Thursday, October 19th | Anxiety (pt. 1)

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Thursday, October the 19th. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm Jon Galantis, and you're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-5825028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave some links in the description so you can do just that. Today's verse of the day is coming to us from 1 Corinthians 2.14. It says, But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. I think verses like this are a big encouragement, especially when you're dealing with people who are either non-believers or outright antagonistic toward Christianity. I've had some people in my life who are just like, how can you believe in this made-up fairy tale that blah, blah, blah, blah?

And I would imagine many of our viewers and listeners have had the same experience. But verses like this remind us, like, if they regard what you believe as foolishness, you should expect that because they don't have the Spirit of God inside of them to help them discern these spiritual truths, these spiritual realities. So they are going to see this foolishness until that is revealed to them through relationship with God. I'm describing something to a blind man. I'm describing to him what this red ball looks like, and he's like, what is red? Why can't you understand this?

Well, because he can't see it. Right, right. And I think it's one of those things that we put a lot of the burden on ourselves.

Like, if I just am better at communicating, if I mean it more or I say it better or I put it in the right order or I establish a relationship, all those things help. But at the end of the day, that truth like it says in 1 Corinthians is spiritually discerned. The Holy Spirit has to move and work in that person, and then your seeds of influence start to take root. That's right. We've got to be obedient and sharing, but it's the work of God that brings them to that moment of realization. That's right.

That's right. Nobody's going to hell because I didn't communicate well enough or I didn't do a good job explaining it properly. So it does take a lot of that pressure off, and then it allows the Holy Spirit to actually do what he does when you give him that room to work. I've got a very, very light gripe vine today. A light gripe. Welcome to the gripe vine. This is a light one. I'm just going to pick a small one.

I can't get any sound out. I don't know if it's going to be light in that it's not really that big a deal or that a very small amount of people are going to relate to it, but it's a light gripe. I'm not really super annoyed at this because it's something that I live with every day, and I think all of us in this room to an extent do. But if you work in tech or production like we do, we are very, very heavily involved. I mean, look at what we're doing right now. And then also production.

What I mean by that is running services, running pro presenter, lyrics, lights, slides, music, live sound, videos. If you work in that field, you never, ever, ever turn that off in your mind. You can't go to a movie. You can't issue a headphone warning after the headphone. Sorry.

He's got one headphone off. Did I hurt you? I'm so sorry. My eardrums are ruptured.

All of us in this room, including Nicholas, are production-minded because we work in this field. And so you can't go to a movie. You can't go to a concert.

You can't go to another church. You can't go anywhere without always being thinking about what software they're using to run their lights. I wonder how they get this video wall to display two different projections from the same source. I wonder why they're using that compressor on their main vocal and not this. You just don't ever turn that off.

It's always with you. I have noticed that because when I first started here, I was not production-minded at all. I'd never worked in that setting before.

I'd never been involved in anything like high-tech production level. But just being here and learning and being a part of ministry here, I have definitely found that. Like going to conferences or something, I'll be like, okay, now the lights are doing this, and I wonder why they're doing this that way. And okay, that transition was kind of sloppy. They must have rehearsed that ahead of time. And for me, you're more of a tech-minded guy, but for me, it takes more of a volunteer coordination perspective, because that's a lot of what I do here. So it's like, okay, there's not a person manning this booth, so maybe they didn't relay this correctly in the email. Or it seems like there's an overabundance of volunteers over here, so maybe they're on their break, and I wonder, oh, they have nametags. Well, that's interesting that they put nametags. I'm just thinking all of those thoughts when the guy's like, are you going to pay for the book?

You're holding up the line, dude. You're in a That's So Raven vision, just seeing all these things. I think you just come back to reality. For me, it's definitely the same, especially with tech stuff like you're talking about, because when I see these different elements, I'm like, okay. I see that they have two LED screens, and then it looks like on this screen they do have this bar going with the lyrics, but they also have on this one this weird animated type thing. I'm trying to figure out, I wonder what software they're using.

I always ask myself what soundboard are they mixing on. The funniest thing, and it's not really funny, because I know the pain, is to see when something goes wrong. Oh, yeah.

