Less Anxious - Dwelling

Two more Quick things

the new student and prep wing will start being delivered this week. The students and prep rooms are busting at the seems so this is awesome. I will give you more updates as they come in.

If you are new to Journey, Join us for a brief, 10-minute drop-in right after service next week to say hello, grab a coffee, and meet the team.

What is Anxiety

An automatic, emotional response to a real or imagined threat.

We are not talking about clinical anxiety. Some people have a medical condition, they have chronic anxiety.

Some people have situational issues where there is too much going on, and for a time, they need assistance in navigating complex situations they cannot handle on their own.

If you need to please speak to a medical professional. I am not a medical professional. I am a pastor. I can hopefully talk to you about what the Bible says.

What is the goal?

By miracle, medicine, or practice, we seek wholeness that comes from the Lord.

The goal is to become less anxious. We cannot remove anxiety because we cannot remove every threat, real or imagined. We live in a constantly changing and evolving world filled with other people. Things will come at us, and our goal should be to become less anxious.

We should not allow situations to determine who we are or how we act.

We will come back to this introduction each week.

Philippians 4:6–9 CSB

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things. Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Dwelling

I want you to close your eyes and take a deep breath. Picture your house, your home, your apartment, your trailer, whatever it is. I want you to picture the place you live. I want you to see the walls. Picture your decorations. See your favorite place to sit. Just walk around your home.

Now I want you think about what you love about your place. The things that make it your place. The way you chose to decorate it. The bedding you chose. If you painted the walls why did you chose that color. How does it feel to see your family photos on the wall.

Ok open your eyes. Your home is your dwelling. It is the place you live. It is the place you return to. It is your resting place.

Our inner life is a dwelling place as well. It is the place we go to, the place we rest, the place we call home. This is not the you that you are at work, not your customer service voice, not any of those things. This is the place you inhabit alone.

We have internal places that we have chosen to decorate and filled rooms with things we desire. As human being we have a remarkable ability to make places home.

For the most part this morning we are going to be talking about our role in our inner life dwelling as we become less anxious.

Something I think is really interesting in these verses is a pattern. If we back up to verse 4 it looks like this:

Rejoice | the Lord is near

Don’t worry or be anxious but pray (seek God) | God will guard hearts

Dwell on and Put into Practice the things of God | God’s Peace will be with us

Do you see the pattern? God has a part and we have a part. It is not all up to us, but we do have a part. If we neglect our part, we will struggle and have a hard time finding the peace we want.

Paul says in verse 9 that we are to “do what you have learned and received and heard from me.”

This is action, this is participation in what God’s work of shalom or wholeness.

Paul is writing this from prison. He is not pretending that everything is ok. No in the middle of trouble he is saying there is a way to have peace.

So I want us to dive into just two things this morning. First is how we transform or, make repairs to our inner dwelling.

Second is how we protect our inner dwelling.

Transform (make repairs)

What we consume shapes us. There is no two ways about that. We should seek to be transformed. We will probably come back to this from time to but Romans 12:2 tells us

Romans 12:2 CSB

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

This is both a spiritual thing and a practical thing. Sometimes we need to engage in spiritual practices to change the rooms in our dwelling. Sometimes we need to make physcial or natural changes. Sometimes, most often, we need to do both.

Here is simple line I want to share with you,

All formation is also deformation.

Here is what that means. If we are wanting to renew our hearts and minds we must also deform or change what is there.

You cannot rearrange your living room or bedroom without displacing what is there. We understand this, but the same thing happens in our inner life our inner dwelling.

We have all been formed by something. All new formation is also deformation of old things.

Let’s think about random thoughts. Sometimes we can have random thoughts that pop into our heads and cause us anxiety. It can be a worry, a fear, an argument, a memory. Whatever it might be. These things can come at us and sometimes they can cause mild or great anxiety.

On one hand it is not our choice what pops into our heads at any given moment. Sometimes random, weird, or even intrusive thoughts can pop into your head at different times. We cannot always control this, and we are not always the cause. Sometimes these things happen. What we can do is attempt to take every thought captive.

2 Corinthians 10:5 CSB

and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.

Paul is talking about how we do not fight in the flesh and that anything that puffs itself up against God should be taken down.

I have times where I am 25 minutes into a fake argument before I realize it. I now have a choice. I can continue the fake argument or I can take that thought captive.

I did not choose the path I was walking down, but because it happened in my head, I get to choose if continue to let it sit in my dwelling.

I will literally say out loud, I take this thought of jealousy Jesus and I submit it to you. I may have to do this 5 times.

Sometimes we need to change the physical environment or call a friend or something else.

Sometimes we are not responsible for the random thought. Sometimes it is spiritual warfare. Sometimes there are things going on the spiritual realm that can only be fought in prayer. Sometimes we need to fight on our knees or in worship. Prayer should always be a part of our fighting stance but especially when it is spiritual warfare.

On the other hand, your thoughts today are often a culmination of the things you have given yourself to over the years.

We are responsible for patterns we give ourselves to.

Pick your thing.

Money

The value of time

Busyness

Sex

What is means to be a parent or spouse

What ever it is you have been formed by your past to interpret these things a certain way. If we want to change the way we view them we have to undo certain lies and half truths and rebuild something in their place. We do not just dismantle old systems we rebuild new ones in their place.

Our first 10 years or so of marriage Julie and I were broke. So broke its crazy. I can remember us going through the house looking for change just so we could go up to the store. This and our past all worked together to produce an idea of what it meant to have money or what money was. What the value of money was. You spent when you had it because you never knew when you would have again. You held on to everything because you might not ever have it again.

