In this interview I answer a few of these live call-in questions:
- What do you do with the anxiety over dying?
- What do you do when you are not sure God is real?
- What if I am plagued by anxiety but I don’t believe in Jesus Christ?
- How do I help someone who is dealing with anxiety?
- Are anxiety and depression linked?
Transcript of Janet Parshall’s conversation with Josh Weidmann, including live Q&A:
Janet Parshall:
So the Bible tells us to be anxious for nothing, but “with prayer and supplication and Thanksgiving [we always forget that part], let your request be made known unto God.” And yet the truth of the matter is for very anxious people, in a very anxious culture. Now I wish I could say there’s a long line of distinction between the world and the church, but unfortunately, that idea of anxiety worked its way into the church door. And we have a lot of anxious Christians as well, which is really interesting because when I was a little girl growing up, they asked us to picture our heart being a throne room. And in that throne room, there is of course a throne and sitting on that throne, if we invite him, is the Lord Jesus Christ. But every time we get anxious and fearful, we literally asked him to vacate the throne and we allow fear to sit there instead.
So you see that really for the believer they’re mutually exclusive. And that sounds good. That sounds lofty. That sounds very Sunday school-ish, but there’s someone who deals with anxiety, and their palms are sweaty and their heart is racing and they wake up in the middle of the night and they can’t tell you why. And they can’t put their finger on it and they wish it would just go away, and they want to honor the Lord. And they want to have that peace that passes understanding. They just don’t know how to tackle anxiety. They don’t know how to take that lofty Sunday school idea and put it right down there in their bedroom at three o’clock in the morning when they were as anxious as can be as, and so we’re going to talk about that this hour and the name of the book that’s the basis of our conversation is called The End of Anxiety, the Biblical Prescription for Overcoming Fear, Worry and Panic.
I will open for questions in a bit, but let me introduce our guests to you. Josh Weidmann is with us. He’s the Senior Pastor of Grace Chapel in Denver, Colorado, and he’s been writing and speaking about Jesus for every day of his life for almost two decades; a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a certified biblical counselor. Josh, the warmest of welcomes. I’m so glad they’re here. And I know how difficult it is to write a book. So my question to you is that of all the topics that you could be writing about, particularly as a senior pastor of a church, why did you pick the topic of anxiety?
Josh Weidmann:
Thank you, Janet, it is a great privilege to be with you today, thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, my heart is for the people that I get to pastor, the people I have in my office for biblical counseling on a regular basis, and I saw anxiety, continually plaguing people who professed Christ, just as you said in your opening comments; they know that Christ is in their heart or on the throne of their heart, but it seems as if something else has taken over that throne, that fear is now ruling them. And, uh, I’ve been there. I went through deep seasons of anxiety and I would have told you that I had had anxiety since I was a child. When I first signed this book contract over two years ago. And I would’ve told you I was very familiar with anxiety. And then it was as if, when I set out to write this book, God said, “Oh, you think, you know what anxiety is? Let’s put you through the school of anxiety and make you all the more dependent upon Me.” So Janet, I have had several years in both in the writing of this book, and just the circumstances of pastoral ministry. I’m a dad of five kids. All sorts of things have spiked up anxiety in my life. And it’s been very intense and it’s been a journey I’ve had to walk through. And I suddenly realized I’m one of thousands and thousands of Christians who have experienced these overwhelming emotions and have to find clarity in the midst of them. So I wrote the book because I wanted to help people and I wanted to help even my own heart rely more on Christ.
Janet Parshall:
You know, I find oftentimes at the best teachers are the ones who have been taught. So God takes you into his classroom, teaches you. And then you earn a position where you get to teach others. And I think that brings a kind of gravy task to what you have to share. So I’m very grateful for that. How old were you when you came to faith in Christ?
