Ep. 165 Alan Fadling - Finding Peace in an Anxious World

In this episode, Alan Fadling talks about his journey with anxiety and how he has learned to manage it through deepening his faith in God. Alan shares practical tools like meditation on scripture and spiritual disciplines that have helped redirect his anxious thoughts and feelings towards peace. Joshua and Alan discuss how communities can come together through practices like communion to collectively experience less anxiety and more of God's shalom, even in troubling times. This conversation provides hope and guidance for anyone struggling with anxiety, and looking for spiritual paths to greater peace.

Alan Fadling, (MDiv), serves as a frequent speaker and consultant with local churches, national organizations and leaders internationally. His content is approachable, usable and transferable. He shows leaders how to get perspective so their leadership flows from a full soul and out of healthy rhythms of rest and work. A trained Spiritual Director, Alan is author of An Unhurried Life, An Unhurried Leader and A Year of Slowing Down.

Alan's Book:
A Non-Anxious Life

Alan's Recommendation:
The Message

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.us

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In a world that makes up its own rules, Christians need to focus on Who rules! The Christ!

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Transcript

Alan Fadling: 0:00

I think of Jesus saying, Don't let your hearts be troubled on that last night in on the precipice of what would be one of the most troubling few days in the lives of that of that inner circle. And Jesus says something crazy, like, don't let your hearts be troubled. Well, I've just begun to think if Jesus is going to say something like that, he probably means to do something to make it possible. You know, and I have found that that's true, it is possible to live in troubling times, and not to let that trouble to become your operating system. It's possible to practice the presence of God that becomes the sort of pushing back pressure against the trouble that surrounds us.

Joshua Johnson: 0:58

Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Go to shifting culture podcast.com to interact and donate. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week, and go leave a rating and review. It's easy, it only takes a second. And it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. It really is that easy. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network? Tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast, where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included drew Qian Craig West off and Todd Hunter. You could go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Alan Fabien Alan serves as a frequent speaker and consultant with local churches, national organizations and leaders internationally. His content is approachable, usable and transferable. He shows leaders how to get perspective so their leadership flows from a full soul and out of healthy rhythms of rest and work. Allen is a trained spiritual director and the author of an unhurried life and unhurried leader and a year of slowing down. Alan and I have a conversation around his latest book a non anxious life. He shares his story with anxiety and how he has learned to manage it lean on God and give him the reins. We work through finding a path to peace, as we unveil what the kingdom of God has for us. Abundance, Soul abundance in which we are deeply loved. Not because we deserve it, but because God has given us this gift. We talk practicals around how to experience peace in community. And individually. Join us as we discover how Christ displaces the worry at the center of our lives. Here's my conversation with Alan fatling. Alan, welcome to shifting culture really excited to have you on thank you so much for joining me.

Alan Fadling: 3:20

I'm glad to be able to be with you. Thanks.

Joshua Johnson: 3:23

We're going to get into your bucket non anxious life, which would be great. So first of all, is peace possible in this chaotic, anxious world that we live in?

Alan Fadling: 3:34

I think that if it's not, we probably don't have much business proclaiming the message we proclaim. You know, if we are actually following a prince of peace, I'd say he's pretty good at that. And could show us how to live that way better.

Joshua Johnson: 3:50

Yes, well, that's good. So there is some hope. So we're gonna go somewhere in this conversation. But let's start with anxiety. What is your relationship with anxiety in your life?

Alan Fadling: 4:03

Yeah. Well, at the very beginning of the book, I just share that anxiety has sort of been my nemesis. So all along the way, I, I learned it from a mom who grew up in a post world war two Midwestern orphanage, and if you grow up in an orphanage, you learn anxiety. Of course you do. Because you don't have things you need. All kinds of things you don't that you that you don't have. And so that little girl grew up became a mom had a firstborn son, me, and I learned the ways of anxiety going up. Now I'm in my 60s now. So if I'm going to blame my 80 year old mother for my struggle with anxiety, I have a problem. And it's been good to acknowledge Yeah, anxiety has driven a lot of my adult life more than I'd wished to admit.

