How To Remove Anxiety From Your Life

Tom Shrader addresses anxiety from Luke 12, contrasting the anxious heir and the complacent rich man to show how both misunderstand God's provision. He outlines six practical steps for removing anxiety: believing God's promises, pursuing His priorities, praying for His involvement, praising His faithfulness, experiencing His peace, and sharing His eternal perspective.

“What you know trumps what you feel.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: How to Stay Afloat in a World Circling the Drain (2013)

Recorded: 2013 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 48 min

Themes: anxiety, worry, peace, trust, provision, prayer, faith, perspective, struggling with anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, financial stress, worried parent, anxious believer, new to faith, facing uncertainty, seeking peace

Scripture: Luke 12:13-34, 1 Timothy 6, Philippians 4:6, James 1, Matthew 5, John 14-16, Psalm 39:4

Theological Themes: providence, divine provision, spiritual warfare, biblical counseling, sanctification, spiritual growth, prayer life, eternal perspective

Full Transcript

I really don't need to teach anything tonight. If you believe what you're just saying, now my suspicion would be you believe it. Samuel Johnson once said we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed. It's not that we don't need to be instructed. It's that most of us, this has been my experience, most of us are busy learning more stuff when we've never applied the things that we've already learned.

So we say, "Oh no, He'll never let go through the calm, through the storm." Well, the topic tonight is anxiety. If you know that, you sang it, I watched you, you were energetic, or at least as energetic as I've seen you so far. If you believe that, then there's that anxiety, but Lisa and I were talking about it just a little bit before we started. This stuff is not terribly complicated, and we know it, yet we forget it, or circumstances overwhelm us. I don't know which it is, but we're going to attack that tonight.

A Day at the Beach

I want to be sensitive to the time. It's been an incredible day. I love the parade. I did really well. When they're throwing hard candy, I did really well, but when they throw taffy and Tootsie Rolls, I'm knocking over these little kids. I was embarrassed by it, but these kids had... It was bigger than Halloween. They had bags of candy, and I'm saying, "You little runt, you don't need this stuff. Get out of the way."

Then when Bruce's truck came by, and I'm screaming, Sandy and I stood over right across the street by ourselves, and we needed to rent one kid to put him there so they'd throw to it, but I'm begging this guy. We had a great time, and then we took a walk down to Haystack Rock and back, and went over to Bill's and had a bowl of chili, and came back and laid down, and I just fell asleep, and I couldn't get up. I set the alarm. How bad is this when you're setting an alarm for five in the afternoon? That's not a good sign, but I did, and prepared.

I hope you sense that there's preparation for this, and then we went and we ate, and so you've had a long day. You've had a parade. You've been out in the breeze and the cool, and then you had a full meal, and you come in here, and I had three of you say, "You've done a great job so far. You've kept me awake." I was hoping I had the bar set a little higher than that, but I'll take even that. I'd hope to do more than that, but it's something anyway, so right now I'm with you, just so you know. I could doze right now myself. It's warm in the room, but we've got work to do, and so we're going to get after it.

I gave you an outline. The outline for tonight and then tomorrow, there are no blanks, and part of that is because I'm not sure I want to touch on all of this. I want to really focus tonight on the last segment, the removing anxiety from your life, but let me give you this story. There's no scripture on there, so let's start with this. Open your Bibles to Luke chapter 12.

Cycles of Life and Coach Wooden

Let me remind you what we talked about this morning, premise of the series, and that there are cycles in life, that circumstances vary. I have heroes, guys I admire. One of them is Coach John Wooden, and I had an opportunity a couple of years before Coach Wooden died. One of his players, in fact, one that was on the 1964 team, that was his first championship team, called me, and he said, "Tom, I was through Phoenix. I didn't call. I apologize. I'm back home. I just want to see how you're doing. How are things?" I said, "Great." I said, "How's the wizard?" The wizard of Westwood, Coach Wooden, and he said, "You know, he's great," and there was this long pause, and I'm thinking, "All right, here it is. Here's the chance," and he said, "You want to come over and go up and meet him?" and I said, "Just tell me when."

He said, "Well, let me talk to him, because he's very busy." Now, this time, he's 96 years old. How busy can you be? Johnny Carson, in my growing up, Johnny Carson was again one of those guys I love. Where was Johnny Carson born? Nebraska. See, Nebraska. That's not true. He was born in Corning, Iowa. His DNA is Iowa, and then he went to Nebraska. Not Iowa, but close, okay?