I saw that. Everyone around you is like, oh, hahaha, but we're all like, oh, gosh. Someone's having a terrible day. Yeah, it's like, oh, man, Pro presenter just crashed hard. It's not a church, either. If it's a secular event, someone is getting fired on the spot. I went to the Blink-182 concert in Charlotte.

I think it was in Charlotte. It's one of those things where any concert I go to, or any event like that, I always go talk to the guy who's running Front of House Sound. If they have one, I talk to the video director. Now, for our listeners, what is Front of House Sound? Front of House is the main sound, the person who's mixing what you hear.

You have Front of House Sound, which is the main sound, and then you've got monitors, people who mix their in-ears and stuff. I always talk to that guy, and I always go talk to the video director. Sometimes you just learn really cool stuff, and then sometimes you like to see, hey, these guys are professional, and they're struggling with the same stuff that I struggle with every single week.

They had an era where the wrong video played at the wrong time, and nobody else probably even noticed it, but I was like, oh, that wasn't supposed to happen. It even gets to where it extends itself into music things, since I know we do songwriting-type stuff. Sometimes I'll listen to a song, and I'm like, how did they write that so that it sounded good? Because when you're in that, like you guys said, different areas of production, that mindset. Or even if you listen to older country music, it's like, who in the world allowed that to be written?

Someone wrote that down on a piece of paper, showed it to an executive, and someone approved that. Like, what on earth? Maybe that's its own gripe vibe for a later date. I've got some beef with some old country music songs.

Some of those lyrics are questionable at best. Like you said, this is a light gripe, because it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just a reality that we've all come to recognize. You don't really get to enjoy things innocently anymore. You're picking it apart. That's just how your brain's been trained. Let us know, if that's your experience, if you work in an AV field or a personnel management field, and you find yourself applying those thinking strategies to wherever it is that you go outside of that context of work, let us know.

Send us a text to 252-582-5028, or visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. We'll be back after this. You're going to have a good finish, even with a bad start, and that's where this book comes in.

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Let's do it. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028.

You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbbadanShah.com. Dr. Shah, we were talking earlier today about how you're wired in your mind when you work in a specific field. If you are in tech or if you're in production, it's hard to turn that off. When you're reading, is it difficult to turn off the scholarly part of your brain? Yeah. Really?

It is. In fact, anything you do, it's hard to turn that off. But again, I will caution, have moderation.

Have the middle ground. Don't be overly deterministic, like, determined, not deterministic, overly determined about something or be having a superior mindset that I am, I got this. Don't do that. Don't do that about working out. Don't do that about studying. Don't do that about playing.

Don't find that middle place, that moderation, and it's so much better. Because if you do that, let's say with working out, you're going to have that, I can do this, that, and then go out there and you'll pull the same thing with your children, with your wife. Books, reading, really scholarly work, and then somebody asks a stupid question like, so was Paul and Peter both from Jerusalem or something? And you're like, I cannot believe that's such a dumb question.

Let me explain to you about how first century geography works. No, you don't need to go like that. So how can you read, study, work out, play? So yeah, I have to be careful in that regard. I think we all do. And it's interesting you say that because I've found in those times where you can just turn it off, a lot of the anxiety and a lot of the worry and the stress that we put on ourselves tends to go away. God kind of works in that way where his peace comes on us. Yeah, and that's what we're talking about on today's episode is this issue of anxiety.

This isn't a new concept, but it is something that's being talked about more prevalently in today's culture. Anxiety is something that a lot of people struggle with, something that a lot of people would describe themselves as anxious or having anxious thoughts. Yeah, I wonder when anxiety went from being an emotion that we had to a condition that only some people have.

And I'm not saying that facetiously. I truly believe that because when people say, I have anxiety, my automatic question is, who doesn't? Who doesn't feel anxious at times? And so I'm just curious as to how that happened. Yeah, I think some people have poor nerves. They are built that way, just their family background. They are very nervous-like, fidgety. They just cannot seem to, you know, oh my gosh, I can't.

