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Anxiety is a real thing, and it seems to plague many today – myself included. Join me as we talk through Psalm 91 and see how the Lord wants us to deal with it. Can we be free?
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Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John – Welcome to the podcast!
I’m so glad that you guys have decided to join me this morning. Today is Monday, the 17th of December.
You guys – a week from today is going to be Christmas Eve and I’m just wondering – are you enjoying the season? For those of you who feel stressed and frustrated we’re going to be tackling a couple of questions today, particularly as it relates to the Word of God and what God says about our everyday lives, the Proverbs 31 woman, how do we pray with our kids, how do we handle the topic of fear.
Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.
Well, you guys will notice that I have a little bit of a tickle in my voice today and I hope you’ll be patient with me. I have been down now for about five days with this crazy cold and so I’ve been babying my voice trying to get back on the podcast – but it still has a little bit of a crack in it. So if you’re wondering what’s going on with my voice- that’s what it is.
Today’s mailbox Monday and as always – I love to answer your questions here.
Before I jumped into today’s questions though, I just want to let you know that we are still studying over at MomStrong International this topic of JOY- his idea that God wants us to have a joy that is so deep that nothing in the culture, nothing in our circumstances can affect the joy because it is the sign of the presence of God at work in our lives.
And I just want to encourage you toward that end today as we tackle some of these questions at Mailbox Monday. There is a great opportunity for you, it makes a great Christmas gift – to join MomStrong International. Join the membership over at MomStrong International we are releasing Bible studies there every month. The Scripture Writing community is growing and I just want to encourage you toward a place of turning to God’s Word for every aspect of your life.
You know, God isn’t silent on the issues that we’re facing in the culture today. He’s not silent on parenting, on marriage. He’s not silent on Creation. He’s not silent on human sexuality – and yet, we turn over and over to conventional wisdom and to pop culture – and we try to find our answers there when God’s word is saying – no no no, come back to the Lord, come to His Word. And so we’re going to do that today.
I’m going to tackle as many questions as I can in the next 17 or 18 minutes or so.
So, I’m going to deal with the topic of fear and anxiety today for just a few minutes. I get asked this question quite a bit, but I’m going to read a letter from a listener today which I know is going to resonate with a lot of you. She writes:
Hi Heidi. I have been battling postpartum anxiety for almost a year and a half now. I found a lot of healing in God’s gift of anxiety medication and a wonderful therapist along with learning to dig into God’s word and lean into Him more. I decided to go off medication so that we can start trying for baby number two and I am much better than I was. But things trigger my anxiety anyways. I’m trying to stop by leaning into God’s truth more.
Okay, so a couple of things sweet girl. If you’ve read Becoming MomStrong you know I have battled with anxiety my whole life and it has taken me almost a lifetime to get off of the anti-anxiety medications that my doctors put me on when I was just 19 years old. And I want to just second what you’re saying because – if you read Becoming MomStrong you’ll see that the first time I went off of them was because I found out I was pregnant. And I didn’t want to be on medication while I was pregnant.
Well now that I’m coming up on 49 years old, I just I’m learning more and more about trusting the Lord, trying to learn more about my body. You guys have heard me talk about essential oils, and supplements, and eating right, and all those things. It all goes into that healing that God has for us. But also, I think you’re totally right to realize there are some things that will sort of trigger anxiety. Like for me I know it’s when I don’t have any margin in my life – then I’m going to deal I’m going to struggle more with anxiety.
And I noticed that you have pointed out a particular trigger in your life, that is a trigger in the lives of many women. And so I’m going to continue reading her e-mail. She says:
One of the current events that always triggers my worst anxiety spirals are mass shootings. It seems to me that they are on the rise and if that is true and they become more common – my fear-ridden mind automatically will think it’s going to be one of my kids, my husband, or another loved one close to my heart is guaranteed to be caught up in a mass shooting shot and killed.I can hear how irrational it sounds but there are days when I can’t see any part of the rationality. I know statistically it’s unlikely but my mind focuses on the minuscule chance and blows it up into a probability instead of a possibility. I feel helpless as a mother, and a wife, and a daughter, and a sister.
All I want to do is hide my family in a cave and keep them safe. But doing that would not be getting off the bench and onto the battlefield.
You’re right! I love that you said that. I’m going to finish reading:
I’m trying to fight my mind and fight the fear that Satan is showering me with because it’s owning me and distracting me from being present and executing God’s mission for me.
