When Worry and Anxiety Hijack Your Joy

But that burden, I had taken it on, and it was robbing me of peace and robbing me of joy, robbing me of joy. And so the Lord had to remind me, I'm the supreme provider. I know what you need. Continue to steward well where you are. At the right moment, we'll open the door. What do we gotta continue to do? Be faithful. Steward well. He's gonna open the right door. But it's easy for us to allow the cares to choke us, and our joy be hijacked. [00:38:44] (48 seconds)  #StewardFaithfulWaiting

When the cares of this world, when the well, when I have the house. No. No. You know what it is? It's when when when God brings me my spouse, then I'll be okay. No. No. No. When when children come. You know, when when when we buy our own place. No. When we pay off the mortgage. No. When I have this. No. When I get the bigger house. When I And and and here's the thing, we just constantly are shooting for the next thing, and those cares begin to choke out our joy. [00:16:02] (33 seconds)  #StopChasingNextThing

If those things don't have to worry so that they can grow, how much more value don't you and I have whom God came down and crafted and molded out of the dirt man and breathed life into him. If God cares about the birds, if he cares about the grass, if he cares about those things, how much more will he not care for you and me? And so here's the We cannot let we cannot allow worry and anxiety to hijack our joy. It doesn't mean that it won't come. [00:43:50] (50 seconds)  #WorthBeyondLilies

I wrote this thought down. I I didn't make it a slide, but but I wanna share it with you. It says this, when our focus is divided between god and the cares of this world, usually, the cares win. When our focus is divided between God and the cares of this world, usually the cares win. I've been in ministry for a very long time. I was thinking about this recently. I'm almost at the point where I've been in ministry longer than I have not been in ministry. [00:16:52] (36 seconds)  #DividedFocusCaresWin

I said this to somebody this week, hey, man. Don't get don't rush yourself. Don't get ahead of yourself. I said, you know, if I buy Samantha a car, that might be a very good thing when she's old enough to drive. But I give her a car now at eight. It's gonna loo cost her or lose her life. Sometimes we're asking for things. We're taking on this pressure, and all of these cares are choking us out and taking our joy, hijacking our joy because we're trying to do something at the wrong time. And we've gotta wait on him. He knows all that we have need of. [00:29:47] (44 seconds)  #WaitOnGodTiming

What are you and I doing to develop our faith so that when a joy hijacker comes not today, Satan. Nope. That's not stealing my joy. Nope. I'm gonna take away the distraction. I think of Peter. Peter was told, though you have little faith, when what? He sank in the water. And why did he sink? Because he looked at Jesus. Hey. If it's you, command me. Jesus said, come. He started walking on the water, but then what happened? He divided his focus. [00:47:18] (40 seconds)  #FaithOverFearWalkOnWater

joy. Again, the moment of salvation. Think about it for a second. When you gave your life to Jesus and all of the weight and the things that you and I were carrying, the minute we surrender our life to Jesus, that weight lifts and there's a joy that is unexplainable. There is now this this this lightness in us because joy comes at the moment of salvation. [00:01:23] (25 seconds)  #JoyAtSalvation

But we can't say that to our four year old because to our four year old, that's a big deal. So why do we, in our walk with god, not acknowledge when someone's going through a situation, pray with them, help them get out of it instead of being like, hey. That's not a big deal. Look at what I'm going through. And I think that's an important factor for us to remember because as the body of Christ, we're called to lift each other up, to pray with each other, to help each other, [00:05:25] (30 seconds)  #ValidateSmallStruggles