Here's Pastor Alan Wright with Today's Blessing: a Biblical Faith-Filled Vision. For your life. In your losses, big and small, I bless your soul. To feel the compassion of the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort. Those words from 2 Corinthians 1.3.
I wish I could bless you with a promise of no affliction, no pain, no loss. No grief. But God offers no pledge of pain-free living. He offers something. better.
He offers his comfort. He comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 2. Chapter 1, 4th of 5. His comfort is greater than your sorrow.
His grace is greater than your disappointment. His presence is greater than your grief. Be comforted, child of God. The Lord is near. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright.
If we want to heal anxiety, which I so want us to heal. I want God to heal it in your life and mine. I want this passionately. for all of us. then we must also think and get healing for the trauma that may be at the root.
of so much of the anxiety. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, The Untroubled Heart, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina.
If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
So, as you listen to today's teaching, today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Just contact us at pastoralen.org. That's pastoralan.org. or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
More on this later in the program. But right now. Let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Pastor Alan Wright. All right, my family, are you ready for some good news?
Your life is not in the rearview mirror. It's today. There's stuff in the rear view mirror. But that doesn't define you. Years ago, many, many years ago, I had for a brief period of time a Toyota Corolla.
I had wanted to get one of the. Most affordable cars I could get. It had no electric anything. It was the last car I had that had roll-down windows. And I came home with it.
My wife said, What have you bought? And now, for all of you Corolla owners and lovers, they've gotten better. They've gotten better. But back then, it was a sardine can. It was a tin can with cup holders.
No, it didn't have cup holders, actually. And if there's a spectrum of safety, you know, the bigger vehicles that went out, you know, on one side, you got Mac trucks and Hummers, on the other side, you've got. The Fiat and the smart car and the Corolla. And I was sitting on Rose of Sharon Road trying to turn left into the church I served all those years ago in Durham. And as I was sitting on Rose of Sharon, there were about three or four cars in front of me, and then a stop sign.
There were traffic, there was traffic coming on the opposing lane, and I'm waiting to turn left. There's also a ditch on my right, so I'm stuck there when I look in their rearview mirror and see, to my dismay, someone is hurtling down Rose of Sharon Road way too fast. And I knew they were not going to be able to stop in time. I don't know why they were going so fast. I don't know where they were distracted.
I don't know what they were doing. But I could see it all coming. Have you ever known that there is no training for how to brace for a rear end collision? I don't think there is something. You know, I mean, like, I was like, do I hold on real tight?
No, that's going to hurt my arms. I mean, I actually had time to kind of have this little process go through my mind. And I couldn't, I was stuck. And all of a sudden, I heard screeching of tires and the big skid, and then whammo, I get hit. Just like I knew I was going to.
Now, thankfully, it was not terrible. I wasn't hurt really, really bad. I didn't have to go to the hospital. And the car wasn't total, just kind of bashed in on the back of the car. And I sort of just drove it around like that for a while and sold the car.
And so that was the rear end collision. I had, it had never happened to me before or since. But, y'all, for about six weeks, I was paranoid. I was just looking in the rearview mirror all the time. Every time I'd come to a stop on the street, I'm looking in the rearview mirror, like, oh, no, please don't let that happen again.
And even today, it might be 35 years ago that happened. I think I still am a little hypersensitive and look in the rearview. a little more than other people do. Maybe it's not all bad. I'm planning my escape route while I'm sitting on the street at any given moment like that.
I think it is an apt picture. of trauma. I think it is an apt picture of what could happen when life. Hits you hard. and it leaves a dent.
and it does something to your thinking. That's basically what trauma is. And I I've been preaching all year long about this sweet peace that Jesus offers us. when he says, I'll leave you peace. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives.
The offer of Jesus for an untroubled heart, the calm of his very heart. And I knew as we began this uh lengthy series that There would need to be a time to talk about The effects of trauma and how it causes present-day anxiety. If you could just take that little picture I'm giving you from my Corolla. where I get rear-ended one time. But weeks or even years later, it could be making me anxious even though it happened only one time.
Yesterday's trauma causing Today's anxiety.
So, if we want to heal anxiety, which I so want us to heal. I want God to heal it in your life and mine. I want this passionately. for all of us. then we must also think and get healing for the trauma that may be at the root of so much of the anxiety.
I am not going to, I promise you, I'm not going to open up needlessly old emotional wounds. And so, you know, be at ease. We're not going to. Get you into all of that today. I want to more talk about this, and I want to look at it from.
David's life, the most beloved hero in Israel. It'd be real easy to look at David's life and go, he defeated Goliath, everybody loved him, and he was the king. But what we actually see is his story was a story of one kind of traumatic experience after the other. And I want us to look at some of those scenes. Because there's something instructive about David, who also praised God while he was also honest with God.