Joshua Johnson: 4:53

Can you take us into what what is it? What is it like to be to be anxious how Does that affect your decision making and your relationships?

Alan Fadling: 5:03

So one of the ways I came to describe anxiety as I wrote the book, is I realized that anxiety looks a lot like care. In fact, in the New Testament, the same word translated anxiety in one place could be translated care. And another Paul talks about his care for the churches. He doesn't mean his frantic worry about him. But he means his deeply heartfelt concern for them. And so they look very much alike the differences anxiety is kind of what Mike Kerr looks like, when God's not much in the picture. And so what I've realized is anxiety. And my worrying the way anxiety drives me to worry is sort of how I practice practically speaking practice the absence of God, instead of practicing the presence of God in the midst of whatever it is that concerns me.

Joshua Johnson: 5:54

Well, if anxiety is really care minus God, the absence of of God in the midst of it, what is that care? Minus God start to look like?

Alan Fadling: 6:06

Well, part of what it looked like for me is the, the imagination that everything depended on me. Like I was the left to myself, to take care of the troubles that crossed my path to deal with the troubles that happened in the lives of others. I mean, I would say I'm, I've been a pastor my whole adult life. And I would say, Well, God's love is the most important thing. It's the great commandment, I would say that all day long, from pulpits, but then I would live in a way that sort of seemed to betray that, I didn't seem to think that actually was relevant in the moment to moment I lived experience, or the way that I did my work. And so it looked like being overwhelmed a lot. It looked like feeling abandoned, it looked like imagining I didn't have what I need to do what I was called to do.

Joshua Johnson: 7:02

Yeah, that's a hard and difficult place to be in. And you're, you're trying to get to the place where you say, I believe this I ascent to this place of, of God is love. He is good. He has control. But then you we move into this place of no, really, I I'm going to just try and control this and be my anxious self. How do we get from belief in like, a god it is going to bring peace, He is good. into our actual lived selves?

Alan Fadling: 7:41

Well, I can tell you what it's looked like a bit for me. So you know, I, when I wrote the book, I kind of hoped maybe somehow, by the time I was done writing it, I would find myself living on the plateau of peace, where Never again did an anxious thought or feeling arise inside of me. And I just have to say, I never found that spot. I didn't, didn't locate that piece of geography, you know. But what I learned was, I can practice, practice God's presence in the midst of trouble, troubling circumstances, but also troubling emotions and thoughts. And so for example, the simplicity of a line like the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Now this could be a line I just assent to, as you said, Gosh, I've heard it at how many funerals and you know, it's it's a very common line. But maybe it's also an operating system. Maybe I could test that against moments when I feel anxious. And that's what I've done for a number of years now, is something will unpleasantly surprised me. And I will feel my body and my emotions in my mind react with great anxiety. And in that moment, I have an opportunity, I can let that drive me or freeze me or chase me away. Or I can say in the middle of that moment, you know what, right now, the Lord is shepherding me, my way of trends paraphrasing it as a prayer was, and this might turn out better than my anxiety is predicting. And I just started testing that. I wonder if that's true. I wonder if that works. And you know what, it turns out it does. So what

Joshua Johnson: 9:25

does that do for us, then if we start to then then practice it, or then say, We're gonna bet on God and set of ourselves for a little bit, and then God shows up and he's faithful. So as he continues to be faithful in our lives, and we realize that he actually shows up with peace and he's a good shepherd. How does that start to shift our relationship with anxiety moving forward? Yeah,

Alan Fadling: 9:56

that is a that is an excellent question. Because what What I realized was the way I've related to anxiety in the past, you would have imagined that I considered it my wonderful Counselor, the kind of authority I gave it in my life, the amount of attention I gave it in my life, the degree to which I followed its counsel, like I really trusted my anxiety. It's a dumb way to say it, but that's how I behaved. And what has happened, as I've tested, whether anxiety was giving me good information about my present my future, my past whatever, as I tested that against, no, actually, the Lord says, he's going to shepherd me and that the outcome is I will not find myself in a place of great want, I will have what I need, I begin, what I began to do is I realized, anxiety instead of a wonderful counselor is much more like a false prophet. It has been wrong, the majority of the time and when it was right, it was because it got lucky. And so being able to downsize my level of trust, on the messages of anxiety, and instead, right sighs, my trust in what God says to me about the kingdom and about my life, and about my present about my future. That has been immensely freeing. And so it doesn't mean I never feel anxious anymore. But what it does mean is when I'm anxious, I'm not as likely to say, okay, anxiety, what do we do next?

