How to Handle Fear & Anxiety

Derron Higgins- April 19, 2026

This message continues the conversation on peace of mind by focusing on fear and anxiety, explaining that while these emotions are natural, they must be understood and processed in healthy ways rather than ignored or allowed to take control. It clarifies the difference between fear (immediate danger) and anxiety (future uncertainty), showing how both can overwhelm us if left unchecked. The message emphasizes that emotional health requires intentional effort and honesty, challenging the stigma around addressing these struggles and encouraging a shift from avoidance to engagement. By trusting God instead of relying solely on our feelings, we can begin to navigate these emotions with wisdom and clarity.

This message then provides a practical framework for handling fear and anxiety through four steps: pause, ponder, pray, and proceed. It encourages slowing down, inviting trusted people into the process, seeking God’s wisdom through prayer, and moving forward thoughtfully rather than reactively. By fixing our thoughts on what is true and trusting God as our foundation, we can experience His peace even in a stressful and uncertain world. Ultimately, this message reminds us that while we will face fear and anxiety, we are not meant to be controlled by them—we can live with confidence and peace by trusting in God’s presence and guidance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Peace of mind. Wow. I don't know if you were here last week, but I got Scott's notes. It was like, whoo. Anybody out there like me could use a little peace of mind? Wow, there's crazy going on, right? In the world around us. But first of all, can we thank the worship team? And those songs were like so dialed in on what we're going. And would you guys just say this with me? He won't. Ready? He won't. One more time. Ready? He won't. He won't. We're going to get into that a little bit this morning. Also, I just wanted to brag on Scott for a second. So when he called a couple weeks ago and he says, Hey, I heard you're going to be in town. Would you mind helping out a little bit? And I said, Absolutely, because I love being with you guys, which is super, super fun for us. But also, I know that as a pastor, Sundays show up like every week. Like it is just a thing, like week after week after week after week. So, man, if I could help him out a little bit, give him a break, like, gosh, what a cool thing. But isn't Pastor Scott like amazing? Like he's the whole deal. Like he cares about you guys. He's got gifts and abilities and talents and all that kind of stuff. It's like, man, he's just that package. And I am so grateful for you that you've got such an amazing guy in him. So I just wanted to give you a little report that Reggie and Piper are doing fine. So I think we've got a little. Yep, there they are. And um, if you haven't seen the boys before, these are uh our boys, Reggie and Piper, and uh they are rascals. I think I've shared stories about their mayhem and destruction and all the stuff that they had done uh when they were a little little. Now that they're a year and a half, it's just mayhem, not as much destruction. So we're kind of happy about that. So this is where we live now, up in North Idaho. This is Lake Quarter Lane, this is the dock, those are the boys, that is Tubbs Hill, and it's not pretty up there. Do not move up there. Just telling you, you won't like it at all. So last week when Scott kicked off this series, Peace of Mind, I went through the notes and I went, whoa, there's some really, really good stuff here. And and a couple things that I noted here in my outline is number one, is how do we have a healthy relationship with our emotions? And if you're a guy sitting in this room this morning, we just don't. We're not good at that. Gals, man, you've got it over us like hands down, you are so much better at emotions. So keep showing us the way and how we can have a healthy relationship with our emotions. Number two, you are not your struggles. And I know at times, at least in my life and maybe in your life, there is this time where like the world's just kind of like pressing down a little bit and kind of think, ah, my struggles are defining me, or even worse, my struggles are becoming my idol. And you've been around those people where all of a sudden they start to idolize their struggles, their emotions are kind of taking over a little bit, and you're like, no, no, no, no, time out. Like, that is not good, and that is not healthy. So what do we do with that, right? And then number three, emotional health takes what? It takes work, it takes time, it takes care, takes attention. And if we don't pay attention, and we just try to stuff it down, like I have done so many times, man, it's not good. And it's not healthy. And it can take us out, and it can take out our friendships and our relationships, so many parts of our world that God cares about, and all of a sudden, man, our emotions take over. Whoa, we're in trouble. There were times, um, and I don't know if you've ever can relate to this, but there have been times in my life where there is so much stuff going on between teaching and pastoring and coaching and all these things, and and and it's kind of like the fear and the anxiety, which we're going to talk about this morning, it just started to build and build and build, and the stress would build and build and build and build. And I got