Disappointment, Depression, and Pokemon

Pastor Scott Smith- April 26, 2026

This message focuses on universal emotions like frustration, disappointment, anger, and sadness, explaining that while they are normal, they can become destructive if not handled properly. It teaches that these emotions tend to “evolve”—moving from simple feelings into deeper struggles like discouragement, bitterness, or even depression when left unchecked. By reframing emotions as messengers rather than managers, this message encourages us to understand what they are revealing instead of allowing them to define or control our lives.

This message then provides practical tools for navigating these emotions, emphasizing the need to diffuse anger and digest sadness. It calls us to pause in moments of anger, honestly examine what’s happening beneath the surface, and choose forgiveness to break the cycle. For sadness and disappointment, it highlights the power of praise and gratitude as a way to retrain our focus and build healthier emotional habits. Ultimately, this message reminds us that peace of mind is possible when we do the work of processing our emotions with God’s help—and when we also look out for others who may be struggling and need support.

Transcript

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All right, so let's start with a question. Have you ever been frustrated or disappointed? Yeah, that got a few oh yes, right? Of course. Maybe you'd say it like this. Have you ever been, let's take it a step further. Have you ever been angry or sad? Angry or sad? Yeah. Why? Because those are universal emotions. They are common emotions to experience. Everyone will experience sadness or anger, frustration or disappointment at some point in our lives. So it begs the next question: if these emotions are so common, why do they create such conflict in our lives? If we all deal with them, why do we all seemingly struggle to deal with them? Have you thought about that? So two months ago, a world record was set right here in America. World record was set for the highest selling Pokemon card of all time. And I know that's what you came to church to hear. You said, I'm looking for peace of mind. Sunrise is in a series. We're looking at how to have a healthy relationship with our emotions, mental and emotional health, understanding God cares more about that than you might realize, and his word says more about that than you might know. So you walked in the doors and you thought, yes, let's go there, let's learn, and now they're talking about Pokemon. Yes. Welcome to Sunrise Church, end of April, peace of mind series. Two months ago, a Pokemon card sold for 16.4 million dollars. You can look that up. That's real. 16.4 million dollars. When I found that out, I did what you did. I said, no. So I did what everyone does when we want to know if something's true or not. I went to the internet. And sure enough, that was an actual sale. 16.4. And when I started to put it together, I said, now look, I know what Pokemon is. I have kids. It came out in the 90s. I am aware of what Pokemon is. I know about some Pokemon. But you cannot tell me somebody actually spent $16.4 million. Then I I went, I went down a rabbit hole and I learned that Pokemon is the highest grossing media franchise in the world. Now, when I say media franchise, let me break that down so you understand what I'm talking about. When you think media franchise, think like Marvel. There are characters within Marvel, right? What are they? Spider-Man, Black Panther, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, right? You understand what I'm saying. There's a media franchise. Maybe one that you're more familiar with would be Mickey Mouse, the most expensive rodent in the world. You've heard of him and you've heard of his friends, Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Minnie, and his dog Pluto, right? Okay. Here's where I'm going there. Pokemon, highest grossing media franchise with its characters in the world by almost double Mickey Mouse, making Pokemon, perhaps, at least if we're looking at the numbers by way of revenue, the most popular media franchise in the world. Now, why do you need to know that useless fact about Pokemon here in church? So the Pokemon characters start off as basic characters. And then what happens in this Pokemon universe? If the character accumulates enough fill-in-the-blank, the character will do what is called evolve. And that character will grow and it will grow into another one that's maybe a little bigger, stronger, faster, can do more damage, can do more things within the Pokemon universe. And then they can eventually grow to being what are called mega evolutions. Why do we share that? Because frustration, disappointment, anger, and sadness, those are universal emotions. They are common to experience. The reason that they wreak such havoc in our lives is because over time they evolve. They