Transforming Anxiety into Peace Through God's Presence

We are made in God's image. This is who you are. This is what the scriptures say about you. In order to release. To release something of God's goodness, his love, his grace, his truth, his peace, his wisdom here on the earth. That's why you're here on the earth, to be a conduit, a channel of God's grace, mercy, love, and truth in order to replace dysfunction and brokenness and shallowness and anxiety and fear and all the things that go wrong with blessing in order to change the atmosphere, which is exactly what God made you to do. [00:03:55] (37 seconds)


Jehoshaphat doesn't just go into problem-solving mode, fix a problem, figure it out, nor does he hide and retreat and numb out and escape. Jehoshaphat turns toward God. He resolves to inquire of the Lord. And here's what that means. What that means is Jehoshaphat shifts from being threat-oriented and problem-oriented to God-oriented. That's what he does, right? The threat, the problem, the thing ringing the alarm bells, that's demanding, it's screaming at him. He says, you know what? That's not the most important thing here. [00:09:43] (31 seconds)


This is where all God lives and all God's resources is. It's almost like a current running underneath the water, right, like the subcurrents and the Gulf Stream or whatever. It's underneath the surface, just underneath the surface, but it's a deeper, richer time. It's a different kind of time. You know what's in God's deep time? Deep peace, deep joy. Deep wisdom, God's presence himself. How about deep family, deep forgiveness, deep love, always available. That stream is always available. It's always there, always there, always there. Jesus lived out of this time, didn't he? [00:11:14] (39 seconds)


God is still God, even on the other side of alarmed. God is still God, no matter what kind of threats, challenges, problems you're facing. God is still God, even on the other side of all those threats, all those problems, all those challenges. Jehoshaphat is sort of anchoring the people of Judah in this larger, beautiful truth that this is who God is. And then he goes on from there to rehearse a little bit of what God's done in the past. [00:19:56] (28 seconds)


We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. Jehoshaphat is unhooked from the problem. He's not primarily threat oriented, not in a problem solving mode, but nor is he escaping the problem. Nor is he burying himself in his phone or in alcohol or whatever else he could get to numb his senses. He is turning toward the Lord, drawing from God's presence, God's deep time, all his resources, and saying, we don't know what to do. Our eyes are on you. [00:25:15] (29 seconds)


See, when we step out of ordinary time and orient ourselves toward God, toward his deep time, it not only releases and changes the atmosphere in our own hearts, it not only even changes the atmosphere maybe in the group of coworkers or colleagues or family members that you're with, maybe just maybe it'll change the atmosphere in a whole nation like it did with Jehoshaphat here the year 850 BC as they're coming up against an army. [00:28:49] (28 seconds)


If you are trusting the battle belongs to the Lord, of course you lead with worship. That's what you do. If the battle belongs to the Lord, you lead with worship. If the battle belongs to the Lord, you lead with worship. Of course, if the battle belongs to the Lord, you lead with worship. And as the story unfolds, they were defeated because the battle did belong to the Lord. The Lord sent confusion and the Lord brought his victory in and through his people even though it made no sense in ordinary time. [00:31:21] (31 seconds)


My hope and my prayer is that you might take this little map and step into it and allow the Lord to release new kinds of resources, grace and mercy, into your life and into your little community, people around you, your family, your friends, to change the atmosphere for good. Jehoshaphat did that, 850 B.C., but about 850 years later, we get the perfect Jehoshaphat, Jesus, who on the worst night of his life, staring down betrayal and crucifixion. He's not problem-oriented. He's not threat-oriented. He's oriented toward God as good father. [00:33:57] (33 seconds)