Joshua Johnson: 11:32

So then if we start to unveil the kingdom of God and live within the kingdom, what are some of the kingdom principles that that God brings into our lives when we're under his reign and rule as we're walking in the place that he is a wonderful counselor, and he is a good shepherd? What are some of those principles that can help us walk in those ways?

Alan Fadling: 12:01

One of the big ideas that's helped me is that the kingdom of God is a place of abundance. Not not, you know, abundance, measured mostly in wallets and closets, and garages, and things like that, not outward abundance, just but but soul abundance, like a life in which we know ourselves deeply loved, where love isn't a paycheck I'm earning, but it's a gift I've already been given. And I trusting that more and more. So abundance is one of the out growths or fruits of living this less anxious, more non anxious kind of life. I think another place for me is a place of companionship, I don't see my life or my work as a thing I'm doing for God at some distance from God, like God's at the home office, four states away, and I'm here at the satellite office doing these things for God, I hope God likes. But instead, I have this sense of Jesus saying, you know, come to me, are you weary Are you burdened, Take my yoke, learn from me, you're going to discover rest for your soul. That living in this life with God who turns out to be a prince of peace, is a very, a very nice way to live our lives and to do our work. And so instead of a sense of aloneness, which my anxiety tends to leave me feeling abandoned, living in the presence of a Prince of Peace gives me a sense of I Am, all of all of this is a whisk God kind of reality. And that's such good news for my soul.

Joshua Johnson: 13:45

We need to be with God. In all things in our work, and our lives and our marriages, in our relationships with others. And in our play, and all of life. We can be with God, man, that when I transitioned from a posture of working for God, to being with God, it made all the difference in my life. It was such a huge transition. And a huge moment for me to say, Wow, you're a good guy that wants to be with me. And there's not a lot of pressure, of course, we want to do things. So what would you say to you, you say to leaders, and people that typically accomplish a lot of things. And they work hard. What is this, this piece that you're trying to, to talk about? Is it something where everything is just calm? And we don't really do anything and we just relaxed to sit back? Or is it something different? What is this piece? And how can we actually accomplish things? And feel a sense of peace at the same time?

Alan Fadling: 14:51

Yes, so last week, I was with a group of leaders and whenever I talk about these things, unhurried, you know, they wonder if I get anything done You know, now I'm talking about non anxious Gosh, and really not getting anything done. And what I want to say is, you know, maybe, you know, they talk about having an edge. And I kind of wonder, I want to ask leaders, what is that edge that you think you have? What is the energy underneath it? And does that play well with the kingdom? Maybe it doesn't. Thomas Merton liked to say that busyness is sometimes its own form of laziness. You know, I have been busy to avoid something God was inviting me to do more than I'd like to admit. And ironically, as a pastor, the stuff I was busy with was God stuff. Church stuff, you know, ministry stuff. So I think what I want to say is in the kingdom, when we live in the peace of God, here's what I found about peace. My anxiety creates this very constricted, narrow tunnel, of from my life, it is not a spacious place. Peace is. Anxiety tends to squash creativity. Peace, lets it flourish, I have much more capacity to be to be compassionate in places of peace than I do in place of anxiety and anxiety, I tend to be mostly focused on me, in the midst of the stuff I'm doing. Peace enables me to be focused on others, and be noticing them, and how I might be able to be of service to them. The other thing is that peace plays really well with energy sources like hope, or joy, or love. All of those will energize you, the joy of the Lord is my strength. The love of Christ compels me, that sense of hope that is this buoyant vision of the future, those will energize you may not feel as edgy as anxiety did, or greed does or some other movements. But it is far more sustainable. It's like it's green energy, if you want to use that kind of language. You know,