grow because we don't understand what they are or how to navigate them. We don't understand what anger is or what sadness is, what disappointment is. We don't understand it. So we have a fractured relationship with it or we avoid a relationship with it. And in any case, it is unhealthy and unhelpful for us. So oftentimes people are walking around life looking for peace of mind, but not knowing how to get it or where to find it. But it is possible. It's actually the banner verse for our entire peace of mind series. It's in Isaiah 26, 3. He says this, the writer Isaiah, he says, look, God will keep in perfect peace. Perfect peace. All who trust in him. All whose thoughts are fixed on him. But oftentimes our thoughts are not fixed on the things of God. Our thoughts are oftentimes fixed on emotions we do not understand. So what happens is our emotions can evolve. They can get out of hand because we fixate on them. In the psychology world, we call that hyperfixation or rumination. We get stuck in a cycle of negative thinking that's usually led by our emotions. And because our emotions are leading us, it takes us down a mental and emotional path that is unhealthy and unhelpful. But God does offer peace of mind. But we won't obtain this peace of mind as we call it if we don't understand what emotions are and how to have a healthy relationship with them. And so we said this to catch everybody up to speed at the onset of our series, as we've looked at things like fear, worry, anxiety today, anger, sadness, next week, as we look at things like grief, loss. We have said this God created emotions. So if God created emotions, emotions on their own are not wrong. We have heard the phrase, oh, quit being emotional. And we receive that as a negative thing, but here's the reality: you are emotional. God made you and gave you emotions, but he did not give us those emotions so that we could be led by them. But oftentimes, what happens? We don't understand emotions, we don't have a healthy relationship with them, we think emotions are bad on their own, and so as a result, we avoid them or we get defeated by them. And if we're not careful, emotions and struggles can define us, they can dictate our decisions, or they can just defeat us altogether. But that's not what God wants for us because he cares more about your mental and emotional health than you might realize. So we have said this: emotions are not our enemies. But they can be if we don't learn how to have a healthy relationship with them. And it is possible to have a healthy relationship with your emotions. It is possible to have peace of mind as long as we understand what emotions are. Emotions are messengers. Emotions are psychological text messages. They're not meant to define us, they're not meant to dictate our decisions, and they're not meant to defeat us. Emotions are messengers, they're meant to inform us. I want you to think of it like this: emotions are messengers, not managers. Emotions should inform us of things, not tell us what to do. So I'm gonna write that down because I want you to remember that because it's helpful as we navigate our emotions so that we can learn how to have a healthy relationship with them. Emotions are messengers, not managers. If we're not careful, our emotions, our feelings will tell us how to behave. That's not what God wants for us, because that's not what emotions are. They are to inform us of things, but are we listening to what they're saying? And when we listen to what they say, do we understand why that's important? Because that's often the disconnect for people. We listen too much to our emotions, and so they convince us who we are and how we should behave. Or we completely ignore them, so then they bubble up under the surface, and then they speak very loudly, like that alarm going off in the morning that you did not want to hear. And all of a sudden, this emotion like anger or sadness has been avoided and buried in your life. And one morning you wake up and emotions like sadness and anger are hovering over you with a megaphone saying, Today's the day we get ya. Because we didn't have a healthy relationship with them. We either ignored them or we listened to them too much because we didn't understand what they were. Emotions are messengers, they're not managers. They should inform us, not tell us what to do. But why do we let them tell us what to do? Why, if anger and sadness are such common emotions? I mean, they just did a movie about this. Disney, it's called Inside Out and Inside Out Too. Has anybody ever heard of it? I'm wearing socks right now that have anger from inside out on them because I figured that was pertinent to today's conversation. I'll show you. Also, I'm a dorky Disney dad, so there you go. Any excuse I get to do that. They're so commonplace. It's normal, but we don't want to say that. We don't want to admit that. Why? We're afraid of it or we're