The amount of anxiety this produced on a daily basis was taxing to say the least. It was emotionally and some physcially draining. You are always wondering where the next paycheck is coming from. You are scared to open the mail because there may be a new bill. We had to not just learn new ways of interacting with money but dismantle old ways of thinking.

And I still struggle with this. I am currently working through dismantling my unhealthy attachment to the Sunk Cost Fallacy. It is this idea that because you have put so much time or money into something you need to keep going. No, I am continually learning that sometimes you need to just let something go because it is not worth it.

All formation is also deformation.

We cannot change in a day what has taken a lifetime to build. Let me say that again,

We cannot change in a day what has taken a lifetime to build.

What we can do is change how we think in the future by what we give ourselves to today. And we can give ourselves a little grace.

Another thing we can do when it comes to deforming old patterns of thinking and reforming new ones is to adjust our windows.

Our Window

Unlike a home where almost everything is brought in by the front door most things that come into our inner dwellings come in via the windows. The windows are our eyes and our ears.

We must guard our windows to protect our dwelling.

Mobile Devices

Our bodies, our Central Nervous System, is constantly bombarded. We take in media, news, and information constantly and hardly give ourselves time to rest. Our phones are constantly ringing or getting a text or showing us a notification.

I believe we take in too much. I think we are too aware. We cannot expect to pray away anxiety and become less anxious if we do not make natural changes as well as spiritual ones.

If we think of our eyes and ears like a window. There is only so much we can see out of our window, as I look out of my livingroom window. I can only see so much out of my window. No matter how I position myself, I can only see so much. But I pick up my phone, and I can see everything.

What do I allow in through this little device. The things I allow in my dwelling, are they what Paul describes?

Philippians 4:8 CSB

Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things.

Do they build up or tear down? Do they nurture the work the Lord is doing in my life or hinder it? Does it increase anxiety or reduce anxiety?

For example, the same mobile device that can show me the most horrific things in the world can also give me the beauty of Psalms and poetry.

Psalm 23:1 KJV 1900

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

or

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. - Yates

What am I allowing in to my dwelling through my phone?

On a side note, this is why we must help protect our kids from things online. There is an entire world we are struggling with and if we are struggling how much more are they. Choose for your family to give or not give a phone but please I caution you, if you do put safe guards in place.

Our phones give us access to everything happening in the world in an instant. Is that healthy? I don’t think so.

I can know about a war somewhere without letting it play out in my dwelling and affecting my peace.

Entertainment

We can think oh it is just a show or just a movie but what if it is not, what if it is more?

I grew up watching slasher films. My favorite was Nightmare on Elm Street. I did not think anything about it. Yet for years I would have the same recurring nightmare of Freddy Kruger trying to get me. I watched so many slasher films that I still have times when being alone in the dark does something inside of me.

I want to be clear, for the most part I am not telling you what to watch or not watch. Scripture does give us some very clear boundaries.

Also no one should be using anything I am saying as a weapon for someone else.

This is the point.

By miracle, medicine, or practice, we seek wholeness that comes from the Lord.

Our goal is to be people who are less anxious and this means we have a role to play. It is not all on us but we do have a role to play. Remember,

We are participating in God’s work of shalom or wholeness.

I want to look at Phil 4:8 again.

Philippians 4:8 CSB

Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things.

Paul says that if things are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, has moral excellence or if it is praiseworthy we should dwell on these things.

We aren't talking about pretending difficult things don't exist. Dwelling isn't the same thing as processing. You can acknowledge something without allowing it to become the place you live.

He says what whatever is true.

We need to be clear and careful not to think that we should not think about “negative” things. There is a difference between being anxious about something and needing to process things that is true.

Greif

Trauma

Financial problems

and so on

These are not things we just don’t think about. That can make anxiety worse. We are not trying to remove “bad” feelings. We are trying to take ownership of our dwellings.

In normative practice we get to choose what we dwell on, we get to choose what lives in our homes.

We do this by renewing our minds and changing what is forming us and by adjusting our windows and allowing our central nervous system to breath.

Some simple practices for you this week.

Unplug. Turn off the device, tv, podcast whatever it might be and take in some quite. Practice being, not consuming or working.

Take a walk.

I know it is currently 100+ degrees outside but if you can, take a walk. The dog needs it if nothing else. Walk around the house if you have to.

Think about something that brings you joy. I will sometimes go back in my inner dwelling and remember the moment my daughter was born. I look into her eyes for the first time again and am reminded of the man I want to be. This gives me great joy.

Go to dinner. Go with friends, go with a spouse, just enjoy the moment and leave your phone at home. Don’t spend money you don’t have but if you can do it.

Lastly, spend some quiet time with God.

Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you through Scripture, through prayer, and through what He brings to your attention. Take some time to quiet your mind and spirit.

Invite the Holy Spirit to come into your home and have a look around.

What does He point out?

Are there things you need to remove from your dwelling?

Are there things you have been avoiding that you need to address?

Are there things you need to grieve?

Are there things you need to surrender?

Are there things you have allowed to stay that are no longer good for you?

Are there things you need to add?

Don't be afraid of what He might show you. Remember, this is not about becoming perfect or eliminating every negative thought or feeling. This is about becoming whole.

We are learning to take ownership of our dwelling and allowing the Lord to transform it.

Faith in Action: Faith in God changes what I dwell on.