Joshua Johnson: 17:10

I want to go back a little bit you talked about life in the kingdom of God is abundance. And so if we're living in the West, we have an abundance of of goods, and we have an abundance of stuff. I often think that, that we accumulate stuff to hide our anxiety or tried to make ourselves feel better. And you, you know, you said that abundance in the kingdom isn't just, you know, monetary things or money, whatever it is. So what is this abundance? And how can our stuff get in the way with feeling peace? Is the thing of the West, we have more anxiety than ever before. And we have more stuff? That never before? Seems

Alan Fadling: 18:03

like there might be an equation there. There. There might be a correlation here that we're discovering. i Yeah, I think that's a great observation. So Jesus just says something really simple in his sermon to the, to the crowd, he says, you know, our lives do not consist in the abundance of our possessions. In North America, we beg to differ. We actually think and even as Christians, we think, the more stuff I have, the more experiences I have, whatever the more I collect, the more life I have. I just want to say Jesus might be right about our things as as he is about our anxiety. He might be saying, you're defining the good life by the collecting of experiences and possessions and all that other stuff may be at its very bases, a mistake. And that, in a sense, if your hands are full of all the things you're clinging to, to try to make a life for yourself, your hands aren't open enough to receive the good things God's always trying to give day to day in moment to moment. It's why I think so many of my friends in the developing world who have so much less on the stuff side than I do seem much more joyful, and much more peaceful, and much more hopeful, and less anxious and less depressed and a lot of lessers you know, as compared to us. So maybe this is the spirit of what the Scriptures mean by how hard it is for the rich to be saved. The rich are just those by definition who have defined their lives as a thing out there I have to acquire and possessed instead of a life that something that arises from within me in relationship with a God who is like,

Joshua Johnson: 19:54

so how does the presence of God in our lives HELP US release things and not possess things?

Alan Fadling: 20:01

Well, I think, in part, what God invites us to is a kind of simplicity, that then opens up space to receive what God wants to give. I mean, that in its initial stages will be hard. Because if I've lived with an identity that I am what I do, and I am what I have, and I am what everybody says about me, then the last thing I want to do is do less have less and impress less people. But actually, I need that my soul needs to be less attached to accomplishments and achievements and acquisitions, and accolades and all that stuff. My soul needs to be less attached to that to make space for the abundance that will satisfy a human soul. That's why sometimes you know, someone like James can write a letter and is second versus consider a joy when you face trials of many kinds. That is so unAmerican. Come on, I mean, what God's supposed to do is prevent you from ever, ever ever having a trial? No, no, part of what trials do is they remind you what matters, he gets squeezed a little bit, it happens to all of us, instead of being an evidence that God doesn't care, it may be at evidence that God cares so much, that he's trying to help us see what matters, what's valuable, while we should be clinging to and what we should not be.

Joshua Johnson: 22:07

Even though the work that we do in trying to become less anxious, sometimes we possess that. So that's a that's a hard place, sometimes for people is a I have anxiety in my life. And I have done the work for years, over and over again, to try and release this anxiety. I give it over to God all the time, but he doesn't take it away. Like I'm still anxious. What would you say to the people who have habitual anxiety that have tried? Yeah, in their own strength as much as they can to get rid of it? What do you say to those people?