embarrassed. Oh man, I get angry sometimes. Man, I get sad sometimes. I don't want people to see that I have flaws or struggles. But here's the truth: anger, frustration. Normal. Everybody gets angry. And anger on its own is actually not a sin. Jesus, in what is usually referred to as the greatest message ever preached in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, actually warns people as he's teaching not to move in anger. And so as he's teaching, acknowledges, as he's instructing for everyone, shining a light on the reality that emotions are normal, but you get to choose how you react to them. And so Jesus, in his long bit of instruction in what's called the Sermon on the Mount, warns hey, listen, in your anger, don't move in your anger because it's going to take you places you don't want to go and you're going to end up doing things you didn't want to do. Paul, who wrote a third of the New Testament of your Bible, would actually echo the teachings of Jesus when he writes to a church in a place called Ephesus. In the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, Paul says in verse 26, he tells them, listen, in your anger do not sin. So even Paul, as he reiterates here from the teachings of Jesus, is this understanding that anger is a universal emotion and on its own is not a sin. However, when it drives us, when it defines us or dictates our decisions, the destination is destructive. But it's a common emotion, just like sadness. Anger and sadness, universal emotions, and everyone has experienced sadness or disappointment, especially depending on what sports team you root for. Some of us have more experience with disappointment than others in that area. But disappointment is real, isn't it? And it's something we're afraid to deal with sometimes because we want to either just shake it off or not admit it. Because then we feel vulnerable admitting it. But we've all experienced disappointment. I mean, think about it. Someone let you down. At some point in your life, someone did something in a way you wish they didn't. You didn't get something that you wanted. Man, I prayed for this and I didn't get it. Man, I worked hard for this and I didn't get it. That job that I wanted, I didn't get. The promotion that I thought I deserved, it went to somebody else. The role I auditioned for, I didn't get. The team I tried out for, I didn't make. Man, I deserved some recognition. I deserved some accolades and some praise for this, and I didn't get it. The reward I worked so hard and I didn't get it. The respect that I know that I deserve, I didn't get it. See, everyone deals with disappointment. The list can go on and on. And here's some maybe an encouraging comfort for you to kind of just at baseline take a breath and give yourself a little bit of space to navigate. Hall of Fame Christians dealt with disappointment. I'll give you an example. Moses. You've heard of him. Ten Commandments. I'm not going to make a veggie tails joke because I do that all the time. But I guess I kind of just did. Because I'm rebellious. And my wife told me, you know, you make the veggie tails joke all the time. And I said, Oh, we'll see. This is how you flirt after 20 years of marriage. Rebellion. If you're taking notes in your early on in your marriage, there you go. Don't actually do that. Don't actually, that's horrible. That's horrible. My mom sucked it. I'm in so much trouble now. All right, we're moving on. Moses. Moses dealt with disappointment. Do you know why? Moses spent 40 years leading the Israelite people through a wilderness. I mean, you're talking snakes, food issues, nasty stuff, dealing with the amount of people who he had to get from point A to point B. And the point B was what was called the promised land. It was so great, God had promised it to the people. And you know who did not get to go into the promised land? Moses. Can you imagine that? Let's bring it to modern day translation and let's put ourselves in that position of disappointment. Imagine you planned a trip to Disneyland for two million people. And you got everybody ready to go. You packed everybody's lunches. It was a long car ride. We had to get in the van and we had to get there. And what happened? Every 30 minutes, you had to pull over because somebody had to go to the bathroom. You listened for five hours straight on the car. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? So and so took my iPad. Give me my iPad back, and you're yelling back there. In my days, we didn't even have iPads. We had a walk man. What's a walkman? We played cassette tapes. What's a cassette tape? It looks like a little book. But it played music. And the kids are looking at you like, what? And you get to Disneyland and everybody's okay. Is everybody stretched? And then one person looks at you. I forgot my wallet back at the house five hours ago. Well, guess who doesn't eat at Disneyland today? And you get up to the ticket counter, and everybody gets, you get everything, you scanned everybody's ticket. You scanned everybody's ticket. And then it's your turn. And the person at the gate looks at you and says, I'm sorry, you don't have a ticket. And you look at them and you say, Listen. Listen. For 40 years I've been leading these people through this wilderness. I just want a churro. I should be in there. Moses is on the Mount Rushmore of Christian faith. He dealt with disappointment. He dealt with it. King David, you're talking David and Goliath. I mean, victories were victories, but his defeats, he felt them. He dealt with disappointment. Even Peter, who's perhaps the most well-known disciple of Jesus, was disappointed in himself because Peter went from walking on the water with Jesus to denying he even knew him and having to feel the weight of that disappointment. See, disappointment, sadness, these are universal emotions. Everyone deals with them. However, they seem to take us down a path that we don't understand how to navigate, and we end up arriving at places in life and asking the question, how did we get here? One of the most common terms that we hear in this arrival to an unhealthy emotional and mental state of mind, right? Is depression. And so you hear that. It's become a common term nowadays. And most of the time people don't wake up and say, I decided to get depressed today. No, what happens? Time goes by, life goes by, and you wake up and you find yourself down, weighted, heavy, burdened. Like your soul has a cavity that needs to be cleaned out and filled and you don't understand it, and you can't make heads or tails of it, and you don't know what's going on. And oftentimes it's because we didn't see the path we were going down because we didn't recognize the universal emotions that we had dealt with when we were dealing with them. Things like anger, sadness, and disappointment. And so I want to give you a bit of a progression to understand so that you can you can you can have an awareness of maybe where you are so that it'll help you grow through it, okay? Because here's the deal. Everyone, just like we looked at, Moses, Peter, David, everyone. Everyone gets disappointment, right? Well, what is, if I can spell correctly, what is disappointment? Disappointment is sadness over unmet expectations. Disappointment is sadness over unmet expectations. This thing didn't happen the way you wanted it to. This person did this a way you didn't want them to, or this person didn't do what you wanted them to. Disappointment adds sadness over unmet expectations. But here's what happens we deal with that, and in the moment, we don't address it. We don't address it internally, and we don't address it maybe with those involved in the disappointment. And so what happens is sadness settles. And that's when you become discouraged. See, disappointment is sadness over unmet expectations. Discouragement is what happens when sadness settles. This didn't happen the way I wanted it to, and now I'm just kind of feeling it. Man, I'm just, I'm done, I really, man. And you know what we do? It ruminates, we fixate on it. And that sadness is settled, and you've been there. You've been there. You've been discouraged because there was an expectation you had and it wasn't met, and it's stuck. It's now it's kind of lodged in there, and it's just it's settling on it's settling on your spirit, and you don't really know what to do. And then something happens. That sadness that has been allowed to settle starts to fester because anger creeps in and it's sneaky because you didn't. See it coming. What you experienced was disappointment and sadness. You were let down. There was an unmet expectation. You weren't necessarily angry from the outside in. What's happened is now you've become angry from the inside out. Because that sadness is settled. You're discouraged. And that unmet expectation has festered because you haven't dealt with it. And all of a sudden, now you begin to feel heavy or pressed down. We call that depression. It's what happens when sadness over unmet expectations is allowed to settle in the spirit. We don't recognize it and we don't deal with it. And it festers and it starts to shape who we are. And it presses down on us. And we don't know how to climb out of it because we're not even sure what's going on. Because anger got in there and anger wasn't supposed to be there. Anger wasn't invited to the event, but anger kind of snuck in the side door. And all of a sudden, that anger has turned inward and it's pressing down on us and we're depressed. And so, how do we understand that? For some of us, we just need to understand the progression because you're going to be able to plot yourself at different seasons of life or stretches of life. And you're going to recognize has disappointment turned into discouragement? And then have we gotten here, right? And you'll be able to see that, and maybe you