Josh Weidmann:
I actually came to faith in Christ as a small child. I remember giving my life to Christ as a child in my dad’s old Dodge truck. And then I started preaching when I was just a kid. I was about seven years old and I would go around traveling as a kid magician doing gospel magic. I did that until I was about 15 years old. So I’ve been preaching for a very long time, became a pastor in my early twenties. After some time with the Billy Graham association, I’ve been telling people about the hope of Christ for years and years, and yet still I was plagued with overwhelming emotions and anxiety. And I thought, man, I got, we have to be practical when we speak about the gospel and we have to, we have to nail it down into our lives about how we can deal with some of these circumstances that overwhelm our minds with fear. So yeah, I came to Christ at a young age, but if grappled with even the application of the gospel until now in my late thirties,
Janet Parshall:
And that’s exactly what I was hoping that you would say, Josh, because this, I think it’s so important for people to have real transparency broadcast over the airways because they listen to someone like you and me and they think, Oh, they got it all together. It’s all perfect. Right? And it isn’t. And I want them to understand that the wall we’re doing is sharing what a good and powerful and loving God has done in four and through us. So there you are. You came to faith as a child as did I, and you’ve got that dark night of the soul and the hardest pounding and the anxiety is there. I want to hear about the spiritual struggle that was going on in your life when that was taking place.
Josh Weidmann:
So I’ll be honest. I mean, my anxiety is well under control now, but there’s still moments where I grapple with it. There are still moments where it spikes up and I have to run to the Lord and say, okay, God, I need help with this. You said, be anxious over nothing as we read in Philippians chapter four, but what does that mean? And how do I apply that? So I’ve, I grappled with that on a regular basis. But to answer your question directly through some of my deepest seasons of anxiety, it was very much a spiritual battle. I just shared with our church this last weekend, a story that is captured in the pages of my book, about one of my worst panic attacks. It was a night where I was just overcome with anxiety. My wife tried to call me down in the kitchen to then move to the family room to now I’m laying in the backyard and she’s practically laying on top of my chest, just trying to get my body under control all the while I felt like I was drowning in quicksand and then I just took off running, Janet. I just opened the gate of our yard and I ran and I ran and I ran and I lost my glasses some point along the way. So I couldn’t see very clearly, but I just started running. Then I ran myself all the way to the hospital, which was several miles away from our home that night. And if you know me, I’m not a runner, so that’s a big deal in and of itself, but I ran all the way to the hospital. But that night I can tell you, Janet, there were things that I think were very spiritual. There was a darkness that was real and our enemy does he encroaches or around us, like a roaring lion prowling lion who wants so badly to take us out and to let the things that rule our imagination, which are often our fears to let these things become more real to us than God himself. And so in my worst moments of panic, I was fighting a spiritual battle, but I can also tell you stories of Christ being so present and so real.
Janet Parshall:
Yeah. An amen to that. And that’s the rest of the story. Thank you, Paul Harvey. I want to visit a little bit more with Josh and then I’m going to open the phone line so that you can ask questions. And part of the joy in having Josh be so open is that you understand that he just doesn’t have that book learning and the title of pastor been there, done that. And he wants to share with you what God has done for him in this area as well. The end of anxiety, it’s his brand new book. It’s a biblical perspective for overcoming fear, worry and panic more with Josh. Weidmann right after this, the end of anxiety. That’s what we’re talking about. Is it possible? Well, the great physician says, so, and we’re talking with Josh Weidmann, who’s written the book, the end of anxiety, the biblical prescription for overcoming fear, worry and panic.
So Josh, I started our conversation by quoting that verse that we all know so well difficult sometimes to subscribe to what the directive is in that scripture. But we know it to be anxious for nothing. If our great and loving father tells us to be anxious for nothing being fully acquainted with the human condition, because being fully God and fully man, he walked among us as Jesus. He’s acquainted. As the scripture says with all of our sorrows, he knew we were going to be anxious. Now, did he know that we were going to be anxious because it was a sin-sick fallen world. We were about as far from Eden as we could get, or did God have some purpose in mind for anxiety?
Josh Weidmann:
I absolutely believe he had a purpose in mind. If you look at that passage in Philippians chapter four, right before he tells us not to be anxious, it says the Lord is near. And I believe that that verse five is giving to the purpose of anxiety. And also the reason we don’t have to be anxious about anything. So let me explain. I think that we have anxiety so that we can be drawn near to the Lord. James tells us draw near to the Lord and he will draw near to you. We were told that again, Proverbs in the old Testament drawn near to God and he will draw near to you. Well, the reason that we don’t have to be anxious about anything is because God is near the truth is we will be anxious about many things. There will be overwhelming emotions in our life that cause our heart to race or our palms to sweat or breath to leave us or our appetite to be gone. But in those moments, we can go back to the truth of the Lord is near and we can draw ourselves into him. And I think that the end of anxiety though, we may not ever actually find the end of it ourselves. We can find the chief end, the ultimate purpose, which is God’s purpose for anxiety. And that is to draw us near to him through our overwhelming emotions.