So whenever I think of John Wooden at 96, Carson had a line, and he used to come on every night at 10:30, in that day, you'd watch him. He would have these observations of the news that were not like now. Now, they're caustic and bitter. It was Johnny observing, so one Monday, he came on, and he said, "I read on Friday that a man 95 married a lady 91," and then he got that little wry smile, and he said, "I think they spent the weekend getting out of the car."

So that was Carson. I think my favorite Carson is when Roy Rogers' horse's name was what? Trigger. When Trigger died, Roy had him stuffed and put in the living room, and Carson said, "Don't you know, Dale's hoping Roy goes first?"

Meeting the Wizard

So back to John Wooden. So he said, "You want to come over and meet the wizard?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Well, let me talk to him." And so he called. He said, "March 10th at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, that's what he has." And over we went, and it was a pilgrimage to a guy. I'm in Davenport, Iowa watching the UCLA Bruins when they won 10 championships in 12 years, and it was iconic, and the wizard was an icon.

He came, it was this wonderful moment where I'm going between this iconic figure, the sporting news coach of the century, and this little old man. We're going up to see him, and this lady said, "Are you guys going to see coach?" "Yeah." And she goes, "Will you tell him to turn his porch light off?" And so he came down to get us in the elevator, and she said, "Coach, your porch light's on." And then we went into this room, and he said, "Oh, boys, I've got to get the..."

The Unexpected Connection

I remember sitting on Coach John Wooden's front porch one evening. Here was this man who, in 1932, was the college player of the year, averaging six points a game, and the only man inducted into the college basketball hall of fame as both a player and a coach. We sat there that night, and he was telling me about getting married and going to Indianapolis. We were talking about different things, and I didn't want to ask him anything I could read about.

I said, "Coach, you like music? What kind of music do you like?" Well, everybody who's 90 years old, they all love the same song: Stardust. He said, "Stardust." I said, "I love that. My dad used to play it. My favorite group were the Mills Brothers." He said, "Oh, my gosh, when Nellie and I got married, we were in Indianapolis, and the Mills Brothers were playing at the hotel when we were there."

Coach Wooden had all of these wonderful sayings. Here's one of them: "All progress is change, but not all change is progress."

Life's Inevitable Ups and Downs

In our life, all of life goes like this: there's nothing you can do about it. There's circumstances—we talked about this morning, right? External circumstances you can't control. You cannot take that out of life, but in the middle of that, because He never leaves you, in the calm or in the storm, in the middle of that, there can be a solidness there. That's what we're striking for. It's not natural. It's supernatural.

So we're going to talk about anxiety tonight.

The Request for Inheritance

In Luke chapter 12, there's this scene. Verse 13: "Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, 'Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.'" Now, we can deduce from this that it was probably not the older brother. He wouldn't ask for this. It would be a younger brother. Jesus said, "Man, who appointed me a judge or arbiter over you?"

And then Jesus tells a story, a parable. Jesus told 32 of them. Sixteen of them deal with stuff. This is one of them.

Jesus' Warning About Greed

Here's what He said, verse 15, Luke 12: "Beware"—some of your translations will say "watch out," "be on guard"—"Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed, for not even when one has abundance does his life consist of possessions." He said, "Here's the lesson: Watch out for greed."

Greed is wanting more than you need, so much that you do whatever you have to do to get it. When stuff comes along, it's addictive. Because we have needs—legitimate needs—and then we grapple with how those needs are met. Jesus talks about stuff, and He talks about it in the context here of a life principle: Even if I have stuff, life is much more than stuff. Life is much more than any sort of circumstantial thing.

The Parable of the Rich Fool

So He tells a story. He said, verse 16: "Here's a parable. There was a land of a certain rich man, and it was very productive, and he began to reason to himself." Now, get the background. This guy is not a loser. This is the guy who'd be on the cover of Forbes and Fortune. This is the guy who would be on Fox Business News. He'd be traveling around the country selling DVDs on how to get a big crop and get bigger.

And he has a dilemma. He is successful, and now he has a bumper crop. And he needs advice. He's like all of us—he needs advice, but here's his fatal mistake: He began to reason with himself. He went to his favorite counselor: himself.