And they're just built that way. Their mom was like that or their grandmother was like that or their granddaddy was like that. So it sort of runs in the family and it's hard to control that because it's part of who you are. But with prayer and Godly understanding and Godly wisdom, you can learn how to manage those things. That's the key, learning how to manage those things and not giving in to those emotions.

Not just saying, well, this is who I am. I got to, that's my cross to bear. No, you can with Godly wisdom, guidance and submission to the Lord. You can find ways to work with it. You'll never completely abandon it. And sometimes when you least expect it, it's going to jump back on you and you will shake your head and go, how in the world did that happen? I thought I was so beyond that. But now I made the same mistake or I had the same emotion or the same shortness of breath or whatever it is that I had like 15 years ago.

It came back. But I would suggest the best way to handle that is to have a proper perspective on who God is. What is he doing in your life? How much is he in control of your life?

How much are you living for him? Those are the things will help mitigate some of this other stuff. I love the way that you just put that. And I think it was healing for a lot of our listeners and viewers because there's often this rhetoric of, oh, you're dealing with anxiety or you have anxious thoughts. You're not praying enough. You don't have enough faith.

You're not believing enough. If you would just do this enough, then your anxiety would go away. And that's just, I mean, there's a sense in which we need to feed into our faith.

And that's certainly true. But what if our anxiety doesn't go away? What if our anxious thoughts don't stop happening? This may be something you have to deal with the rest of your life. And then you have to deal with people around you who either don't have it or don't get it. And so it's like you said, it's like, well, just, you know, man up. Just be more like me. You know, I think a lot of we talked about that a little bit. Some of these kind of hyper masculine role models that have emerged in the past, I would say, what, couple of years, maybe the last five years.

I don't want to name any names, but there's just even in the secular world, there's these really, really aggressively, hyper masculine figures who have emerged and started giving out really terrible advice and talking about the anxieties for the week. And you're not a real man or you're not a real woman. And you just have to you just have to do it. Look at me. Look at me. I'm rich.

I've got all this stuff. I don't have anxiety. I think putting up with that either turns people away or it makes it to where they're like, no, I'm I was right to feel anxious because I'll never have that. And that's what I have to contend with and put up with. You know what I mean? In our world of TikTok videos and Snapchat and Instagram stories or whatever it is. You know, after a thousand takes, then you have that one perfect thing to putting out there, which may not be the truth or psyching yourself up to do this. But then there's another aftermath that we never see, which is you being hateful to your wife and your kids or you having a horrible day.

Well, nobody sees that video. But we do see the one where you are so confident, so in control and so ready to help the poor stragglers of life. I don't know.

I don't think that's real. Yeah. How do you how do you factor in being Christian into that? Because there's then there's also that added guilt of, well, Jesus said, I shouldn't worry, but I do. Right. And so now I now I feel guilty for that, which is just going to make it compound and snowball to worry about worrying. Yeah. Yeah. It's like now I have to kind of force myself not to worry. And that's making me more anxious.

Right. Well, I would say go back to Matthew six and just kind of focus in on what Jesus talks about in anxiety. He says, Do not worry, saying, What shall we eat? What shall we drink?

What shall we wear? For after all these things, the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. So this is part of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus, just those statements tell us that not much has changed in the world. We tend to hear a lot of sermons on how things are worse today. But yeah, maybe in some ways. But I think anxiety and fear and stress and worry have always been there. Yeah, I think it's easy for people to listen to something like that, especially if they don't work directly in the ministry and say, OK, well, that's easy for you to say.

But I still have to have food and clothes and all that stuff. But I will say from my own personal life that that verse has never been truer than it is now. And what I mean by that is because I'm here, I'm at Clearview and I'm seeking this kingdom of God. There are people here, Dr.

Shy included, really is the one leading the helm, that make sure that I have the things that I need. And I don't just mean a paycheck. It goes beyond that. It's like, OK, well, what's going on in your personal life? How are you and Ellie doing? Oh, there's this need? Let me see if I can talk to some people.

