation, we're hoping to encourage you to not let yourselves feel offended or disillusioned by the church, but rather, see it as a vibrant, supportive community. Tune in for a heartening chat filled with spiritual wisdom and encouragement.
Struggling with fear? Wondering how to find hope in a world filled with anxiety and uncertainty? Get ready for an enlightening conversation that promises to equip you with spiritual practices to help you navigate these challenging times. Learn how you can become a 'thermostat' - someone who influences the atmosphere, rather than simply absorbing it. Implementing these practices not only helps you manage fear, but also allows you to create a spiritual routine that becomes second nature.
In this episode, we're joined by our dear friend, Israel. We dive into the power of remembering God's past actions as a catalyst to deepen faith and trust in Him. Looking back at God’s faithfulness gives us courage and reminds us that He is in control, irrespective of the circumstances. Israel and I discuss how guarding our time, especially our intake of news and other media, can help manage anxiety and fear. We also delve into the importance of abiding in God, particularly during times of political turmoil.
Finally, we underline the strength that comes from congregating with other believers. We shed light on how it can help us combat fear, build faith, and appreciate the beauty of the house of God. The act of coming together not only provides comfort but also reminds us of God's goodness. Through this conversation, we're hoping to encourage you to not let yourselves feel offended or disillusioned by the church, but rather, see it as a vibrant, supportive community. Tune in for a heartening chat filled with spiritual wisdom and encouragement.
Speaker 1:
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Campbell Soup podcast. We just really want to let you guys know that we appreciate all of your comments and encouragement that this is helping you, that you enjoy the conversation. We love hearing what you want to be talking about and Israel and I don't we really just really enjoy the conversation, feeling like we do get to kind of talk with everybody and walk through some of the current events of the world and maybe what God is speaking and all the things going on in our life and your world. All those things we just want you to know. We really appreciate and love you guys.
Speaker 2:
It's such a fun way to connect. On the run, I know you're going a million miles an hour. You've got soccer practice, you've got work, you're trying to stay fit, you're folding laundry, you're doing all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:
We don't like to talk about fitness during these months. Until Christmas, but no more fitness.
Speaker 2:
Oh, okay, yes, but we get a chance to connect and so we all love that that, wherever you are, we get to be with you. Maybe but maybe they are on a treadmill or they're stuck on the 405 traffic we get to be there with them and, hopefully, make them laugh Not getting in an accident, because it's that funny that they laugh, but at least a little bit of humor in the middle of something.
Speaker 1:
Correct. Yes, it's important to laugh in these days.
Speaker 2:
Ah well, that talks it. Let's go just jump right into it. Rachel, these days are hard to laugh, which kind of gives us the title of our episode this week. It is what to do when the world is afraid.
Speaker 1:
Come on, we know that you think that is a good topic.
Speaker 2:
I think it's an incredible topic, and I mean just emails, dms, just conversations with people, whether it's out on the street or whether it's at the congregation. People are right now afraid because the world is afraid. A lot of stuff going on and it's kind of like you would have thought after COVID, rachel, nothing else could have ever gone wrong. That was the max of the capacity our world can handle, but it doesn't. It's fallen. There's some revelations happening in 2023. And so there is what do you do? Because we don't hide, we don't put ourselves in a blanket, we don't go underground, how do, what do we do when the world is afraid? And the Bible is full of observations, the Bible is full of instructions on that, and I think sometimes it's just good to have somebody just remind ourselves hey, this is how we process it and this is what we do with it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think that there are some biblical practices that we have to exercise, not only when we're afraid, but just when life is throwing a lot of negativity towards us. We really have to begin to have some go to, maybe even a go to list, and we're going to talk down our personal list of things that we begin to do when life begins to throw things at us. You know, when a pilot is trained, he's not only just trained for the really pretty sunny weather, he's not just trained for turbulence, but he also has sequences that he initiates when things go wrong. And it is like they practice it so many times that when something happens, it's second nature, it's just what they do, it's just like breathing, it's like first step, second step, third step to begin to handle an emergency.
Speaker 1:
I think that, as Christians, it's time for us to have some sequences that we can begin to do, because it can be really easy and I'll just like from a really personal perspective it can be really easy to begin to just go down into, like this, this really negative whole, and forget faith, forget that God is with us, forget that God created us for such a time as this, which means if he created us for such a time as this, he's also given us all the grace to walk through such a time that is really well and strong and also happy.