The Fatal Focus on Self

Look at verses 17, 18, and 19, and you'll see the singular personal pronoun 13 times. "What shall I do since I have no place to store my crops? And he said, 'This is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and all my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry."'"

But God said to him, "You fool, this very night your soul will be required of you." He has needs and legitimate needs. He is a man who is rich in this present world, but poor toward God.

Two Types of People

I want to work our way through the outline. The heir was anxious, but he shouldn't have been. The mogul wasn't anxious, but he should have been. There is this cause of anxiety, and there's a variety of them. But at the essence of what we're looking at, there's this idea of a need and excess—the tendencies we have in this whole idea of need and excess.

He goes on and tells a story. It's very similar to this story we looked at this morning. God said in verse 20, "Your soul will be required of you. So it is with a man who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."

The Solution to Anxiety

"For this reason I say to you," verse 22, "do not be anxious for your life, what you're going to eat, nor your body, what you'll put on it. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing." And then a passage we looked at this morning: "Consider the ravens."

He tells the story and He says, verse 29, "And do not seek what you'll eat or what you'll drink and do not keep worrying, for all those things the nations of the world eagerly seek. But your God knows that your needs—seek for His kingdom and these things will be added to you."

Here's what He says: When I'm worried about stuff, I'm thinking just like a guy who doesn't know God.

Contentment vs. Endless Pursuit

You can sit there and say, "Well, that's easy for you to say because you got stuff. You clearly have a cool shirt. You're clearly a cool guy." I'm not putting words in your mouth—I don't know if you're thinking that. But Jesus said, "That's what the pagans think about." You have needs, and they're legitimate needs.

But what happens to us—you'll see in the upper right-hand corner—are two tendencies toward anxiety. We have anxiety for the needs and anxiety for the excess. God promises to meet our needs.

Here's the challenge in this: it would be fascinating if we could email our needs to God. I don't know that God's online, but if He would email back our needs, I wonder if they'd be similar. We need stuff to eat, but we think filet. He may be thinking hot dog. We talked about this morning. We need a place to live. We're thinking four bedrooms on an acre, and He's thinking a studio.

God's Standard for Contentment

If you have food and covering, there's a classic passage in 1 Timothy chapter 6 where Paul says to Timothy, "Godliness plus contentment equals great gain." If we have food and covering, with those we should be content. Then he warns that the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.

A little bit later he says, "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches." My mentor Larry Wright used to say this: "Riches are like a grease pig. You squeeze them and they're gone. You grab them and you hold on." Some of you experienced that in the last five years. You had pensions that were funded, maybe on a fixed income, and those assets all of a sudden are gone.

When he talks about fixing your hope on the uncertainty of riches, I think part of it is that. I think the other part is the uncertainty of riches is this thought process that says, "If I have them, I'll be happy."

The Illusion of Wealth and Happiness

I love television. I have made a move—Sandy and I made a move about six months ago from cable to Direct TV. And aside from knowing Christ and marrying Sandy, it's the third greatest thing that's happened to me in my life. Direct TV is awesome. Unfortunately, I get like 500 channels, and every night we look at each other and say, "What? Nothing to watch." I don't know how this happens—500 channels.

But I love television. I'm flipping through the other day, and there's a special on people who've won the lottery. One guy had won like $52 million, and he seemed like a happy guy. Sandy said, "He seems happy." He and his wife were doing well. But in all of these instances, other than that couple, every one of them said, "We thought this was like the great moment in life. We thought it would really be important, but it's destroyed our family. All the kids think I owe them something. The relatives who wouldn't even talk to me at the family reunion last year now want to put a picture of me on their Christmas card. I mean, they think we're really close."

The Anxiety Cycle of Need and Excess

So we worry about these needs. We're chasing income. We're chasing the accumulation of stuff, the beginning of a career. It's one of the challenges I have. All my friends—I tend to be a little prone to hyperbole—but all my friends are downsizing. I'm 63 and a half.

All my friends are downsizing. I try to deal with the young couples and say, "Let me help you out. Don't upsize." I want to tell you something, and I don't know where we went wrong in here, but you can put two kids in a bedroom and they'll survive. They don't need their own room. In fact, you know what? They'll be better off if they share a bedroom because it'll prepare them for life—to learn how to share and get along with others. It's a better life. It's cheaper and easier for you. It's better for them.