Alan Fadling: 22:53

Well, first of all, I say, Boy, I know what that's like. So I wrote this book, not as though I'm some expert who's arrived, I'm I'm a journeyer. I'm a fellow journeyer. And as I said, I still wrestle with very strong feelings of anxiety fairly frequently. But what I would say is that one of my counselors said to me, Alan, you're going to have to learn how to bring that with you. You're going to have to learn to bring your anxiety with you. You might not want it behind the steering wheel, you might want it in the back seat, but you can't just get rid of it. It's gonna be there its energy, and in some ways it is energy misdirected. So for me, it's been helpful to think rather than Lord take this away, it's been helpful to think, How can I point this in the right direction? How can I think that's Paul's strategy, for example, in his counsel, in his letter to the Philippians, he says, Don't worry about anything. But instead, take all that anxious energy of yours, pointed at God, offer prayers, requests, Thanksgiving, whatever, like actually entrusted to God and, and find a way to let that energy be pointed in the direction of God. To me, I It's been a mistake for me to imagine I will find my way, you know, God will remove all of those feelings. I think the only way that could happen is by either putting me under or ending my life. And I don't think I've wanted either one of those as a way of, you know, proceeding. So I think it's been helpful to think okay, yeah, here I am. I feel that familiar anxiety, man, is it overwhelming? I hate how this feels. God doesn't seem to be taking it away. I'm in my 60s. I'm not expecting to find somewhere I haven't found yet in the 60. Some years I've lived so far. But maybe I can find a way to not let anxiety be the overwhelming presence that I've let it be. Maybe I can just let it be like a, like a 20 year old version of me who was nervous about everything. And he's in the car with me, but, but he's here in the back seat, and I'm just gonna treat him with some compassion. God bless you guy, man. I know how that feels. Anxiety does not have a great message for us. We don't have to let it run the show.

Joshua Johnson: 25:22

Well, let's good. Let's not let it run the show. So how do we put it in the back seat? Give us some practical ways to to redirect our anxiety.

Alan Fadling: 25:35

So there's a few things that I've found helpful. Again, you know, I have to Kind of give the disclaimer, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a medical doctor, right? I'm not giving any professional sort of, you know, licensed opinion. But we I've already mentioned how that simple line that the Lord is shepherding me, and I shall not find myself in a place of what has been a real time. Meditation. Because in in a way my my anxiety is like meditation in the negative, that ruminating kind of dynamic that a lot of us who struggle with anxiety, find familiar. Like chatter, learning to turn my ruminating into meditating. That has been a good direction. So literally, I'll be in I was in an airport, and I'm going to India, and I am 30 minutes from my flight, and I'm 30 minutes from home and my wallet is not in my pocket. 99 percentile out of 100 Anxiety like that, like my brain is shutting down, and my body just going numb. And I am. I'm literally thinking the world has just ended. Like that's what it feels like, anxiety wise. But I've been practicing this little, this little meditation. Okay, Lord, you're here right now you're shepherding me? How is this going to turn out to be not a situation of what a mighty way of saying it is. Maybe this will turn out better than my anxiety predicts. That had become enough of a habit that literally I can begin to find myself relaxing and realizing there's a very good chance a month from now. I will look back at this moment and laugh. There's a very good chance of that. In the moment. I don't feel like that. So the minute I did that, a few things happen. One, my brain came back online that always helps when you have access to your frontal lobe and not just your lizard brain. And, and I had a few thoughts like one, well, I've got my passport, I can't even go to India, if I don't have a passport and a visa. So I've got that it's in my bag, I'm okay, what I don't have as a way to pay for anything this entire trip. But my wife is only 10 minutes from the airport on our way home. And she's got her wallet. So I gave her a call, please come Can I just borrow your your credit card for the next couple of weeks, you get mine out of my wallet. We're all set. I mean, in one minute it was soul. But I'm telling you, my anxiety would not have given me access just to simple thoughts like that. That kind of meditation, right in the middle of the most potent feeling anxious anxiety has been good. Another this came from my counselor is that sometimes my anxiety is just literally a physiological dynamic, and is adrenaline coursing through my system or some other set of hormones. And my body actually wants to relax. That's how my body was made. But I've gotten into habits where I don't know how to let it. So sometimes literally spiritual disciplines like stillness, or silence or solitude, being quiet, being alone, sitting still feeling anxious. If I'm patient, and I endure the profound unpleasantness of that anxious feeling, sometimes, that's what my body needs to sort of shut off the old adrenaline valve, and let whatever's in the system find its way out. But what happens in my case is all my ruminating and looping and thinking and wrestling just keeps anxiety alive, it's like I'm on the wrestling mat with it, and I can't figure out why it's not going away. Once because I got it, like, I'm trying to put it in a headlock and, and like, I'm still wrestling with it. And of course, it's not going away, because I'm totally engaged with it. So that has been a place of little by little some freedom. For me.