Speaker 2:
I love that and it's so true if it's not part of your already sequence, it's tough when things are spiraling to then Learn those things, be taught those things you know. That really does need to be second nature. It does need to be Not muscle memory but maybe spiritual memory of this is what we do in those situations and, like you said, like it's just, it's not. It's not a routine so much as that we become religious about it, but it is. There are some routines that are really good, like we wake up and we brush our teeth. There are some things that we do that are really good, and so these are some things that maybe can help when the world is afraid. Making these are go-to. This is how we handle it and this is what we do. So I think it's gonna be beneficial for everyone.
Speaker 2:
I think that everyone might even have maybe a couple more that you might want to give us a comment on. Hey, this is how I do it and let us know, and we can share that. And then, of course, there might be some that you go, oh, I do that innately, and then there might be something like, oh, I haven't mastered that yet, I'm gonna add that to my routine and so let's just jump right into it. I, as we were talking kind of pre, you know, recording and stuff is. One of the things is being able to shift the atmosphere with praise, and I guess there's two different types of I think I've always loved that analogy. You can be a thermostat or a thermometer, and a thermometer can actually Measure the how afraid the world is, and I think there are some Christians that are really good at that. Oh man, this is end times. It's really up here.
Speaker 1:
I need to buy more water.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, get that generator pumping, get it going, and you know, and some people just thrive on that. I mean, they are looking forward to the next thing that they can clamp down and hide In the Winnebago and you know, do all that kind of stuff and so, but that is, you know. So that's the, that's the difference between a thermometer. But then there's the thermostat, and the thermostat you know this, rachel can change the atmosphere. I'm an anti-air conditioning person, but, man, you gals, wake up. You and Phoebe and Chloe are are the AC Queens in California, and I'll be waking up shivering because somebody in the middle of the night has snuck out of bed and Turned on the air conditioning. But that air conditioning shifts the atmosphere and it brings it to be colder and it brings it to be cooler, and so how do we shift the atmosphere of fear? When the world Is a phrase, we do that with praise.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. You know, I used to think that praise was the sequence of fast songs before we got to the good stuff that was worship. But throughout the years I've had like a deeper. You know, god begins to teach you. You have this new revelation of praise, and and praise is not a temple of music. Right, praise is the utterance of God's people declaring who he is, who he's always been and who he is going to be. And you know, we, we read the praise, praise lyrics in Songs.
Speaker 1:
But you know, something that I've been talking to our church about is the most effective praise is not a song that we sing together, but the words that we declare on a personal level, the personal stories of our life, of God's victory, the personal stories of him revealing who he is to us and us echoing that thing, and then the personal Proclamation of who he's continuing to be.
Speaker 1:
And so I was just talking to Israel even this morning about how the enemy is just trying to a Little bit get my heart to be heavy and be a little bit discouraged, and I know, when I begin to feel that way, what I have to do is not declare what I see in the natural, but begin to recite the goodness of God, begin to declare what he is, who he is, what his promises declare over my life personally, and that shifts it. Praise is something that is so important that we I think we don't give enough power to, because I feel like the church Um, in 2023. The church is so good at worship. Worship is establishing the lordship of Christ over our life. It's declaring who the king is. Its adoration, it's exaltation. But praise is a little different than that and I think we all could begin to work on our personal praise a little more. And that is reciting who he is, despite what we feel, despite what we see. But who do we know our God to be?
Speaker 2:
and I would just add to it praise is also an action work and Worship can sometimes be like you say. It's kind of an easy light, a candle, slow. You know meditation, like meditating on the goodness of God, all those things. But when you go through Psalms, praise talks about a shout, praise talks about a dance, praise Talks about a clap. I mean there's all these actions to praise and it's almost like the power of praise and the movement of praise Is so important and that's like what you're saying.
Speaker 2:
Praise is not just a fast song, but there is a movement to it, there is a, it's a my flesh wants to wallow, my flesh wants to be sedentary, not moving, just like, and Praise might the action of praise. I am gonna shout to God with a voice of triumph, I am gonna raise my hand, I'm going to dance and all of those things I know from experience. If I was to to talk about the most impactful moments of my spiritual life, there would be ones that would definitely go back to the power of praise, where I wrote through and it had something to do with it. And so you know, all those songs that are praise, that are our up temple, those can help you. But the most powerful thing is when you add to praise and you're I'm going to lift my hands. Nope, I am. Right now I am going to leap for joy. I am going to nobody's here, but I'm having this praise and I am praising God despite what my body feels like, despite what my mind, what my emotions, and bringing some action to that atmosphere.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and there've been some moments where things were heavy in our family and we grabbed our kids and had a praise dance and they might not have understood the why behind it, but they loved it. And I think sometimes we can just take bad news, bad news, heaviness in our home and we need to release the presence of God into our households. We need to release the presence of God into our marriages by sometimes laughing and praising in the goodness of God. And so if you need a playlist of songs that are good to dance to, that have praise words on top of them, I can let you know, and there are certain people that have been anointed to create praise.