But all of a sudden, we're at that beginning, launching that career, trying to meet those needs. So that produces anxiety. Then, all of a sudden, we get them, and there's an excess, and that produces anxiety. How am I going to get it? How am I going to keep it?

God's Provision and Our Priorities

Here's the directives. Again, I'm going through this. You can expand it. It seems like a good portion of you are smart people, so you should be able to fill this in on your own. Don't worry about your income. Don't worry about your assets. God will meet your needs here on this earth. He promises.

I'm teaching a Sunday school class, and it was a big class. We had about 500 people in our Sunday school. I'm saying that I had listened to a guy from Ethiopia, and he said, "In the midst of all of that poverty, he never saw a Christian starve." I tend to teach with firmness and authority, so I say this in this definitive way, and I'm done. This guy comes up, and he says, "I'm from Ethiopia, and I've seen Christians starve."

What am I going to say? "What part of Ethiopia?" I mean, I don't know what to say to this guy. And he said, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm not trying to put you on the defensive. I've seen them starve as they've given away their food to people who didn't know Christ to perhaps prolong their life, willing to give theirs because they're ready to meet Jesus."

Investing in Heaven, Not Earth

So here you go. God will meet your needs, and God will protect assets—not necessarily on earth, but in heaven. So here's what you do. Here's priorities: pursue spiritual growth. Grow close to Him. Study your word, and fund His kingdom.

Jesus says, "Don't put your things on this earth where they rust and moth destroys them." He's not saying here money's bad. He's saying every time I invest in this present world, I will ultimately lose it because I can't take it with me. So when you see things like Project Hope, when you see the things that God's doing around the world, to begin to participate in that is to take those assets and use them for God's eternal purpose.

So you could talk about that. If you're a couple, think about that. Here you go. And we've got to get you out for the talent show and fireworks. Six things: How to remove anxiety from your life. Number one, believe God's promises. Luke chapter 12, verse 30: "The pagan world runs after..."

God's Promises Are Your Foundation

All such things, what you're going to eat, what you're going to wear. Your Father knows what you're going to need. I met with a guy one day, and I must have appeared anxious to him. About four or five days later, I got this package in the mail, and I opened it up, and it was all bubble wrap, and I unwrapped it. He had taken the time to have somebody with calligraphy write this out and put it in a frame. It simply said, "Tom, trust me, I have everything under control, Jesus."

Those promises. Obviously, I had the advantage of knowing where I was going with the lesson, but as Mila was leading us in these songs, I'm thinking, all you have to do is believe the stuff you just sang. That's the antidote. The promises of God. "I'll never test you beyond that which you can endure."

Here you go. That's a good phrase. You might want to write this down. I don't know what you do with all these things you write down, but this might be one: What you know trumps what you feel.

We looked at James chapter 1 this morning. "Consider it all joy, my brother, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." I'll never test you beyond that which you can endure. Sometimes it feels like you are, but He says He's not going to. I feel like this is more than I can handle. God says it's not. Those are His promises.

Pursue God's Priorities

Number two, pursue God's priorities. Luke chapter 12, the passage we looked at, verse 31 and 33. "But seek His kingdom and these things will be added unto you." What do you think is important to God? What's important? What do you think is important to God? Well, we know: people, His word, eternal things. Seek first His kingdom, His priorities.

Rather than ask Him to bless your agenda for your life, why don't you try to understand God's agenda for your life and ask Him to bless His agenda in you as you begin to live this out. You wear those badges that say Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center, and when you walk in town, that's an opportunity for you to live in a way that's saying to all these guys in town—forget what you think—it's saying to them, I'm a Christian.

I don't know how accurate this is, but I love the concept. You may be the only Bible that some people ever read. That's not to relieve them of the responsibility to come to Christ in repentance and faith, but all of a sudden, the priorities that God would have as you walk through town is you become a representative for Him. Let your light shine in such a way, Jesus says in Matthew 5, that people see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Our responsibility is to make the invisible God visible, but then to speak the truth boldly. They will never glorify the Father in heaven unless you tell them. They're going to look at you and go, well, you're just naturally a nice person, and you go, no, no, no, it's not me, it's Christ you see in me. Those are His priorities.