Joshua Johnson: 29:34

That's helpful. Let's let's move into a place of culture and a place of society. I think that as humans, we're imitating creatures, and so we like to imitate others and, and we get a lot of our, our thoughts and emotions from being around other people and seeing others. And we live in an age where, you know, politically, there's a lot of anxiety. We live in an age where there's war in the Middle East with Israel, and Palestine. And in the Gaza Strip. There's war with Russia and Ukraine. There's lots of horrific things that are happening around the world. Some people say, Okay, I'm going to control this by by Doom scrolling, you know, Twitter or the news, and I'm gonna see what people are thinking and I'm going to start to give my opinion on this and we're all feeling a collective anxiety. I know that it's easier to think of me as a person, as an anxious person coming to a place of peace, because God has given me a path to peace in Jesus and His presence. But how do we do that, collectively as a society? Is there a way that we could bring peace? Or we can unveil the peace and shalom of God in places? So collectively, we're less anxious?

Alan Fadling: 31:07

Yeah, so I, I certainly think these have been some of the most anxious few years of my adult life. You know, I'm in my 60s, I've lived through some other very tense, difficult challenging windows of time, but, but the cocktail of all that COVID produced with his isolating and the fears about that a pandemic, what that did in raising cultural tensions and political tensions, and then some of the rural events that you just listed. What I want to say is, you know, for example, trying on the strategy of what will happen if I take that my anxiety to social media and see if I can find a solution to it, I just want to say, is that working for you? Are you finding that a place of peace for your soul, I am not, not even a little bit, I'm finding the very opposite is true. And so, you know, you might decide it's a strategy you'd like to pause, or diminish, maybe at least don't go to social media for that reason. And then, the other thing to me, this is why spiritual disciplines which are not just solitary, but are also communal, there are ways for us to be together, remembering God worshiping, encouraging one another. There's so many spiritual disciplines that work best, with more than one person involved. All of these are ways for us to remember God together. What social media does is it creates this kind of community where rarely is God, very much in the picture. Mostly, there's just human angst in the picture. And then it just sort of gets multiplied. What we need our ways to remember God in the middle of trouble that I think of Jesus saying, Don't let your hearts be troubled on that last night in on the precipice of what would be one of the most troubling few days in the lives of that of that inner circle. And Jesus says something crazy, like, don't let your hearts be troubled? Well, I've just come to think if Jesus is going to say something like that, he probably means to do something to make it possible. You know, and I have found that that's true, it is possible to live in troubling times, and not to let that trouble to become your operating system. It's possible to practice the presence of God that becomes the sort of pushing back pressure against the trouble that surrounds us. The last thing I'll say, Julian of Norwich, her famous saying was, all shall be well, and all shall be well. And every manner of things shall be well. She said these words, centuries ago, during one of the plagues that killed a massive percentage of the population, she said it in the middle of the 100 years war between France and England. And she said right on the cusp of her own experience of profound physical illness that almost took her life. So all should be well was not some syrupy you know, response to reality. It it was in the middle of a very troubling reality so so I just think we have resources available to us to have an inner push back against the trouble that pushes in

Joshua Johnson: 34:46

Julian of Norwich gives me a lot of comfort. She She goes to extremes, the places that I don't think I could ever go to you being an Anchorite living in the cell on the side of a church at a seat, you know, seeing the the graveyard, right and in front of her having the the rights of the dead right over her every single day. Yeah, I don't really want to go to those extremes. But I'm glad that she could feel that all will be well, and all will be well. But so she's she, I mean, that's a lot of hope. Right? If you could get be in that situation. And you could all will be well, that brings me hope in I worked with with refugees in the Middle East and works, you know, coming out of in the war in Syria working with Syrian refugees And they, you know, with after finding some hope, or in some peace and some love with Jesus and with fellow Jesus followers, they felt like all will be well. But it takes a while to get to that place. Yeah. So for people who are in those places of, you know what Julian of Norwich was experiencing, or what Syrian refugees of refuge War Refugee is experiencing? People that are even in a place of, you know, of abuse. So how can we get to a place where all will be well, even when it's not?