Let me see if we can make this happen. Let's fix this. God has used Dr. Shy and the people at Clearview in a way that makes that verse come to life before my eyes to now I don't worry about those things. And yet you can call it privilege and maybe it is. But it's also God's promise. Yeah, well, much of what the Bible condemns is actually worry anxiety. OK, which is much more than casual concerns, but not what we call today anxiety disorders.

There's a difference there. So, in fact, it is hard to find anxiety disorders in the Bible. But there are many powerful and life changing principles in God's word, especially like the Sermon on the Mount, which can help us deal with those anxieties, which are worry anxiety.

OK. In fact, many ideas that are being sold in self-help books and bestsellers are actually found right here in their most distilled and pure form. You mean if I just wash my face, everything won't just come to me?

Are you serious? I spent $40 on that book. I was like, wash your face.

Then I clicked it. I missed it. Oh, it was a best it was a bestseller like three years ago. Yeah, the book Girl, Wash Your Face. I remember your wife was talking about it.

She was like, this is they're selling this to young women. And it was it was really it's just like self-help, like Christian self-help. But yeah.

Yeah. Well, so let me just say a couple of things up front. First, some anxiety problems do require anti anxiety medications and tranquilizers. There is a place for that. There are people out there, some Christians out there who say no, never. And I have met people, some in my own life, who needed medications because there was some chemical imbalance going on.

How are you going to fix that? Just pray over it? Yes, God can answer that. But just the way if you have a fever. Yeah, God can answer and heal your fever. But why do you take Motrin? Why do you take Tylenol? Why do you take Advil or ibuprofen? You take it because you know it's going to bring down the fever.

You need it. So also there is a place for taking medications at the same time. It's not a sin, but medication alone will not solve your problems. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. So again, we need to realize that things need to be taken with care, with proper counseling. And I'm talking about medication here, making sure that people who are giving you that prescription do know what they're talking about. And not just throwing medications at you, make sure these are people who are properly educated. They don't have an agenda, which is hard to sometimes figure out.

And people who will listen to your concerns and complaints. If you come to them and say, hey, I'm having some serious issues, they will not be dismissive. There are times people lose their mind because the medication is destroying them. But they can't seem to voice it and nobody listens until it's too late. Well, it's like you said, we need that balanced view. To go on one extreme like, oh, this is the worst thing that can ever happen to a human. We have to medicate now. We have to medicate always versus they just need to get over it.

It seems like we always fall on one of the two extremes and we never work on that balance. Anxiety disorders. Yeah, there is a place for medication.

Got to be carefully given and not just the first resort. But then worry anxiety is what the Bible is talking about. And the word worry, think about that, is it's more than this casual concern.

It comes from the old Germanic word worgen, which means to strangle. Isn't that what worry feels like sometimes? Yeah, like you just can't breathe. You get that real tightness in your chest.

You'd have to breathe out just sitting in a room by yourself. In Middle English, it took on that meaning of seizing somebody by the throat. Really? Wow. That's pretty graphic. They really did not like worrying.

No. And at its core, worrying is refusing to trust God and live independently of him. That's true. That's very true. Which is sin.

It's a sin. It's crazy because we don't think about that. Worry is one of those things where we victimize ourselves and we feel like we're suffering, so therefore it must be virtuous.

You know what I mean? It's crazy, but I definitely feel that way. And I think people who worry feel that way too. Because I'm not enjoying this sin, it can't be that bad. I'm a good person because I am carrying all of these cares and concerns, and that makes me better for it.

Yeah. We attribute suffering to virtue. And I guess there's a place for that in some sense, but then when we're inflicting suffering on ourselves by not trusting God, how can I then turn around and say, well, that's somehow virtuous? The word there is meri manao. In Matthew 13, it talks about worry, and the idea is worry. And also in 1 Peter 5.7, casting all you care upon him, for he cares for you. The Greek word switches from meri manao to mele, which has the idea that God takes interest in you. That care.

Yeah. He cares for you. And also the word stress. We talk about worry and stress.

There are many ways that people define stress, but the best one is stress is any situation where a person feels that they don't have adequate resources to deal with their circumstances. That's stress. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Because if I've got like a billion dollars and my car breaks down, I'm not going to stress about that. Right. You know what I mean?