won't, but you know stuff's going on, and maybe you want to go sit down with a professional or sit down and talk that out with somebody so they can help you see that progression because we don't understand. See, a lot of times there's misconception about these evolved emotions. We think depression is just sadness on steroids. Well, I'm extra sad. And so I'm depressed, but it's it's not. It's sadness that was allowed to settle, become anger, and almost turn into a sickness. And we feel stuck and we don't know how to climb out of it. And so it weighs on us, and we didn't feel it, we didn't express it because we were embarrassed by it or unsure of what was going on, and we figured if we don't talk about it, it'll go away. But how often does that happen? We definitely didn't take it to God because maybe we were afraid God would judge us. God, I know I'm supposed to be more joyful, but I'm not, and I'm embarrassed by it because I've been a Christian for X amount of years. Again, people on the Hall of Fame struggled with these kinds of emotions. Disappointment and discouragement, issues like depression. And if we want to have emotional and mental health, we've got to be able to recognize what's going on. And we've got to get practical. And so not only is this conversation meant to inform, but it's also meant to equip. So how do we deal with things like anger and sadness? How do we get practical and navigate healthy relationships with these emotions? Because in order for us to deal with anger and sadness in a healthy way, we're gonna have to learn how to do two things. First, we're gonna need how to learn to diffuse anger, and we are going to need to learn how to digest sadness. We're gonna have to learn how to diffuse anger, and in order for us to do that, we're gonna have to look at two types of anger that most people experience. You can plot it into two categories, and I'm gonna use some culinary terms to maybe help us out this morning. The first type of anger that you deal with is what I call flambe anger. Does anybody know what it means to flambe something? Have you ever seen this? So you're cooking in a pan, and usually there's some type of alcohol involved. You pour it in and you light it on fire, and what happens? Whoosh! Flambé, like anger on my socks. That's flambe anger. That's instant anger. We've experienced that. Parents, you've woken up in the middle of the night. You just wanted to sneak an Oreo. And as you make your way to the kitchen, you step on a Lego that was supposed to be put away. And in that moment, flambe anger. You say some things in the middle of the night that you hope only God and the dog heard. You've experienced it. Somebody cuts you off in traffic. And you decide to speed up and drive by them and say hello. But you don't use everything on your hand. Hopefully, you don't do that while rocking a sunrise church bumper sticker. You know who you are. Flambe anger. The other one I like to call crockpot anger. See, it simmers. And it just cooks over time. See, you toss it in, it's frozen in the morning, but after church, it's cooked and ready to eat. It takes time. It just gradually heats up. That's a dangerous anger. Both are. So how do we deal with them? How do we deal with flambe anger? It's not going to be super spiritual, and I'm going to draw for you and tell you how to deal with flambe anger, how to diffuse anger. You ready? It's this. Boop. That's the pause button. This might be some of the best advice you get this year. One of the best things you can do to diffuse anger in the moment is press pause. Press pause. Because anger will never produce anything good in your life. Anger will cause you to say things you wish you didn't say. Anybody been there? You say the words, you can see them coming out of your mouth, and your brain is telling you, oh no. But they're gone. And they have reached their destination and they're not coming back. Anger will also cause you to do things that you wish you didn't do. And so the best thing you can do, often in the moment, to diffuse anger, is press that pause button. In the moment, ask for a breather. Hey, I need a minute. I need a minute. I need a minute to settle down before I say or do something I might regret. Press pause. That's how you deal with flambe anger. Now, crock pot anger is a little different. The recipe here is different. Because crockpot anger simmers. See, it's settled and it's slow cooking over time. And with crockpot anger, we're gonna have to get real and we're gonna have to be honest with ourselves. Because here's what's gonna happen if we're not careful, anger left unchecked can become depressing and dangerous. It becomes unhealthy. In fact, the wisest man who ever lived in Ecclesiastes chapter 7, Solomon wrote that anger left unchecked is heavy on the heart, because anger will lodge itself in the hearts of fools. Meaning that if we don't address anger in our lives, it will slow