Alan Fadling: 36:20

Like right now, all is not well, and it may feel like small comfort that Sunday, all should be well. So I think part of it, for me has been, is my faith, a place where I am, who I actually am, where I bring what I think and feel and experience into the presence of God, where is my face, sort of this smile, I put on my face, no matter what's happening, and just pretend all as well, that's not the same as Julian's hopeful, all shall be well. So the psalms are a beautiful image of people experiencing profound injustice, saying so in prayer, people experiencing profound depression, or great anxiety or deep fear, or all kinds of troubling human realities. And those psalms are an illustration of how that becomes the substance of their relationship with God. Like God can handle the my angriest, he can handle my most depressed, and my most anxious, and my most troubling experiences, these are, and in maybe the cross is the place where I best see that Jesus is not one who's untouched by human trouble, but decided to take this into himself and can therefore empathize with our troubles and be a source of grace and peace for us in those very places.

Joshua Johnson: 37:54

And to have a God that would do that, to that Jesus would come and human form, be human and feel everything that we we've felt, and then put on all of the the shame of humanity and be be tortured, and killed. Man, just like, I can't get over it. I can't get over. And I don't think we should write because we need to, to remember Jesus's body and his Bloods. And that's why he gave the bread and the wine and said, Remember, and man that remembering gives me the peace and that practice of the Eucharist, of communion with others. Give us me,

Alan Fadling: 38:41

yes. That's huge. That's so so true. I just think, you know, when Paul said to a church like Corinth, I've determined to know nothing among you except Christ, and specifically Christ crucified. It was probably the most success oriented, most sort of surfacy oriented bunch of Christians that he ever had to deal with. Maybe we need that in North America to that we need a vision of Christ, and Him crucified, to meet us in our own places of real need.

Joshua Johnson: 39:13

Now, I've been talking to a lot I mean, what is the power of that the power of communion together as a people, people of God Remember in Jesus, I've talked to many people, where they've had profound experiences with the body and the blood of, of Jesus, within communion, where healings of calm where, you know, the elimination of nightmares comes because of that, you know, feelings of a I am now connected to the body of Christ before where I felt disconnected. There's so many incredible things that have happened within that what is that? That that power of of remembrance and the physical act of the blood and body of Jesus?

Alan Fadling: 40:00

Yeah. Well, my own journey, you know, for 30 years, I was a Baptist pastor, and we sort of had communion maybe once a month, if we remembered, you know, that kind of experience. And for the last 10 years, I've been in an Anglican Church, and then for the last five, I've been an Anglican priest, and therefore we have the Lord's Supper, the the Eucharist every single week. What I love about that rhythm is, that is the high point of our gathering, not the sermon. Though I love our preaching, not the worship leading though that is a great gift, but that the two Table and Jesus at the center of it his table that has made Jesus feel like he really is at the center of our gathering, and everything else serves the gift of His body and the gift of His blood. So partly, I think it's the remembrance of Christ in His great mercy and love for us. And the proof of that love shown in the gift of His Body and Blood, the week leanness of it I've been in contexts where for a month, I was in a monastery, and we had daily communion. And I had some Baptist friends who just thought, that's awful. Like, oh, my goodness, it'll become so unspecial if you do it every single day, and what I want to say to them is, so like, when you tell your wife, you love her? Do you limit that to about once a month, maybe two, to make sure it stays special. Or it may be the specialness is more about your intention than the act. Maybe it's more about what's happening inside of you. Maybe saying I love you to your wife every single day makes it more special. Maybe that's true for you, Chris, too.