Speaker 1:
I would say we don't have good praise songs right now. We have really amazing worship and that's okay. But if I really want to dance and I want to praise and I want to have that breakthrough in my spirit through worshiping and praising and edifying God, I go back to about the early 2000s and I have some go-to songs, you know, and usually they're gospel songs, but they've got a way better rhythm to them.
Speaker 1:
They are declaring the word of God and they're kind of wild and I think there's something really effective about that and really powerful, and the enemy doesn't want us to tap into that at all.
Speaker 2:
Well, and the church, it's just. Hey, you know, we don't want to be awkward to strangers, we don't want people to come in and you know, and my phrase is awkward, I will say Well, yours is actually decent compared to mine. Mine's more like Elaine dance, you know.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, but there's nothing more attractive than when you grab my hand and tell me let's praise God, and I could care less what your moves are, because what you're doing is you're establishing that God is the one who's in control and we're going to choose to be happy about it so good.
Speaker 2:
Do you hear that guys Do that dance with your woman. Learn the muscle of shifting the atmosphere with praise. And it is intentional, it is probably counterintuitive to what your flesh wants to do and it is demonstrative. There is some movement in praise. It's not a quiet kumbaya moment and but it will change your life. The power of praise. And I would think and I'm not trying to say this, but I would say there's a very large percentage of the church today that doesn't know the power of praise. And Paul and Silas at midnight knew the power of praise and not only did it unlock their chains, but it also unlocked the chains of everybody that was listening around them. And so praise is powerful because it will change some things in our life, but it also changed those and others.
Speaker 1:
So that's so powerful. I know we have to move on, but I just wanna say this Praise, dancing and shouting unto the Lord breaks the coolness, breaks the cool factor that I believe is holding churches back right now. I really do believe that there is something connected to us looking undignified and really going. If we are not here to be the coolest people drinking a cup of coffee or with our hands in our pockets during praise and worship, and I'm not like if that's you, then I'm not like trying to make you feel bad, but question why you do that. Question why we would have your hands in your pocket to resist the ability to even what the bible says is to clap your hands, make a joyful noise, to worship and praise god with abandonment. We need to get that back. We need to go old school until that becomes our new norm.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I just agree with you and it is. I think that we've intellectualized it maybe a little bit and taken out why it's so important to do some of those actions, the actions of praise, and so I absolutely love that and we could probably do a whole thing.
Speaker 1:
I'm just let's keep going. I love it.
Speaker 2:
One of the other things that we talked about was to be able to and it kind of ties with praise, but to recite what the promises of the Lord are Scripture memorization and also maybe even reciting. For me, one of the things that I do as part of my spiritual disciplines is I begin to look back at what God's already done in my life. So I'm like you know, I was in my mother's womb. My mom, my biological mom, was doing drugs, and so I was born addicted to heroin. I should have been so much. I should have been aborted. I should have been you know what I mean. And then, god, I might just go buy it like God. You saved my life there, you, I could have been so many other worse things, and you've healed my body.
Speaker 2:
I was in the hospital when I was a kid and you sustained me. Then I was adopted, then I was, and I just go over like almost line upon line or year upon year, what God has done in my life, and by the time I get to where I am now, 51 years later, man, I just not as fearful because I have recited, not just, and I know for you it be. You know, I'm not saying don't do it. Not just what God's word says, but I also recite what he has already done for me, and miracles and so many things. It just just makes me go. Why am I going to stress now? I mean he's. He's been faithful before. He'll be faithful to continue.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and the trust factor. After all these years, the trust factor with God for us run so deep. It runs deeper than any other thing we could trust. It runs deeper than our medical insurance it trusts. It runs deeper than people being for us in leadership. It runs deeper than the economy, because we have proven God to be so faithful.