Pray for God's Involvement

Number three, pray for God's involvement. Philippians chapter 4, verse 6: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition." Prayer is this idea of an open, honest communication with God. Almost everyone I know would say that their prayer life is not so strong. I don't know, by the way, if that's because we have this unrealistic perspective of what prayer is. Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, so it can't be me on my knees. I can't be there all day, I can't live the rest of this life. It must be this attitude of dependence upon Him.

So for me, early on, was that acronym, ACTS, remember that? As I pray: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Now my tendency is to flip that around and start with supplication. God, this is what I need. God, this is what you need to do. Let me say it again. God will always give you what you need. He may not always give you what you want.

But it becomes this open, honest communication with God. You understand, He already knows, right? It's not that you're praying to Him to inform Him—He already knows. What I've discovered in honest communication with God is when I honestly begin to tell God what I'm thinking and feeling, all of a sudden things fall into perspective.

Prayer Brings Perspective

I have a friend who runs an organization and they have like 50 golf courses. I'm talking to him the other day, and I haven't been able to play a lot of golf. I'm talking to him and he said he has one of his guys at one of the clubs in town. We were talking about clubs, and I was asking him what irons he hits, and this club fitter said he hits these nice clubs. He said, it doesn't matter, except for one club. He said, there's one club, the G25 driver by Ping. He said, that club is 20 to 25 yards further than every other driver.

I don't know if that's right or not, I'm not selling clubs, I don't know. The minute he said that, I thought to myself, I need a G25. Forget that I haven't played much in the last year, I need a G25, and I started to pray about it. It's true, I know it sounds frivolous, but I started praying. I said, God, I need a G25. Here's why I need it, God, because I'm going to get 25 more yards. I'll hit it almost 180. I'll get 25 more yards. God, I need that 25 more yards. That's not an eternal issue—it's my friends are hitting it by me. I became obsessed with the G25.

What I did is I began to pray about that every day. I began to go to God and say, God, I need that 25 yards. The more I prayed, the more He satisfied that need by putting it in perspective and in essence, taking it away. In the midst of this, pray openly, honestly.

I remember Josh McDowell telling the story as a young man, he wanted a Mustang. He began to pray about it, and he employed the same concept. God, I want that Mustang. You know what Mustang? That blue Mustang. That blue Mustang, it's a 1965, that blue Mustang, that one, God, you've seen it.

The bumper is dented, and there's a scrape down the side. He said after a week, "God, I don't want that piece of junk."

Pray with specificity. The more specific you can be in all of these areas of your life, the more you can deal with it. We learned this. I would be with guys, and they say, "Will you pray for me?" Sure. "I have a problem with coveting."

Now here's what typically happens. At that point, most of you will say, "Okay, I'll pray for that." Here's what you've got to do. What do you covet? "Oh, I covet what my brother has." What does your brother have? "Oh, I covet my brother's house." What about his house? How else are you going to hold him accountable? "I covet" - I don't even know what that means. But now you begin to deal with that. In this area of anxiety, especially in stuff, the more specific I get, all of a sudden, as I'm specific, the fog seems to go away.

Praise God's Faithfulness

Number four, praise God's faithfulness. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, pray, and with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

I've got a few physical issues. Compared to many of you, they're nothing. But my latest thing has been my joints, my hands. They tell me it's part of the lupus, and it comes and goes. But my hands have been so sore. That's what's been slowing my golf down. My hands have been so sore.

The other morning, I'm in the shower with the water as hot as I can get it. The mornings are especially tough to try to get loose. All of a sudden, I realized that yesterday I didn't hurt at all. But I never spent a second thanking Him for that. All of a sudden, without thankfulness, I become overwhelmed by all of these circumstances. But when I begin to thank Him, all of a sudden, I realize all that He's given me.

Sandy and I, for our anniversary, went over to Coronado. I don't know how familiar you are with Coronado. That's at the very - it's the island off San Diego. When you go over the bridge, you suspend any touch with reality. It is this amazing little place. We're going over there for five days. We love Coronado.

Sandy and I are over there, and I'm saying, "You know, this is tragic." We were there at the end of May. I said, "We're not going to be back here till maybe the fall." We're walking around Coronado, and it has no connection with reality. We said, "Maybe we can buy the worst house in Coronado, the smallest house in Coronado." We found this little 700-square-foot house for $900,000. Now, I can't just write a check for $900,000. Maybe after this weekend, because I hit the motherlode this weekend up here. But I can't afford that.