So you mentioned in your letter Psalm 91, and I thought this is a really good place to start. And so I’m going to give you a little bit of commentary off of Psalm 91 – because I don’t believe that God wants us to live in fear. And, it doesn’t have to be fear of a mass shooting – it can be fear of a child becoming ill, it can be fear of a lack of financial provision.
We live in a broken, fallen world because of sin. But God said that He is never going to leave us. He’s never gonna forsake us. And one thing I want you to hear is that no matter what comes in your life – God’s grace will accompany it.
I’m gonna say that again – no matter what comes in your life, God’s grace will accompany it. God’s protection, in the midst of danger, is one of the primary themes of the Psalms.
God never promises us a world that’s free from danger. But He does promise us help whenever we face it. So the author of Psalm 91 is anonymous. We don’t know who wrote this Psalm but I’m going to read it to you and then I’m going to talk about it for just a little bit so you can hear God’s heart for you.
Psalm 91:1
1 Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 This I declare about the Lord:
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him.
3 For he will rescue you from every trap
and protect you from deadly disease.
4 He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection.
5 Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,
nor the arrow that flies in the day.
6 Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
7 Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around you,
these evils will not touch you.
8 Just open your eyes,
and see how the wicked are punished.
9 If you make the Lord your refuge,
if you make the Most High your shelter,
10 no evil will conquer you;
no plague will come near your home.
11 For he will order his angels
to protect you wherever you go.
12 They will hold you up with their hands
so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.
13 You will trample upon lions and cobras;
you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet!
14 The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
15 When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them.
16 I will reward them with a long life
and give them my salvation.”
So there is a lot to unpack in this Psalm, and I think it’s important for us to note that as God says in Psalm 91, and throughout the Scriptures, He is a shelter. He wants to be a refuge when we are afraid and the writer’s faith in God – as protector – would carry him through all the dangers and fears of his life. And this needs to be how we see the Lord. He wants us to trade our fears for faith in Him no matter how intense our fears might be – and to do this we’ve got to learn to live and rest with Him.
We want to learn to live and rest with Him.
Psalm 91, especially versus one and two – really are an assurance of God’s protection. I’ll read it again to you:
1 He that dwells in the secret place of the most High will abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.
So God saying He has a secret place for us. It’s a place that we are to live in, and as I said many times on the podcast – I believe that we live in a culture, particularly in Christian culture – of reactive Christianity.
So we run to Him when we need Him, right? When something happens that’s when we want to go and find His shadow. That’s when we want to live under His protection and His care. But when life seems like it’s going OK – we sort of forget that that’s what He wants us to do on our everyday lives – is to live in the shadow of the Almighty. Not just come there when things are difficult.
Spurgeon said:
Every child of God looks towards the inner sanctuary and the mercyseat, yet all do not dwell in the most holy place; they run to it at times, and enjoy occasional approaches, but they do not habitually reside in the mysterious presence.
Duncan said that this was an expression which implies great nearness the shadow of the Almighty. We’ve got to learn to walk every day close to our companion if we would have His shadow fall on us.
So Spurgeon went on to suggest four ways that the Scripture speaks of the shadow of the Almighty: in Isaiah 32:2 he calls it the shadow of the rock, in Song of Solomon 2:3 he calls it the shadow of the tree, in Psalm 63:7 it’s the shadow of his wings. In Isaiah 49:2 it’s the shadow of his hand, and the verses of Psalm 91 are using some amazing wonderful beautiful names for God. We call him the Most High, the Almighty the Lord – which is translated Yahweh, and in my, Elohim. He’s my God, He’s my refuge, and my fortress.
When we walk with God everyday, when we live in intimacy with Him, when we walk intimately with Him – we learn the greatness of His protection – because God becomes the mighty fortress, that refuge – that we’ve sung about for so many years.
For the believer, God is our refuge – and it doesn’t just happen on the times when we need Him. It happens because we have learned to trust in Him. We’ve developed a close relationship with Him and that comes from reading the Word of God, from from speaking His truth out loud to our heart.
Spurgeon also went on to say that
Men are apt enough to proclaim their doubts, and even to boast of them, indeed there is a party nowadays of the most audacious pretenders to culture and thought, who glory in casting suspicion upon every thing: hence it becomes the duty of all true believers to speak out and testify with calm courage to their own well grounded reliance upon their God.
See Spurgeon knew what we need to know now – and that is – especially in this age where people are casting doubt and suspicion on your faith and they’re hammering it at every at every front. We want to take our refuge, and our trust, and place our trust and put out the assurance of our protection in God’s hands.