Speaker 1:
And if you're young in the faith or you're in the middle of your journey, or you're in your 30s and you're walking this out and you're trying to start new habits of trusting God, israel and I just want to encourage you that the righteous are not forsaken and every time that we have put our hope in God, he is not only not failed us, but he has superseded our expectations. And I think the only time that Israel and I have allowed discouragement to really trip us up is when we have plans that aren't God's, when it's like God, why haven't you done this? And it's like. But if we wait long enough on the Lord, he does more and better. And I think that sometimes that's hard when you're in the fight, when you're in that marathon of your faith and you feel like you should have seen a breakthrough by now. You've been sowing, you've been trusting. You've been doing all of the things. Can I just encourage you that you, just when you get to a certain age, you look back and you're tethered to the goodness of God because of each victory. Each victory draws that stake in the ground of your trust with him and his trust worthiness just deeper and deeper. And that's how we walk through times of trials, times of fear, times of terror on earth. We walk through it because we're tethered to the goodness of God.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and when we fail to recite what he's already done. So you know, obviously, through praise we're reciting what God can do, we're declaring it. We're also declaring God's word. But I just feel that there's something about taking a moment and really reciting. What about when he was there for when Chloe was sick and had a fever and healed her? What about the time when we had a transition in church and it seemed like all these mean people left and we got through it and actually excelled? What about the time when we bought a house in the miracle? You know what I mean and you just have to recite and then, all of a sudden, it's not limiting what you're in the middle of, but it definitely changes your perspective of he's never failed yet and if he helped us, then then come on, he's going to help us now.
Speaker 1:
And if he hasn't done what we're asking is because he's preparing something even better to surprise us with and that's what we know to meet her.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and you don't necessarily immediately think that, unless you learn to recite, don't you think, rach? Because then you almost forget. And it's the same thing with the children of Israel. We can go back and look through it, through their story, and go how could they forget that he opened the Red Sea? How could he forget that they do it? But it's human nature to stress out about tomorrow or today and forget about God's faithfulness yesterday, and so we definitely have to risk like that. Another one that I love, and it's I like how you articulated it when we were talking about is guard and limit, and I like the word guard because you know it's it. We don't want to be naive, we don't want to be like the scenes, who were so scared of the world that they packed up and left Jerusalem and missed the Messiah. They missed Jesus because they were so afraid of end times at the moment, without Roman church, that's right, I mean the, not the Roman church, the Roman army.
Speaker 2:
You know what was happening in society. They were like come on, we are getting out of Jerusalem.
Speaker 2:
We're gonna go hide in the wilderness and run for the hills and doing so, they actually missed the Messiah. And so we're not like you know, just don't know what is happening in the world. But we have to guard ourselves and limit ourselves to know, and so I feel like it's really important is, if you have a certain amount of time a day and it's, you know, maybe it's two hours a day that at the end of the day you're you're watching something with your family doing something like that it is. It can be pretty dangerous if two of those hours are just news, and I don't know what the equation is, but there's somewhere, after probably 20 minutes, that is not going to help you understand the subject even more. That's right.
Speaker 2:
It's only like you've got what's happening. You understand, you're aware of what is happening in our world. But after that now it just starts to creep into fear, because the more you hear and the more you see and the more you dead scroll, whether it's Fox News or CNN, the more you're like the world is coming to an end. Yeah, and what are we going to do tomorrow? We're probably going to be dead because North Korea is coming, and it's just like this fear. And so I think we have to be wise in guarding and limiting what we're allowing in. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I just can I just set some of you free. Is God is not asking you to know how to handle Middle East crisis? Wow, he's not. He is not in crisis right now. God is not in crisis right now and he does not want his people to be in crisis. And there is a massive invitation to be part of the argument, to think that somehow it's godly to have the answers and I just set you free.
Speaker 1:
The one thing that God has asked us to do is abide in him, because he's not in crisis. He is not in crisis. He knows exactly what's happening. He knows what's happening tomorrow. He knows what's happening in 10 years. He knows why our children are living in today's world the way that they are, and he's not in crisis about it, and the only person, the only one, who would want you to live in crisis is the enemy.
Speaker 1:
Terror is a tactic to spread fear. Terrorist attack is so. The gateways to our heart are succumbing to fear of the what is, and it's to rob us of our todays with what could happen tomorrow. And God is not in crisis and he's not called us to crisis, and we have to be coming to agreement with that. It's not our job to settle disputes. I really believe we have to even guard our heart. Right now, at least I do. I'm gonna say you can claim this for yourself, pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit for you. But I know for a fact that God is not asking me to decipher who's right in politics or to decipher which country is wrong and which country is right. Evil is evil and it's pretty prevalent everywhere. We need to abide. We need to know the heart of God. We need to rise up and courage as children of God, because it's kings and kingdoms. They are going to pass away. That is a promise, but the name of Jesus remains and the church rises.
Speaker 2:
I don't know if I've ever been more proud of you, baby, because Well.