to the point where I used to believe that big red S on my chest stood for like Superman, like, oh, I got this, I can do all this. And after a while, and and what would happen is I would have these mornings where the alarm would go off 6, 6:30 in the morning, and I would be laying in my bed, and my eyes would open, and my body wouldn't move. I mean, literally, physically wouldn't move. And I'm like, uh-oh, there's something wrong. Like, I couldn't move my arms. It felt like an elephant was sitting on it. I couldn't move my legs to swing them to get out of bed. And I was like, whoa, that big red S on my chest didn't stand for Superman, it stands for stupid man. Like I had been neglecting for so long all of the emotional stuff, all of the fear and the anxiety and the worry. I just kept stuffing them down, stuffing it up, until the point where all of a sudden, man, it was like, it's time to pay up, dude. And I was like, whoa. What's happening? What is going on? Because I'm a guy, right? We don't deal with these kind of things very well at all. I knew something needed to change. But the question I asked myself, and the question I didn't want to ask myself, was this Am I ready to change? Am I ready to actually engage and get into this and figure some of this stuff out, or am I going to keep holding it at arm's distance and say, look, I'm I'm bigger and faster and stronger, and I got this and I'm okay, and I can just power through this? And I didn't like the answer. Because the answer to, am I ready and willing to change? was not really. And that bugged me. And it bugged me in such a way that I was like, what is that? What is this thing that is preventing me from really just diving into this and figuring some stuff out? What why why is it that in my life I am so more than happy to go to a gym? More than happy to work out, more than happy to have a trainer come alongside and say, Yeah, here's some good workouts for you, and here's some ways you can really enhance this part of your workout if it's doing cardio or strength training or whatever. Why is it that that was easy? Why is it that I was not afraid to go to school and learn and educate my mind and take on some new challenges mentally and all that? Why was that easy for me? Why was it easy to get into relationships, into friendships, and to and to dive into community and go, wow, this is great, and I love being with people? Why was it easy to grow relationally, mentally, physically? But what was it that made me hesitate to grow emotionally? And the more I scratched at that, and as I looked under the surface of that a little bit, as I asked that question, I realized there's a stigma. There's a stigma that that means there's something wrong. There's a stigma that you are willing to say you go to a counselor who, by the way, has incredible tools in their toolbox to help us unpack some of this stuff. I don't know how to do that. They do. But I realized there was like this image thing and this pride thing and this stigma thing that was like going, no, you can do all those other things for your physical body and your and your mental and educational and relational, but uh not with your emotions. Then there's something wrong, something weird, something broken. And the truth is there is something broken. And the truth is that we live in a culture that is slowly starting to understand it's okay. It doesn't mean that we're weak, it just means that we're real. If we go through the same thing everybody else does, we're just willing to say that we do. And not try to hide it or press it down, or that all of a sudden our body keeps score, and we realize I am stupid, man. So this resistance, right to to exercise, if you will, emotionally, to to work on, to take some tools out of the toolbox and say, oh man, here's here's a thing you're here here's something that could really help in this area. Like, wow, really? Okay, let's try that. Or here's something that can really help in this area, okay, let's try that. Tools I don't have, but tools that others have. And moving from what will people think to I just want to get healthy emotionally. I I don't want to try to survive any longer. I want to thrive, I want to be able to move forward, I want to be able to understand with some of these things. And then this morning, for just these next couple minutes, we're gonna we're gonna pick off just just two, and they're actually cousins, two emotions that I would guess some of you, maybe most of you, I know I do, have show up as uninvited guests from time to time. And they're simply anxiety and fear. And the reason I say that they're cousins is they're not exactly the same. Like, like fear is a little bit different than anxiety and worry, but but they're still similar. They're still in the same family, if you will. So fear, let me just kind of share this and unpack this, and you'll probably go, oh yeah, that's right. That's what fear is. Fear is when there's an immediate danger. Fear is when something shows up, either real or perceived, and it's happening right now, and all of a sudden that adrenaline starts flooding our bodies because we're like flight or fight mode, like we're ready to go because it's here and it's now and it's immediate. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie like Top Gun or Top Gun Maverick, which is like amazing, right? And and I don't know about you, but there's that scene where they're doing that, like that, that thing in the planes, and they're going in, they're trying to take out that deal and all that. That scene is almost two minutes long. It's a minute and 45 seconds long. And every time I watch that scene in that movie, do you know what I'm doing? I'm holding my breath. Because it's they're in the danger zone, aren't they? And you're just like, oh. And I realize like after they finally pull out and do their deal, and all of a sudden I go, whoa. Fight or flight. That's what fear does. When you see a good, scary movie, you're just like, oh, right? And all that adrenaline. It's cousin, anxiety, and worry, they're a little bit different than fear. Fear is immediate, man. It's happening right now. Anxiety, on the other hand, is something we're worried about in the future. It's a perceived danger. It may not be real at all, but we we kind of feel like, oh man. It can attack us at school, getting ready for a test or meeting new friends. It can attack us at work, like, uh-oh, they're moving some people around at work. I hope that I'm a part of the move and not like move out. It can attack us in our finances, it can attack us in our health. It's perceived, it's in the future, but we start to worry about it now. So fear is immediate. Anxiety and worry are future tense, but they act and feel the same. And what we experience feels the same for both fear and anxiety. And again, it's not an issue of if it will show up, it's really an issue of when it will show up. When are these little uninvited intruders going to enter into our life, our day, our weeks, our months? And we go, oh, here it is. So this morning, I I want to give you some tools. Because I'm gonna assume a little bit, which is kind of a dangerous word, but I'm gonna assume a little bit that they will, or maybe they currently are showing up in your life. So instead of just saying, turn your back and ignore it, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. How do we confront it? How do we process it? What is a plan that we can maybe move through some steps to say, oh, here's how I can navigate when fear and anxiety show up in my life. Because if we don't process it well, we can become overly cautious, we start to avoid, we withdraw, we start to dwell or ruminate on things, and they become bigger than they really are. There can be relational damage, it can even lead to addiction. Unchecked, unprocessed, unworked on, it can have a horrible, damaging effect on your life. Here's what Jesus said. I love this in Matthew chapter 6, verse 34. I hope it's okay. We're gonna use some scripture this morning because I believe, man, God already knows how our brain is wired, so let's go to him. Let's see what he has to say about some of this stuff. And here's what he says: this is part of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is talking, he says, Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today. Like, Jesus knows, like, don't get into that worry-anxiety mode. He already understands that. He understands that when that unsolicited guest shows up in your life, that man, we just need to deal with today and not keeping from tomorrow and what's coming up down the road. So here's the bigger question: how do we do this? How do we process this? How do we deal with these things, these unsolicited friends when they show up? A couple of things that Scott had shared last week. Number one, don't ignore it, engage it. Ask yourself, okay, what is this? Number two, don't make feelings and emotions as we talked about your idols. Emotional idolatry will dictate your life if you let it. So here's something I learned a couple years ago. It's kind of a cool thing. So sometimes we use I feel language. Have you ever used that language where you look at a friend or a family or you say, hey, I feel whatever, you know? Hey, I'm kind of feeling this way right now, type of thing. And those are our emotions, right? I'm feeling this way. But I've started to learn to speak to myself a little bit differently and to others a little bit differently. And I use these words now, I think. Instead of I feel, I use the words I think. That's more about what I believe. And here's even a better way to say things sometimes is to say I know. Because now it's based on truth. It's not even opinion, it's like, well, this is what I know. This is what I know to be true, not what I feel or this is what I think, but this is what I know. And and in this little shift that I'm learning to make in my own life, moving from I feel to I think and I know, it's I'm trying to stop listening to myself. Because I know sometimes when I get emotional or something is emotional, and I'm starting to feel anxiety or fear, and I start to listen to myself, the narrative that's in my head, the voice that's in my head is not good. And so that can take over, my feelings can take over, and all of a sudden, truth and what I know to be right goes out the window. So instead of saying, instead of listening to myself, I'm learning to talk to myself and to say, This is what I think, this is what I know. And I'm changing the vocabulary, I'm changing the language a little bit, at least up here, the narrative, the story that I'm believing, and maybe shouldn't believe. So, what are some options? What are some ways to navigate this? I'm just gonna share uh a couple things with you uh in a moment. So, the first suggestion I want to share is simply this, then I'm gonna give you a little plan, a four-point plan. And this question, in