Here's what happened, I noticed. God gave us what any normal person would love: five days in Coronado. But I was so obsessed with what I didn't have, that I failed to understand what He'd given me.

Experience God's Peace

Here's the fifth thing. You will experience God's peace. "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

Really important. For the world, peace is the absence of turmoil. In God's definition, it's not the absence of turmoil, it's the presence of God even in the midst of the turmoil. So we begin to pray, and our prayer - I get it, I understand it - our prayer is "God, take it away," whatever this turmoil or difficulty is. He says, "You know what? I may take it away, I may not. That doesn't matter. I'm going to climb in there in the midst of this hardship with you."

In John chapters 14, 15, and 16, Jesus is saying goodbye to the disciples. It's the night before He dies. He said, "My peace I leave you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives." The world has a peace - it's a false peace. Smoke peace, snort peace, buy peace, rent peace, touch peace, grab peace. He said, "No, it isn't this. It's not the absence of turmoil, it's not the full satisfaction of some big human need. It's knowing that I won't leave you as an orphan."

The Power of the Holy Spirit

You and I have this power in us. It's the power of the Holy Spirit.

The last time I was here, I taught in the morning, and then Brian Loritz taught at night. I don't know if any of you have ever heard of Brian. Brian's a magnificent man. We've had him at our church a couple of times out of Memphis. After we taught, every night we'd go somewhere and get a sandwich or something, so we were at the Driftwood.

Brian asked me a question that I hadn't thought about, so I was surprised by the question, and I answered it instantaneously, so I was stunned by the answer. Brian said, because I'm winding down 22 years, "In 22 years you've taught at the church, what is it that you've taught that you either didn't teach enough, or you avoided, or didn't teach at all?" I didn't even think. I said, "The subject of the Holy Spirit."

God says, "I'm going to give you this power. It's a supernatural power. It's the most powerful force on earth." There's nothing more powerful than the man, or woman, or student of God, filled with His Spirit. All of a sudden, it will give me a peace of God that transcends all human understanding.

So you'll be in the midst of something, and people are watching you, and they'll say to you, "I don't know how you do that." In your own mind you're saying, "I don't know how I do it either." But God does it. "I don't know how you handle that. It doesn't even seem like a big thing." It's not me, it's God in me, in the midst of this anxiety. I experience this peace of God.

I mentioned Carson. When I'm watching Carson, he was always great with the new comedians, and he had a guy on there. His name was Freddie Prinze. Now those who are around know Freddie Prinze Jr., so we have to go Freddie Prinze Sr. He's a young Puerto Rican kid, and I remember the first time he came on Carson, this kid was funny.

About three years later, he comes on, and he's got a hit TV show, Chico and the Man, with Jack Albertson. He was funny. About a week later, he taped an episode of the

When I was younger, I heard about this television personality who had everything going for him. He had money, fame, success—everything the world says should make you happy. But after his show one night, he went back to his apartment and blew his brains out. I wasn't a believer at the time, and I remember thinking, "That makes no sense. If you're going to blow your brains out, why didn't you do it when you were a poor kid who didn't have anything? Now you've got everything."

See, that's the way we think. If I have this stuff, this thing, this person, place, or thing, I'll be happy. Isn't that right? We go from person to person. Here's a guy with a girl—here's how they think: "Oh, if I can just get her to go out with me, I'll be happy. Oh, if she'll go steady with me, I'll be happy. Oh, if she'll be engaged to me, I'll be happy. Oh, if she marries me, I'll be happy. Oh, if she leaves, I'll be happy." So we go person to person, place to place, thing to thing to thing.

God's Peace Transcends Circumstances

The peace of God that I'm looking for is inexplicable—it's beyond human understanding. It's not that He removed the physical pain. It's not that He healed me. It's not that He put the deal together. It's that He joined me in it.

Here's the last thing: share God's perspective. This is important. Psalm 39:4 says, "Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days, and let me know how fleeting my life is." "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of understanding."

A Father's Wisdom About Perspective

I used to go home every August for a week and play golf with my father. My father died about five years ago. I don't know how he did it, because it was grueling for me. It was this typical Midwest course with a lot of hills, and he'd always say, "Let's walk the front nine." I said, "I can't even walk from the cart to the clubhouse. Get in the cart, let's go."