But also want us to look because David's life is not only just on display as to what happened to him. But through the Psalms, we have on display what was happening inside of him. in his soul. The Psalms are the poetry and the praise of Israel, but they're also kind of like David's journal.
So, I want us to look at that interweaving of what happened to David and what was happening in his soul. But more importantly, I want to look at David to try to help us think about trauma and anxiety. Because David prefigures more than any Old Testament figure, the son of David. Jesus the perfect David. And how he points us to Jesus.
and Jesus's compassion and power. to heal trauma. That's all I'm gonna talk about. There are many definitions we could give to this word trauma that gets thrown around a lot today. I like this from Bessel van der Kolk.
In his seminal book, The Body Keeps the Score, which, if you want a deep dive, This is secular work by a psychiatrist whose life work has been on the effects and aftermath of trauma. Said, trauma is an event that overwhelms the central nervous system. altering the way we process and recall memories. I'm going to read it more time. Trauma is an event that overwhelms the central nervous system.
altering the way we process and recall memories. So trauma doesn't just disrupt your life in a moment. Oh, I just got hit. you know But it has overwhelmed Your whole brain system. And Because of that, it alters the way you would normally process this kind of thing, right?
Like I know that people get rear-ended in car collisions. But until I experienced it, my brain wasn't really wired towards worrying about that. how much more so on the big kinds of things in our lives.
So, trauma is this kind of experience that can cause us to maybe not even connect all the dots, but become hyper-vigilant. And it doesn't mean, beloved, that there's something about you, therefore, that's broken. It means there's something about you that's human. And We're going to learn more about this. God designed us to have a kind of fight and flight or freeze mechanism that we need.
And yet, what happens with trauma is that it has literally affected our. brains physiologically, that's what we're learning. And I want to ask God to do a lot of healing. Today and then invite you into that. We have a God who loves to heal.
But it is something that needs to be healed. Mm. That's Alan Wright. and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Do you ever feel like your heart just can't rest?
Like no matter how much you try, peace always seems just out of reach.
So many of us wrestle with anxious what-ifs. leaving our hearts restless and unsettled. But Jesus offers us something the world cannot give. His own peace. the calm of his very heart.
This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is the Untroubled Heart, a powerful digital bundle including audio messages and a digital study guide. In this series, Pastor Alan unpacks Jesus' promise from John 14, 27. I leave you peace. My peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world does.
So don't let your hearts be troubled or afraid. With practical insight and biblical encouragement, You'll discover how to quiet anxious thoughts and rest in Christ's peace that endures. When you give today to support Allen Wright Ministries, we'll send you the Untroubled Heart digital bundle as our thanks. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-500. Five four four. 4860.
That's 877. Five four four. 4860. or come to our website. PastorAllen.org.
Today's teaching now continues. Here once again. is Alan Wright. Therapists talk about trauma with a big T. There's big things that happen in life that are violence, witnessing violence, abuse, molestation, huge moments of rejection.
I would put being subjected to And around those that are in substance abuse, could be in this. And then small T-trauma, which is like we all experience. Author of a book called Tri Softer has said: the big T-trauma is like a knife wound. You got to go to the emergency room, but the little T-traumas are like paper cuts. but they do hurt.
And if you get a thousand of them, it can derail you.
So it's something we all deal with and David had both the big T and the little T in his life. For some reason, David's older brothers really ridiculed him, and it was one of the ongoing kinds of little tea trauma in his life: his own family was not appreciating him. We don't know exactly why. I've been watching Amazon Prime's miniseries on the House of David. And y'all, I think it might be the best on-screen biblical thing I've ever seen.
I love it. The storytelling includes subplots that aren't biblical. And yet it's capturing a lot of the essence of the story, including how different David was from his brothers. He was smaller, he was relegated to keeping the sheep. And in this Amazon drama on Prime, they suggest the reason was that David was born to a different mother.
We have no biblical evidence of that. But maybe it's just 'cause he was the youngest, but They looked down on him when Samuel came to anoint the new king of Israel. They didn't even consider David. He was just out. He was forgotten.
It's kind of a picture of his early life was just Forgotten. Overlooked. And then, but his brothers were abusive to him. There comes this scene where David, who's not considered old enough or ready to be a warrior, is not there at the Valley of Elah in this. Potential battle against the Philistines, where this giant named Goliath is taunting the army of the living God.
And David is sent by his father, Jesse, just to take some provisions to his brothers. And this is a scene that'll give you this kind of trauma David experienced from his own brothers in 1 Samuel 17:28. When Elihah, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, Why do you come down here? And with whom do you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is.
You came down only to watch the battle. And look what David said. This is just really telling. He said, now what have I done? Can't I even speak?
That's the way David felt in his family. Things we experience like that, sometimes even our own family, they're traumatic to us in our growing up. And David also had this kind of unusual trauma that I would call a dream deferred or. ongoing disappointments. Who hasn't experienced that?