cook and burn us up from the inside out because we haven't felt it, we haven't expressed it in a healthy way, we have not given it to God, and we don't even know how to work on it. So, how do we work on it? We get honest, and I'm gonna give you a word, write it down and remember it. Working on anger, crock pot anger, you want a healthy relationship with this universal emotion is going to require this one word humility. Humility, as I define it for you within the context of this series, it is this trusting God and others with the real you. Because crockpot anger is sneaky, as it simmers, you're gonna have to do something. You're gonna have to recognize it. You're gonna have to do some introspection. Why do I feel heavy? Why am I upset about things all the time? Why am I experiencing such negative thoughts in my life? What is going on? Maybe it's because there have been unmet expectations you never dealt with, you became discouraged by, you let that sadness settle, you got stuck in there, you hyperfixated on it. It ruminated within your spirit, and the things inside of you started to produce anger because now you're mad at what hasn't happened or what has happened, and because you haven't felt it or expressed it in a healthy way, given it to God, learned how to work on it, it has festered in its rumination, it has turned into a sickness, and it has been allowed to simmer, simmer, simmer, simmer. And before you know it, you're cooked. Because it's taken you to a place you didn't even know you were going. The best thing you can do for crockpot anger is to get honest with yourself and recognize it. Consider where is it coming from? And you're gonna have to ask some questions, and I'll give them to you. First is this why am I angry? And be honest. Why am I angry? Not, I know I shouldn't be. No, no, no, no. Toss that excuse out the door. Why am I angry? Now the next one. Who am I angry at? This one gets a little dicey because sometimes the answer is us. We're angry at ourselves because we made a decision years ago that we wish we could take back and it had consequences, and now it started to define us. And now that shame from a decision years ago has settled, and it just sits right there on our shoulder telling us who we are. That's not what God wants for you. Who are you angry at? Sometimes the answer is God. And we're not supposed to say that as Christians. No, no, no, no. I I can't be angry at God. Has God ever done things in a way you wish he didn't do them? Has God allowed things to happen that you wish he didn't allow to happen? Sometimes we're angry about that. And we think that God can't handle the emotions that he created and already sees in us. So you gotta get real. Why am I angry? Who am I angry with? Now here's where rubber meets the practical road. Will will you forgive? Will you forgive yourself for those decisions? Will you forgive that other person for those decisions? Will you acknowledge that God's way is better even though you can't see it, but you're gonna trust because you understand that exercising those trust muscles is gonna help you navigate healthy relationships with your emotions. Because you're focused on God's way, not your own way. Are you willing to go there? Because if not, here's what's gonna happen. Anger's gonna take up residence in your heart. And it's going to become that uninvited guest that wears out its welcome. It never cleans its dishes, it never folds its own clothes. It always leaves its Legos on the floor. Now here's why people have a hard time navigating anger. We get stuck in the crock pot. You know why? Because we're hurting. We're hurting. You know why anger lodges itself in your heart sometimes? Here's why people hold on to anger. We're hurting. We're hurting. And angry people are usually hurt people. And so we hold on to that hurt. And that hurt starts to shape our personality. And we experience things that we don't understand. We used to be a positive person, and now we're we're a negative person. And it's just kind of spewing out of us. Anything good, we always have something negative to say about it. Or maybe, you know, somebody, somebody wronged you. Somebody wronged you, and so you've said, okay, you owe me, but you haven't told them they owed you. You didn't lovingly go to them and have a reconciliation-based or designed conversation. You just held on to the anger and said, You owe me. So you've created this made-up debt that this person owes you, and they'll never be able to pay it for two reasons. One, they don't even know they owe you, and two, it's a made-up debt. But what do you do? What do you do? You ever been here? This one's gonna, I'm gonna read your mail. You ready? Because we've been there. We've been there. We have conversations with other people right in here. And what do we do in those conversations? We give them the what for. We practice how we would confront them if we were in front of them. We