I feel like I'm unequipped or ill-equipped to deal with this. Therefore, I'm stressed. Yeah. Up until 1983, we didn't know about the stressed out. That's when that word sort of entered. That wasn't popular nomenclature back then? Yeah. And I would say life is far more stressful than it used to be 30 years ago.

True. Archibald Hart, who's written a book called The Anxiety Cure. Great book, by the way. Get it?

Archibald Hart, Anxiety Cure. And he says that human beings were designed for camel travel, but most people are now acting like supersonic jets. Doesn't that just describe humanity in 2023? Absolutely. Isn't that like the most perfect definition? Everything is breakneck speed.

Everything is right this exact second, or else catastrophe. Yeah. Anxiety is a disease of stress. So we need to understand stress, and then we can understand anxiety a little better.

Yeah. Now, Dr. Hart goes on to say that it is clearly the consequence of too much stress acting on your highly vulnerable brain chemistry. And if you have inherited a weakness in your brain's chemistry, remember we began talking about how some people just have that nervousness, or they're just more anxious? I can psych them up to get up in public and speak, but they're built differently.

They'll do it that time, but they're not going to do it every time. So Dr. Hart goes on to say it is clearly the consequence of too much stress acting on your highly vulnerable brain chemistry. And if you have inherited a weakness in your brain's chemistry, you will have a much lower threshold for tolerating anxiety than others. He means like you'll be more likely to be anxious all the time. Yes, be more susceptible.

And he even gives this formula. High adrenaline caused by overextension and stress depletes the brain's natural tranquilizers and sets the stage for high anxiety. Wow.

Yeah. And what are the brain's natural tranquilizers? Well, I mean, God has designed us that when we face stress, there are these natural tranquilizers in our brain, brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. And that keep us sort of sane in the face of stresses in life, financial stresses, sickness stresses, like, oh, wait, I have to get a test or there's a biopsy or blah, blah, blah. So some people call these neurotransmitters happy messengers, serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine. Stress depletes our natural tranquilizers. In essence, anxiety is not that something bad has entered the brain. It's actually something good is now absent from the brain or it's running low. You kind of mentioned that in your message last Sunday with the youth, you know, with darkness is not a thing that you can quantify.

It's just the absence of something good. Yeah. That's a good point. That's sort of what's happening here. And so it sometimes affects the toughest people, right? Absolutely. So I would say don't go out there and tell people that you have an anxiety disorder and you need some medication.

Don't do stuff like that, okay? Most people don't. So anger, not an anxiety disorder. You're facing a threatening situation that needs to be dealt with. Fear, again, not an anxiety disorder. Panic, not an anxiety disorder. Panic attack is a body's smoke alarm that is warning you that something is not right.

That's a panic. But there are other types of anxiety disorders like event-specific, phobia-induced, ruminative or focus attention or generalized anxiety. And again, I'm not a psychology professor.

My wife is studying psychology and counseling. I'm just trying to introduce the church or those who are listening by radio or podcast to sort of become educated on the subject of anxiety and fear and stress. That's exactly right. Sometimes I think we throw these words around.

We don't know what they're meaning. The church does have a role to play. It's not just refer out.

It's not just go seek medication. Although, like you said, there is a time for that. There is a place where that can be carefully considered.

But the church has a role to play and point to people who Jesus is. Oh, definitely. And make sure if you do suffer from that, that you find some good, solid biblical preaching. It's crazy how many people suffer from anxiety and then deprive themselves of good, solid biblical preaching. And I would also warn people, there is a place for medication, but make sure it's for the right reason.

That's right. And I would love for this conversation to continue. Maybe you could do a part two of this. Sure, let's do it. So hopefully people can get more informed on this subject. We can do that tomorrow.

Absolutely. If you guys enjoyed today's episode or if you have questions, maybe you're struggling with this or you have a loved one who does, let us know by sending us a text at 252-582-5028. You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com, scroll down to the bottom and click the donate now button and become part of our Clear View Today show family. Love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today.