fact, Bonnie, a friend of mine, is here. Uh, this question is a question we used to ask at our church all the time at the gathering, and it was kind of this really cool question. In fact, about a month of asking this question, everybody started to kind of get it. I'm gonna ask you the same question. The question is simply this do you trust God? It's just such a foundational starting point. And here's kind of how God would respond to that. Do I trust God? And if not, God would say, so what is your plan B? If you don't trust me, what is your plan B? Is your plan B better than trusting me in this situation? And time and time again, I realized, or as I would listen to people sharing how they weren't trusting God, but they were trusting their emotions, I realized your plan B is not a good plan at all. My plan B oftentimes is not a good plan at all. But when I learn to trust God, it's different. Listen to what his word says in Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5 through 7. In fact, I've got this on my surfboard this verse just to remind me, like when giant waves come and try to eat me. This is so cool. Beginning in verse 5, it says, Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. This is one of those anchor verses for my life because I need to keep going back. Trust in the Lord with all my heart. Don't depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all that you do, and He will show you which path to take. You know, ultimately, anxiety and worry and fear, there's kind of this choice, and the choice is what road am I going to go down? What decision am I going to make or do I need to make? And what God is saying in this passage was so cool. Seek His will, God's will, and all that you do, and He will show you which path to take. So I'm not out there wandering around going, man, I don't know what to do. And God's going, hi, hi, can I help? I'd love to. And then in verse 7 at the beginning, it says this, don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Oh my goodness. How many times have I done that? That was kind of a cool thought I just had. Watch this, everybody. And God goes, hmm, no. You can, but no. So learning to trust God with all of my heart. And it even gets better because some of you are like, man, Jesus, yeah, like, let's go. Let's do this. So what did Jesus have to say in this area? Same thing, Sermon on the Mat. Here's what he said. This is so cool. Matthew chapter 6, verse 25 through 27. Jesus is speaking, and he says, This is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. And I can see his audience going. What? Whether or not you have enough food or drink or enough clothes to wear. Isn't life more than food? And your body more than clothing? This is so cool. He says, look at the birds. I was out in a run this morning. I was just looking around. This is so cool. Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store foods in barn for your heavenly father. He feeds them, he takes care of them. And aren't you far more valuable to him than they are? The answer is yes. Verse 27, can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And that answer is no. It can't, and it won't. So why did Jesus say this? Why did he include this in some of his teaching as he was hanging out with just everyday people just like you and me? Because he knows that life is not peaceful. Jesus is practical. And so this morning, just for the next couple minutes, I want to be practical with you. And I want to give you a plan. And it's not my plan, it's a plan, it's stuff that I've gathered over the years and I've learned over the years. I just want, because we don't have to be victims. Or we don't need to idolize our emotions. There's a process that we can work through. And this this process actually comes from the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament, where Nehemiah was confronted with this broken wall thing, and he's like, What are we gonna do? And this is what Nehemiah did, and this is so cool. It's four simple words. And I think, I think we can remember these words. The first word, they all start with the letter P. The first word is this it's pause. It's pause. It's hit the brake pedal, not the gas pedal. And I don't know about you, but sometimes when fear and anxiety show up and worry, all of a sudden it's like, man, I just want to hit the gas pedal. I'm like, let's go! Faster, further, better, whatever. And it's like all of a sudden, what was a little problem has now turned into a gigantic problem because I hit the wrong pedal. Instead of hitting the gas pedal, God says, hit the brake pedal, pause, stop, slow down. For me, sometimes it would be driving up to Mount Helix, up to the top there, that little amphitheater, and just hanging out with God. Or down at the beach, I have these little secret spots I had, or when our kids were younger, I would go down. We had the season passes for SeaWorld. I would just sit in the Shamu Stadium and just kind of like, okay, Shamu, what's going on? We need to slow down for a minute. And I have these moments of pause, these moments of hitting the brakes. And here's what allowed me to do it taught me to stop instead of go. It taught me to move from instead of chaos to peace, to slow things down, to calm. It allowed me to pause long enough to all of a sudden get curious and to think about and not just react or not just respond. Scripture says this in Proverbs 22, verse 3. Such a great verse. It says, a prudent