tell them off in our brains. You did this, and let me prove to you why you are a despicable person. Why you are so wrong for this. And if you did this and this and this, you wouldn't be. But you know, things are like this because you did this, and I don't do this. And we self-righteously and ignorantly, not in an knocking you, we don't understand what we're doing. We create conversations in our brains where we have conversations with people that don't even exist because we are trying to satiate something inside of us that's hurting and we don't even know what's going on. And so anger has started to take up residence in our hearts. Maybe you complain a lot, and these things start to happen, and you don't even realize that anger's moved in. Anger never signed a lease, but it moved in anyway. Because it was left unchecked. We didn't ask, why am I angry? Who am I angry at? Do I need to do something here? Do I need to go talk to someone? Will I see this person the way God sees this person? Will I want God's best for me? God doesn't want anger to live rent-free in my heart. He wants me to be able to let it go. He wants me to be able to see people the way God sees people and let it go and trust Him. And if we're not careful, disappointment turns into discouragement. Discouragement can settle. And when that sadness settles, it becomes anger turned inward. So how do we deal with it? We get real. Why am I angry? Who am I angry at? What am I angry about? Will I trust God with it? That's how you diffuse and deal with both flambe and crockpot anger. Now, how do we digest sadness? This one's gonna sound a little bit more spiritual, but this one is going to take repetitive work. What I am about to tell you is not an antibiotic prescription, it's a multivitamin. You're gonna get a daily vitamin here, not an antibiotic. You ready? Praise is the prescription for sadness. Praise is the prescription. Here's what happens when we deal with disappointment. We fixate on what has happened to us or what we don't have instead of what God has done for us and what we do have. And the more we focus on the negative, the more we feed the negative. And the best way to fight the negative is to focus on the positive. Because you're training your brain. My psychologist friend, Dr. Jake Jordan, has told me this. He says, Scott, the mind can be trained, and the more you train it to focus on negative thoughts and what you don't have, the more you're training your mind to focus on discouragement, to focus on sadness. But the more you can train your mind to focus on the positive things, the blessings in your life. It's a muscle. It's a thanksgiving muscle, so to speak, that you can train your brain in the direction of, and so you want to fight the negative, you've got to focus on the positive. Here's something we say in church, you've heard it before. Count your blessings. It is so simple, but it is so powerful. Like pushing the pause button in flambe anger is a powerful exercise. Counting your blessings is a powerful exercise for digesting sadness because, yes, feel it, it's real. But now also talk back to those feelings and tell yourself, okay, but here's what God has done. Maybe once a day you wake up, you can write it down. I have a friend who journals every day, something he's thankful for. He's done it for over a decade. And you know what he's doing? He has trained his mind to be grateful. Because an attitude of gratitude puts up a good fight against sadness. If you want to diffuse anger, pause. If you want to deal with it in the crock pot and get out of the crock pot, get real, recognize it. And if you want to digest sadness, focus on the blessings in your life. What do you have to be grateful for? And it's going to require practice. I had a coach when I was in school and played ball. He would say this, Smith, practice makes better. If you want to be good at something, what do you do? You practice it. The more you practice flambe anger, the more you practice discouragement, the better you're gonna get at it. The more you practice pause, the more you practice recognition, the more you practice trusting God with things, the more you practice praise, the better you get at that. And practice pays off over time. But understand something about practice. You might be practicing for the rest of your life. And that's okay. Because universal emotions are gonna come up in different ways in different seasons. But practice makes better. Okay, what about the rest of us? Scott, I get it. I appreciate the lessons. This is neat. I didn't, I didn't know some of this about anger and sadness and depression. And man, the pause button, I'm gonna use that, okay? For some of us, our marriage just got a lot of help with one pause button. If you just got nudged, or if you didn't. For some of us, for some of our teenagers in the room, press and pause before you click send on that text message. Pause. Before those words