We were driving home one day, and he said, "I'd like to show you something. Is that all right?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "I want to take you to the cemetery. Mom and I have bought a plot. The other boys I know aren't going to be interested, but I know you'll be interested in this."

So we got there, and it was a great old Midwestern cemetery—200 years old with these huge trees. He said, "Here's our stone right here. Ed Brock's over there, and Carl Fidler's over here." I said, "You understand you're not going to be having block parties with these people when you get in here, right? You got what this is, right?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

The Reality of Our Mortality

He showed me the stone—that classic gray stone. There was his name: James E. Schrader, year of birth, dash, and then they're waiting to fill it in. There was my mom's name: Helen Irene Schrader, year of birth and the dash, waiting to fill it in. It was this awesome place with great trees, which turned out to be great because the day we buried him, it was so hot. I remember standing in the shade of these trees and him telling me what a great spot it was.

On the other side of that monument stone was just one thing: the last name, Schrader. I remember taking a picture of it and keeping it around. Sandy found it the other day, and I used to keep it around.

There's something about this—we know it instinctively. We know we're going to die. I don't say it to be morbid. We know that none of this stuff matters. We know that in those last moments, if God grants them and you're coherent and you're having a conversation, you're going to talk about faith, family, and friends. We know that.

Living in Eternal Perspective

What God is saying to us in the book of Psalms is this: if I understand that reality, I live in the midst of it. All of a sudden, things begin to fall into their right perspective. Remember the context here—anxiety? All of a sudden, that thing, whatever it is, is still important, but it's not truly significant in the overall scope.

Think of the things in your life that you've been anxious about and worried about. Somebody said to me—and I know they didn't invent it—"You say worrying doesn't help. It does help, because most of the things I've worried about have never happened. So it's working somewhere."

When Urgent Things Lose Their Urgency

I had a lady years ago—this was before I had a cell phone, but I had voicemail. I got her voicemail: "Tom, you don't know me, this is so-and-so." Then she started, and I thought, "Okay, I'll go to the next one and come back." And I didn't go back.

About three weeks later, I was going through voicemails, and I heard this: "Tom, this is Becky. I need to talk to you, it's very important. Right now I'm at the office, here's the number." And she rattled off all these digits. "But I'm going to my sister's house, here's the number." More digits. "I have a pager, if you need me, page me at this number." Even more digits. "Here's my home..." She gave me like five numbers and said, "It's very important, call me back."

I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, that's three weeks ago." My instinct was just to ignore it, but then I thought I needed to call her. So I called: "Becky, this is Tom Schrader." Pause. She was mad—don't blame her. I said, "I got your note, and I just overlooked it. It went into my thing, and I forgot about it." She said nothing. I said, "I'm really sorry." She said, "That's okay." I said, "Can I help you?" Long pause.

Here's what she said: "I forgot why I called." Now if you'd heard the angst in her voice—"this number, this number, this pager, this"—all of a sudden, those things seemed so important. I'm not minimizing that. I'm not telling you that the deal you're working on isn't important. I'm saying just put it into God's perspective.

everything you order from us is free. There are costs associated with it, but there's a website that we have called prioritylivingaz.org, and everything I've ever done is on there. One of them is kind of part two of this. It's called Five Guaranteed Ways to Eliminate Stress in Your Life.

I'll give you the five ways real quick. Whatever things are temporary, God's in control, God forgives sin, all things work together for God's kids, and God doesn't change. See, this is all about Him.

What Do We Do With Our Anxiety?

That angst, what do I do with it? I pray about everything, worry about nothing.

What's Coming Next

We have two more times together. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about relationships, the one and others, family, husband, wife, parent, child. Then tomorrow night, we're going to talk about spiritual strategies that you can put in place and you can take right out of here.

Let me pray. Mila's going to come, close our time, grab your kids back here for the talent show, and then wherever God leads you for the rest of the night. Be careful out there running around and driving around. There are a lot of idiots up here, well, up here anytime, but especially up here on the 4th of July, so be careful if you're out and you're out driving, you're out walking around, be careful.

Let's pray. Father, thank You that You are God and You are in control. God, thank You that You love us, this is amazing, even more than we love ourselves. God, remind us of the power we have as Your kids. Make our first flinch not to worry about everything, but pray about everything. And God, we thank You in advance for that peace that passes all understanding. We love You, worship You, praise You. In Christ's name, amen.