Speaker 1:
I'm preaching it to myself because, as a mom, right now, there's this invitation to be in crisis and it robs us of our sleep, it robs us of our dreams, it robs us of our ability to parent courageously and be led by the Holy Spirit, and it causes us to be kind of paralyzed and to do nothing, and I feel like that's a real tactic of the enemy.
Speaker 2:
And I couldn't agree more. I think I'm because of how you were raised, with charts on the back of your dining room table from Missing out on school outing.
Speaker 2:
Missing on school because God was coming back and where Armageddon was going to take place. And listen, all of those things are godly, all of those things are good. We're like the Virigans we want to study, but we don't necessarily have to have the answers for things that have been for thousands of years. I'm just I'm not going to spend my energy trying to debate or going through and scrolling what other people are saying and then fighting them Cause they're saying something wrong. It's just that will only more and more freer. And then you're distracted.
Speaker 2:
And the Bible says this. Paul says to Timothy his mentee is the one he's being the mentor over his apprentice. He says God has not given us a spirit of fear, and so we have to understand fear is of the enemy, it's not of God, and it's a spirit I mean, that could be a whole another podcast A spirit, a spirit, a spirit. But God has given us a power that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power. So we're supposed to have authority, we're supposed to have power, love. So then how we respond in these situations is with love, not with some of the things I've seen posted and then a sound mind, you and I can have a sound mind when it comes to these things, and so I would do that. Rachel, you're looking up something practically.
Speaker 1:
I was trying to find it. I don't have it right now, but I was just reading last month about how Jeremiah, when the God's people and land were seized, it says and it was in the days of Nebuchadnezzar right.
Speaker 1:
And it says that Jeremiah got put into prison for speaking the truth of God's word, and then it says that God spoke to him to purchase land. I love that. I feel like that's a God word for right now is we can be overwhelmed by fear. We can feel like what if we're put in prison? What if you know all the what ifs? And I love that God spoke to Jeremiah. He spoke future in the middle of his fear, in the middle of everything feeling like it was coming against him. He said purchase land for your future.
Speaker 1:
And I think that's what God's saying to us right now is guard your hearts, limit the bad news, choose faith, but also begin to purchase. Let do the things that are choosing future. You know, look for, build future things by faith. Make those small steps toward future and don't allow the enemy to get you to not plan things because of bad economics in America and because of interest rates and because of wars and rumors of wars. All of those things just want to get us to stop dreaming and stop prophesying and stop building. And you know we got to be like the ones who don't get off the wall, who know what God's called us here for in such a time as this, and then we build towards the future.
Speaker 2:
I love that and one of the other things. And we're really. We've just given you a two part. How is it over? Yeah, it could be a two part. Let's do part two of this next week. That will be really good, but we only got through a couple of hours. But one of the words that you used was so good was how? What do you do when the world is afraid? So we're giving you actionable items, like Rachel said. You know, a pilot has this book and they're like do this, do this, do this, do this flaps. You know all that. I don't know what they do, but I'm just trying to pretend. But one of them that you said and it was so good was to congregate. And so what do you do when the world is afraid? You congregate with people of faith versus isolate. It's the worst thing that you can do when the world is afraid. Then you become a recluse, you isolate, you bunker down and you're alone. So talk to that for a second as we close Rachel.
Speaker 1:
You know, when Paul says to the church, do not forsake the gathering of the saints, I don't think it was for the good days. I think it was for the days he knew that we were going to need each other. And the Bible says that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And testimony means the sharing of God's goodness to each other, not just reciting it to yourself. But how do I recite the goodness of God when I can't remember the good things? Because I've been through it? I congregate, I get together with other saints who can feed me their faith. That gets me to begin to remember the goodness of God for myself.
Speaker 2:
And.
Speaker 1:
I think that the enemy would love for us to be heard in church. There's more sermons on church hurt right now than there's any other sermons, and we could be the president of the club, but we understand that that is a tactic of the enemy to take us out and we refuse to be people hurt and offended by the church. Yes, there are mean people in the house of God, but God's house is beautiful, vibrant and healthy and when we congregate we are with others who can remind us that God is good and he's not finished with us.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and it's a real concept that's biblical, that you see all through it. He's coming back for his church when two or more are gathered together. He's there in the midst and I feel that on a Sunday there's times when I'm maybe afraid or insecure or whatever. It is the emotion that's going through and I can just get into God's house and it's amazing how I feel after that, or my, where my faith level is, and one can put a thousand of like two can put 10,000, just the the power of congregating. So love that. We love you guys, and I guess we've already made a decision what episode eight is going to be, as part two of what do you do when the world is afraid?