He was anointed to be the new king at maybe as young as age 15, but he was 30 before he took the southern kingdom and 37 before he was ruling over all the land. Dreams deferred. disappointment. These are traumatic to us. You know, the kind of times like you've had it in your mind.
It's going to be this way. And then it's not. And it's like something's hit you. David also just had this incredible. What we call big T trauma of the former king of Israel, Saul.
Who became so jealous of David. He was repeatedly trying to kill him. David had been sent to play music for Saul because it soothed him, but then Saul turned on him. 1 Samuel 18:10, Saul raved within his house while David was playing the lyre as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand, and Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, I'll pin David to the wall, but David evaded him twice.
It just it just became David's life that he had someone that wanted to assassinate him. 1 Samuel 18:29, Saul was even more afraid of David, so Saul was David's enemy. continually Saul sent people over just to watch David's house to try to figure a way to kill him. And then finally, David just had to flee. And 1 Samuel 22, 1, he departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullum.
I've been to the caves in a dullum. It is remote. It is isolated. The anointed future king of Israel is. hiding in caves.
So he wouldn't be killed. Trauma. David's whole life in that sense is shaped by it. His son Absalom Rebels and wants to take the throne, and then Absalom's killed, and David. grieves in 2 Samuel 18.
And as he wept, he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would I had died instead of you, O Absalom. My son.
So you can't just read through David's story and think, oh, he killed Goliath, he's the great hero, everybody loves David. His life was just one traumatic thing after the other on display. And what you get in the Psalms, therefore, is just this sort of prayer and lament and praise to God that all gets merged together. And that's part of what I want you to see. I want you to see in his own soul.
But I also want you to see how there was this rhythm of confession and lament and praise, because I think that for the healing of trauma, there has to be both. There has to be the owning of our actual story. And the owning of what's actually happened in our mind and body. but also the joining that to a higher Story and reality about who we are in Christ and who He is for us. And David puts this on display.
I think of Psalm 31 when I think of the kind of persecution he experienced so regularly with his own family. You could imagine him saying things like this: Be gracious to me, O Lord, I'm in distress. My eyes wasted from grief, my soul and body are. Also, my life is spent With sorrow, jumping forward because all my adversaries have become a reproach. I've been forgotten like one who was dead.
Alan Wright, today's good news message, healing post-trauma anxiety in our series, The Untroubled Heart. I encourage you to stay with us as Pastor Alan is back here in the studio with us, sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing.
It's free, and just to click away at pastoralan.org. Do you ever feel like your heart just can't rest? Like no matter how much you try, peace always seems just out of reach?
So many of us wrestle with anxious what-ifs. leaving our hearts restless and unsettled. But Jesus offers us something the world cannot give. His own peace. the calm of his very heart.
This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is the untroubled heart. A powerful digital bundle, including audio messages and a digital study guide. In this series, Pastor Alan unpacks Jesus' promise from John 14, 27. I leave you peace. My peace I give you.
I do not give it to you as the world does.
So don't let your hearts be troubled or afraid. With practical insight and biblical encouragement, You'll discover how to quiet anxious thoughts and rest in Christ's peace that endures. When you give today to support Allen Wright Ministries, we'll send you the Untroubled Heart digital bundle as our thanks. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-500. Five four four 4860. That's 877.
Five four four four four four four four four four four four four. 4860. or come to our website. PastorAllen.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan Wright in the studio, Healing Post-Trauma Anxieties, where we're placing a bookmark in his teaching.
I imagine Pastor Alan is a good news preacher and looking into the eyes of people who have come for good news. And this is definitely good news. I'm not arguing that, but you, and I know you probably had a lot to wrestle with. When you start talking about trauma in a corporate setting, that's going to be tricky to navigate as a person. I knew when I began the series on the untroubled heart, as we were going to be learning more about anxiety, that one of the things I would really have to study is trauma and its effects.
We all have experienced at least what we'd call small T traumas. And some of our listeners, you've experienced the big T trauma, the big the big events of life that And it actually, the thing that I learned, it actually does affect the physiology of the brain. When we experience a traumatic event, So part of what I I'm asking. For all of our listeners and I'm praying for you as God to do his healing work that rewires the brain. But it's so important to learn about this because I think sometimes Daniel we can think, why am I feel so stuck in this pattern of thought?
Yeah. And it very well could be that there has been a way in which a past trauma has left an indelible Kind of process in the mind and even neural pathways that are being affected by this. And so we must learn about this and learn how to bring our trauma, our traumatized souls. every part of our being. To God, where we can be loved, where we can be held.
And we can be accepted, and there's healing that comes.
Some anxiety is not going to go away. until we deal with the trauma that we've experienced. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-577-1. five four four forty eight sixty.
That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox. Free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallan.org.
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