person, a wise person, foresees danger and they take precaution. They slow down. They pause. The simpleton or the fool goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. To be honest with you, I've been part two of this equation way too many times. I've been the fool, and I just kind of keep going, and all of a sudden it's like, oh crud. Now what have I done? Consequences. So first we pause. Number two, second word is ponder. Ponder. And what's really cool about this word is this is where we can invite others in to our pause. This is why God in his grace and his beauty and his majesty and his wisdom has says, you know what? We were designed for community. Sometimes that community might involve a counselor. Sometimes that community might be a group of close friends who can help you unpack things, help you ponder things, help you ponder, ask good questions, what is going on right now, so that it can bring understanding, bring some words, helping define what actually the situation is looking like. To name it. One of the questions under ponder is who can I invite into this? Who is that right person or persons? We have a saying in our life group now up in Idaho that when the wheels fall off on life, whose doorstep can we crumble on? Whose house can we go to and say, wow? Life is a mess right now. And we know that they're the right person. Listen to what Hebrews 10 says. This is a verse pastors like to use to make sure that we're coming to church on Sundays, but listen to what else it says. Hebrews 10, verses 23 and following. Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Everybody say amen. Oh. Everybody say amen. That's a better. That was tolerable. Here we go. Verse 24. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Oh, now he's talking about community. I like this. This is good. Verse 25, and let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do. That's the church part, like go to church. But encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. We live, and I don't know if you've noticed this, we live in a very discouraging world. You turn on the news, I don't know about you, but usually we turn it on right about when the weather comes on, and then we try to turn it off again. Because most of the news out there, in fact, again, research, right, we can find whatever you're looking for. But but they tell us that about 70 to 80 percent of the information that we receive on a daily basis, 70 to 80 percent is discouraging negative news. Now, here's what's crazy about that. Brain science, as we learn more and more and more about this thing up here, we we've learned that this front part of our brain, it's called the frontal lobe, that the front part of our brain, where a lot of the happy hormones, the oxytocin, the dopamine, where it comes from, the front of our brain, the frontal lobe, will either shrink or grow. Here's the difference. It will shrink and decline when we feed it negative things, when we're grievance-based in our life. Problem, problem, problem, worry, worry, worry, shrink, shrink, shrink, less of the happy juice. But on the other hand, we know it will continue to grow more happy juice when we focus on things that are good and fun and exciting and positive, the encouraging parts of life. It's like, whoa, man, I've been sucking on that bitter lemon far too long. I need to start growing my frontal lobe. Third P. Pray. Inviting God in. It's what we talked about earlier. Greater is he. Listen to what James says. This is so, this is wisdom right here. Listen. James 1, 5. If you need wisdom, any other hands? Three of us. Excellent. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God. Okay. And he will what? Give it to you. Ask our generous God and he will give it to you. Listen to this last part. He will not rebuke you for asking. God's not going to be up there going, didn't you just come to me yesterday? Like, dude, your wisdom quota is up. Like, you need to figure this out on your own. That's not how God acts. He says, look, come to me, ask. If you need wisdom, ask me. I am generous and I will give it to you. I'm not going to be frustrated. I'm not going to turn my back. I will be glad in it. So when we talk to God, when we pray, when we have those conversations with God, a couple things. Number one, and again, we know this. The antidote to worry is worship. Do you know it's why we start a worship service off with worship with singing before we get into the word? It's so that we start to connect this way vertically. And all of a sudden, my stuff, our stuff, starts to kind of fade into the background. It's like God says, I want you to connect with me when you come into my house. You know why? Because this is my house. All that stuff, I know, it's real. But we're going to start making some adjustments when we're in the house of God. The antidote to worry is worship. We refocus. The second part of prayer is to understand that our creator is greater. There is nothing, not one thing in your life or in my life that God can't handle. Or better yet, that God doesn't want to help with. Why? Because we're his kids. My little granddaughter Emmy, she's pretty cool. She calls me Deep. I love that. Hey, Deep. It's like, woo, awesome. We started this little thing at Christmas. It was kind of fun. We're hanging out together, and I would look at her and I'd go, wait a minute, wait a minute, what is that? And she would just get all giggly, right? She was like four years