come out, or those words come out. Pause. Scott, I appreciate it. This is great. I love this lesson, and maybe I'm gonna share this with somebody this week. I'm gonna text them the link to the video on YouTube or whatever. This is cool. Okay, I get it. But I don't really struggle with anger or sadness to that level. So, I mean, what what do I do? What do I do if I'm in that camp of people who I mean this applies to me, but not to the extent that I think it applies to maybe others. Here's What you do. The takeaway for all of us who maybe don't struggle in these areas as much, it's this. Look for people in your life who do. Look for people in your life who are struggling in these areas. Look for behaviors in your friends and your family that'll tell you things. Do you see any angry behavior? Are people lashing out seemingly for no reason? Do you have people in your life who seem to be avoiding everybody else? Is there someone who seems to be off a bit? Maybe they're down on themselves a lot. Maybe they're always complaining about things in their life. They never have anything positive to say. Are they MIA when family and friends want to get together and you've invited them 14 times in a row and you don't understand why they keep not showing up? Look out for this and reach out to them. Because odds are they're crying out for help, but their help me button is muted because they don't know how to ask for help. They're probably confused, embarrassed, ashamed, or just unsure of what to do or how to ask for help. So look for these people in your life and reach out to them. Be that person, be that place they can go for a friend who will listen, who will love, who will challenge, who will encourage, who will support, who will hold accountable. That's the takeaway for those of us who maybe don't struggle in these areas as much. See, this conversation is for everyone. Maybe you need to press pause. Maybe you need to do some introspection and understand what's going on in here so you can learn how to diffuse anger, crawl out of the crock pot, maybe digest sadness, which is real and going to come around quite a bit in your life, and understand how to navigate that in a healthy way. But maybe for some of us, we know people and they're coming to mind right now who you know this week. I need to reach out to them. I need to reach out to them and be a friend. To show them love. See, it is possible to have a healthy relationship with your emotions. Anger and sadness, these are universal ones. We've all experienced them, but like every other emotion, they're supposed to be messengers, not managers. Feel them. Express them in a healthy way. Submit them to God and work on them. Next week we're gonna wrap up our peace of mind series, and I'm gonna do something that I don't usually do. Next week we're gonna be talking about change. Everyone has lost something in their lives. Um we love. Sometimes it's loss of a job, loss of a station, a situation, a position, uh, loss of a relationship, whatever that that might be. And we've had to grieve that. And this hits everybody. It doesn't matter who you are, you've experienced loss of something in your life. And it's hard to navigate that because everyone experiences change. And when something changes in your life, something is usually lost. Now, oftentimes there's things that are gained, yes, but in change, loss happens. It is a fact of life. Next week, I want to encourage you to think of somebody in your life who would benefit from this kind of message because we're gonna wrap this up and we're gonna get real, real practical and say some things that just like today might offer real tangible help to have peace of mind. And next week, I'm gonna do something that I don't do. I'm gonna share a little bit about my own story. I don't often do that as a communicator, even when I go speak at camps or conferences or or other places. I don't often do that. But as you're a pastor, I love you, and I'm going to get vulnerable with you next week to go through some things, even in my own journey, that might help you realize, oh, okay, okay, it's, it's, it, it's, it's possible. So I want to encourage you to be here and think of somebody you can bring with you next week. Because we want this series to help everyone we possibly can grow in our faith when we realize that God cares more about our mental and emotional health than we realize he does. And actually wants health for us in these areas. Let me pray and then you can linger in the lobby and we'll head on out of here. God, thank you again for another day for your protection, your provision. I pray that you're honored by what's been said and done, and I pray that everything that's been heard uh would help. That it would help us and it would honor you as we wrap that up. It's in your name we pray.

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Amen. 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.