So that’s the first part of Psalm 91. And then he goes on, as this as the storm moves along. And as I’ve already read the whole thing priest I’m not going to go back and read it again but in verses 3 and 4 – he talks about how God brings that protection and comfort and care. He says he rescues us. That’s how it is going to rescue you. He’s going to protect you is going to cover you with His feathers and shelter you with His wings. The Bible says that His truth. Remember we’ve talked about this before on the podcast? It’s truth that is really under assault right now.
But the Bible says in Psalm 91 vs 4 that His truth should be our shield and our buckler. So when we talked about last week – we talked about a little bit about Lauren Daigle and her struggle to stand up under the pressure of celebrity and speak the truth of God’s word.
Can I just encourage you – go back to the word of God. Go back to the word of God. The Psalmist is describing specific ways that God cares for us – beginning with rescue from those who would trap us, right? And then he goes on to say that he will protect us in times of plague and disease.
In your question… One of the questions at the end of this email was that – if God promises that He is going to protect us from disease, protect us from plague – why doesn’t that happen all the time?
I don’t believe that the Psalmist nor the Holy Spirit who inspired this almost intended this as an absolute promise. He’s not saying every believer is going to be delivered from every snare, or every disease, or every trial, or every trouble – but rather the idea is that the Psalmist is pointing to the many times when God has done that for the people who trusted Him.
There’s something beautiful, and I saw this first in my grandmother – when we find ourselves in trial there’s something beautiful about the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, the protection that you feel, the protectiveness that you feel.
I think of myself as a mother when my children are sick, or when they’re injured. Some of you saw me on Instagram a couple of years ago when our daughter – when our youngest daughter – broke her arm in the most egregious fashion.
So we’re driving to the hospital. Her arm is so badly broken that it’s literally contorted out of shape. And every bump that we went over, every pothole, every turn – she would just cry in pain because any little movement hurt her. And as her mother I just I wanted to take it away from her. But you know what I noticed all the way to the hospital and as we got there? Even when she was in pain – when she would lock eyes with me and I would tell her it’s gonna be okay – there’s something that happened in her heart and in her spirit, and her heart would calm and she would quiet.
I think that’s why God is saying to us – Don’t worry. He’s saying – don’t dread disease, don’t worry about this stuff. Keep your eyes on me. I want to cover you with my feathers.
I love that He says that. He’s going to cover you under the shelter of His wings as a mother wants to cover her babies.
You see this as a metaphor. God is represented here obviously as a bird sheltering young chicks under His wings. And David described Him this way in Psalm 61:4. But listen to this description: the mother eagle spreading her dread wings over her eaglets is a wonderful symbol of the union of power and gentleness. It would be a bold hand which would drag the fledglings from that warm hiding place and dare the terrors of the beak and claws.
It’s powerful stuff. God wants to protect you.
I want to talk for just a second before I run out of time about angels. Because this particular Psalm talks about angels in verse eleven it says:
11 For he will order his angels
to protect you wherever you go.
Psalm 91:11
You guys, angels are real. And one of the functions of angels is to watch over believers. There are examples of guardian angels in Scripture. And if you do if you don’t believe me look these up in 1 Kings 19:5, Daniel 6:22, Matthew 18:10, Luke 16:22.
So as you read these you’ll see that God does assign His angels to protect us. I don’t see any indication that he assigned one angel for each of us. But listen, angels can be God’s messengers. We read about that in Matthew 2:13. Angels are not visible except on special occasions. But it’s comforting isn’t it to know that God watches over us even in times of great stress and fear.
He’s not going to leave you. He will not.
And I think part of our role as mothers is to show our children that calm assurance that we have in God – when we’re struggling, when we’re afraid, when we don’t know what to do – Is to turn our attention to the Lord and see Father, I trust you. I know that nothing that comes my way in this life comes without Your permission and without your knowledge. And I know that you’re at work. God is at work.
He wants you to do well with Him. So as you dwell with Him – dwelling is a place that you live. It’s not a place that you come to once in a while and that’s how most of us view our relationship with the Lord. This is why it’s been so much on my heart to have you join us over at the Scripture Writing Challenger. There is something really powerful about being in the word of God everyday. Surrounding yourself with the truth of His word. Speaking it out loud, showing our children that this is the God that we serve. That He will take care of us, that He watches over us. That is the way God loves us.
I want to thank you guys for listening today. If you want more information on the Bible Study: In Search of Joy, please visit me at MomStrong International. We’ve got so much going on over there this month and we’re going to direct you constantly back to the Word of God.
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In the meantime I hope you guys have a wonderful day and I’ll see you back here for MomStrong International’s Study: In Search of Joy, on Wednesday.