old. She would get all giggly. I'm like, what is it, Deep? What is it? Like, Emmy, how did that get there? And she's like, What? What? How did that get there? And I'd look in her ear and I'd go, What? Emmy, how did that get in there? She goes, What is it, Deep Paul? What is it? I said, You have a bird in your ear. She goes, No, she would just start giggling. She goes, get it out, get it out. And it's like, we throw it outside. She would just laugh. And well, now it's a thing. I mean, we're FaceTiming, right? We're not even in person. And I would go, wait a minute, wait a minute. She goes, What is it, Deep? And she would take her head and she would turn it to the phone. Like to her ear. Like, like look in my ear. I said, Emmy, how did that get there? And we would have the most fun. And we would do this, and we do this for an hour. And finally, it's like, okay, I'm exhausted. Like Emmy Church here, like, what's in Deepaw's here, right? The reason I share that story, Emmy trusts her Depaw. Emmy trusts her dad when her dad throws her up in the air and catches her. Remember that question I asked earlier? Our starting point has to be do I trust God? Do I trust God? Just like a young child would trust a parent. Do I trust God? And the final thing under prayer is this it's it's learning to journal or write letters to God. Not just journal like all your thoughts, but actually journal to God or write letters to God. To talk to Him about what's going on. Because when we do that, it helps us identify with words what is going on. And as we have paused and pondered and talked about, maybe with a friend or a counselor about what is going on, we start to get some words. Now we can talk to God about those words as well. We've named it. And when we name it, it loses its power. It doesn't become this giant thing in our life and in our minds any longer. So we pause, we ponder, we pray. The last piece is this. We proceed. Thoughtfully. I just want to share a couple quick thoughts on this. As we proceed, and if we have been curious, and what I mean by curious is curious is to ask good questions. Curious is to say, hmm, what's really going on here? Curious is like when Annette and I, if there's some rubbing going on, we we're trying to get more and more curious to say, no, it's not, there's something else going on. We want to be curious. What's the real story? What's the real issue? That way we can both attack that thing instead of throwing rocks back and forth at each other. But for ourselves, we have to be curious also, and we have has to ask questions. Is this narrative even true? The story that I'm telling myself over and over about this fear, this anxiety, these worries that I have in my life. And if it is true, then what would be beneficial and helpful? Now that I've identified it, it's like, okay, now let's move forward. Let's come up with a plan, a strategy. Number two, under proceed. We have to have community. There's a really cool book that I'm reading right now. It's called The Other Half of Church. And the book, The Other Half of the Church, it says most of our church is all left brain, which is problem solving, task-oriented. What should I do next? This was a great message Scott gave. Now what? Right brain is the relational side of our brain that oftentimes we neglect, but the relational side is the more powerful side of our brain. It's a quicker side of our brain. And we're in relationship and we walk into a room and we go, My people. That floods our bodies with good things that God has designed in our brain for our bodies to be flooded with. So we find community. This is not a solo act. Also, we have to understand how to navigate and how to monitor adrenaline. Man, when fear shows up and we're ready to fight or flight, ready to boogie, we have to monitor adrenaline because it is rushing through our bodies. And it cannot continue to rush through our bodies and be healthy. It's not. Those days when I could not move my body because I'd been living on adrenaline, my body was so adrenaline fatigued, it showed up. And it was real. And so we have to learn how to even just breathe. We use that phrase a lot in our family. Like, whoo, it's time to take a breath, isn't it? And some of you know about box breathing and all, but just to breathe, to go outside for a run or a walk or to get into God's creation and to move outside of the thing and to just be able to enjoy the good things that God has given to us. Exercise can be a part of that, to fill our body with positive hormones and juice, to move, to manage our adrenaline. Also to nurture rhythms. When we work, we work, but when we play, we play. And play is not a bad word as a follower of Jesus, it's an important word. We need to learn to play and to play well. I call Annette my traveling buddy from the day we got married. We never went on a date, ever. But we had lots of outings, excursions, adventures. And that's how we try to continue to live our life today. Why? Because it feeds the right part of our brain. Not to be always in worry, not to be always in those grievance areas of life. To nurture healthy rhythms. And a part of that is to rest. And I would add, not just rest, but learning to rest in the Lord. Because it's one thing to try and rest and not be able to rest because all the narrative, the story in our brain isn't really allowing rest at all. But when we learn to rest in the Lord, and when we learn to say, God, I'm going to give this to you, I