Joshua Johnson: 41:48

But so good. That's really good. You know, this book, a non anxious life is really good. There's a lot of practical things in here that really help move people from anxiety into peace, that Jesus actually gives us that path to peace. And so thank you for for struggling to write this. And I know it was it was hard and difficult for you. So if you have some, some readers, anybody listening now, what would you hope that they would get out of your book,

Alan Fadling: 42:20

I hope maybe at its most simple, that they will gain a vision for the presence of the Prince of Peace at the center of their lives. The Message version of Paul's counsel to the Philippians, you know, don't worry, but in everything with prayer at cetera. Eugene Peterson's message says something like this at the end of that passage, it's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry, at the center of your life. That is what I hope from a number of different directions, readers will experience that they'll find that God is a God of peace. And that God can be at the center of our lives right in the middle of troubling emotion, troubling thought, troubling a circumstance. It doesn't minimize the reality of those things. It doesn't pretend those things doesn't exist that don't exist. The peace of God simply is that pushing back that displacing at the center dynamic. That's what I hope readers will find.

Joshua Johnson: 43:26

And I hope they find that to that, that you know, they put put Christ at the center of their life and not worry. It's so good. And I love the way Eugene Peterson puts things. It helps me a lot a to read his words in the message. Not Alan, if you could go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?

Alan Fadling: 43:48

I think the simplest answer I would give is, you are already loved. All this stuff you're trying to do to earn love, prove that you're lovable. Prove that the bad things don't make you unlovable. Like that's already decided, my friend. And your adult life will be a entering into the depths of that more and more and more. That's what I wish I could have clung to more in my 20s that just to know and rely on the love God has for us that it is immeasurable and is utterly reliable. That changes everything, doesn't it? It change really does everything it does it can keep learning that every single thing. Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 44:35

man and it's Yeah, as a never ending depth of that love to and he could never stop growing into it. And like just seeping yourself into the love of God that He has for you. It's unbelievable. Yeah, anything that you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend. I mean,

Alan Fadling: 44:54

you just said it. I have been going back to the Message version of the Bible. That's where I'm reading every single day. And that just often there's just some line in there that make something I already read so many times before fresh, or new or just seen a little different. So I had been loving the message paraphrase, and for a couple of years now as a place a very life giving place for me. How

Joshua Johnson: 45:23

can people connect with you? Where would you like point people to how could they get your book? Yeah,

Alan Fadling: 45:29

so thankfully, the book is pretty much anywhere you order books. Nearly everybody you could preorder you know in the January window or it'll be available February 6, for purchase. As far as where to find more about us. Our website is unhurried living.com. We have a lot of free resources. We have a weekly podcast ourselves where we talk with authors and share insights in the spirit of this unhurried living message. That's where I would invite listeners to come visit. You

Joshua Johnson: 46:01

know, I coached basketball. A long time ago, I was a college basketball coach. And one of the things I told my players all the time was be quick, but don't hurry. And

Alan Fadling: 46:10

yes, and, and that was Amos John Wooden line,

Joshua Johnson: 46:14

the famous John Wooden line. And John Wooden was, you know, incredible, incredible cash and got a lot from him. But that I mean that right there? Like how can you actually play but not hurry? That's the same thing how you live, live your life? Well, even be quick, make good decisions, but don't hurry through things. And let's get rid of hurry and Airlife I think that would be a pretty

Alan Fadling: 46:43

good idea. Yeah, I think it's a great idea.

Joshua Johnson: 46:46

I think you've given given a lot of your life to it. So I think it's a good idea. Alan, this was a fantastic conversation, thank you for bringing us into a place where we have experienced anxiety and the difficulties of that trying to control different situations and really not letting God take the reins. But then bring us into some paths of peace, that we could actually do that through some spiritual disciplines, through having a meditation on Psalm 23, that the Lord is my shepherd. And I shall not want that we could do this collectively, that there are spiritual disciplines that we can do as a collective as a whole, that communities can be started to be transformed from this age of anxiety into a place of peace. And so I think there was a lot of incredible things there. I really appreciated the conversation. Thank you so much for joining me. And may God bless you and give you peace.

Alan Fadling: 47:46

Thank you. I welcome that I received that and it's been a pleasure to have this conversation.