need you to show up. And we learn to rest in Him, and now we can sleep. And we can get what our body is designed to get, the rest that it needs. And again, I talked a little bit. The last one is to talk about fun and adventure versus grievance. And for some of you, like we just did, some of you need to get a dog. Not a cat, a dog. There's a difference. Yeah. Alright, let's close with this. Philippians chapter 4. Paul again, Paul is writing this letter to the Philippians from jail. And he writes this little tiny, this is like the coolest. If you need a joy hit, like you need like just a dose of joy, read Philippians daily. It will take you like 10 to 15 minutes. But Paul in jail is sharing 16 times about joy from jail. I've never been to jail, but I don't think it would be a joyful experience. But here's what he says. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts, your mind, your mindset on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Did you hear anything negative in that list? Anything that was filled with grievance? Anything that was discouraging? No. Because God, through his Holy Spirit, says, Paul, write about good things. Fix your thoughts on these things. Then he keeps going. He says, think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all that you've learned and received from me. Like he's the example. Everything you heard from me and saw me doing, then, this is the best part of the whole verse. Then the God of peace will be with you. Gangs, emotions are our friends. They're just telling us something's going on. They're not the bad guys. But we have to learn to process them. And these four little words that I gave you this morning, pause, ponder, pray, and then proceed. It's not just some dude up here on a Sunday morning. These are things that if Jesus himself were sitting here, he would probably have the same conversation with you. Why? Because he knows we live in a stressful world. Where there is fear and anxiety and worry and all this stuff. We live in a world that is short on encouragement. And our creator is greater. There is a movie that came out a few years ago with Tom Hanks. I don't know if you like Tom Hanks or not, but his movies are always kind of fun and quirky and cool and whatever and thoughtful. And there's a movie called The Bridge of Spies. And I don't know if you saw The Bridge of Spies, but the Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks was this attorney hired by the government, but couldn't say that he was hired by the government, so really had to operate on his own, even though he was hired by the government to do an exchange of two prisoners of war, two spies. The Russians had a U two pilot spy of ours, and then we had this really, really, really old guy, Russian spy. And Tom Hanks was with this Russian spy, and his job was to do a prisoner exchange on this bridge, the bridge of spies. And everything could have gone wrong in this movie. It was crazy, based on a true story. And there were three times in this movie where Tom Hanks' character would look at this really, really old Russian spy guy, and he would say to this guy, he goes, Aren't you worried? And this old spy, this old Russian spy would look at Tom Hanks and he'd go, Would it help? And he would ask him again later in the like, aren't you worried, would it help? They're getting ready to go across the bridge. Like everybody could have been shot, right? It's like this intense moment. And he says, like, aren't you worried? And he says, Would it help? I think this guy knew something. And Paul would put it this way. Don't worry about anything. Instead, don't ignore it. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace. Which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will what? Guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. That's right. Father God, you are so good that you even know that we can just get crazy in our minds. We can allow emotions of fear and anxiety and worry just take over. And sometimes even paralyzing us. But Father, your word shows us that you are such a great God that you even give us a game plan on how to process our fears and anxieties and our worries. That we can pause and reflect. We can ponder and chew on what's really going on and be curious about it and invite others into it. Father, we can come to you in prayer and we can write letters to you and journal to you, Father, and we can worship you and move our focus to the Creator who is greater. And then, Father, we can proceed in confidence that you are there, that we trust you, and you've got us, and you will not let us, as your kids, fall into harm's way. You will provide for us exactly what it is that we need because you have not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power and love and self discipline to run the plan. So we're grateful, Father, and we give you all the praise, all the honor, and all the glory. In Jesus' name we pray. And everybody said.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church. We hope this message encouraged you. And blessed you. If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal. Everything that you donate helps not only go towards reaching people in the greater San Diego area, but also all around the world through our ministry partner. If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or some one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you need. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.