Janet Parshall:
Hmm. Wow. So that raises an interesting question, which is when you’ve got that moment, when you’re literally feeling like you’re drowning at the deep end of the pool in your brain and the cognitive side of your brain, the thinking part that God created, you know, that there’s a choice here and you’re trying desperately to make it, but the feelings feel utterly out of control and absolutely overwhelming. What do we do then? Yeah,
Josh Weidmann:
Well, I am a firm believer that we cannot fight the battle of anxiety alone. And so in those moments where you’re absolutely overwhelmed by your thoughts or your emotions, I do believe it’s, it’s essential for another person, specifically a believer or someone who knows Christ and the hope of Christ to come alongside us and to help us because when our anxiety is overwhelming, we aren’t even thinking rationally. We now have fears about things that are irrational. We we’ve imagined things to be bigger or greater or maybe more deathly to a relationship or even to our physical life lives than they actually are. And so we need the truth of someone else to be present with us. Uh, the truth of someone else to be spoke. Truth has got to be spoken through someone else, I guess is a better way to say it. Janet, for me, the morning after the panic attack that I shared in our last segment was a morning where I was still wrestling with demons.
If you will, I was having these spiritual attacks, but I also had just come out of a really intense panic attack. I’d been released from the hospital at two o’clock that morning. And I was at home and laying in my bed and weeping just soaking my pillow with tears. And my wife was faithful to be with me and to pray and to put on worship music. And I remember at one point she said, Jason’s here. And I said, what? And she said, Jason’s here. And Jason is a very good friend of mine who had just heard that I had a panic attack the night before and put on his hat and his running shorts. And he just got in the car and showed up at our house. And Jason came up to our bedroom and he grabbed my arm and he was on the other side of me and my wife on one side. And they just prayed and they spoke truth and they spoke scripture and they helped me get through one of the darkest days of my life. And so I believe in those moments where we’re overwhelmed with anxiety, we need the voice of someone else to point us back to Christ and the truth of Christ.
Janet Parshall:
Boy, I could not agree more. Let me tell you something else at Josh. And I so appreciate that. We’re able to dig down a little bit in this because sometimes I think we’re quick to give sort of a veneer answers right off the top, skate over the top. And we don’t realize that there it’s deeper. And sometimes you don’t have a formulaic ABC one, two, three, and then poop, your problem goes away. And I think sometimes we actually cause people to not grow up in him because we think if you just got this formula kiddo, you’d get it all right, right. It doesn’t work that way. So my question to you is, and very often Christians tend to be far too linear in their thinking that it’s an either or proposition. So you were in a hospital. Thanks be to God, you were getting treated. You were getting support that you needed physiologically psychologically, but you also had a brother who came over and offered spiritual help, which raises a question. Can these anxiety attacks sometimes be strictly physiological? Can they be demonic? And sometimes can they be all together?
Josh Weidmann:
Yeah, I, I w the short answer is yes, I believe they can be all things together. Rarely are they only one of these things. In my opinion, we have both an outer man and an inner man. The apostle Paul made that very clear in first Corinthians. We know that our outer man or a physical man, or our mind, our body, the chemistry of our body, we know that that exists. But we also know that this soul exists. And both of these things are in desperate need of God to redeem both Christ needs to redeem our bodies. And he needs to redeem our souls. And we have the promise that there will be a future redemption of our bodies. But I think that there can be things going on in the physical man and in our souls or in the spiritual man that we are dealing with, that that are influenced by anxiety. Now, the you’re talking about the enemy as well in the unseen realm, he can attack both. I think he has the ability to come after both. And sometimes he goes right after our soul as hard and fast as he can to affect us, both physically and spirit.
Janet Parshall:
I really appreciate that answer. Now, I’m going to keep my word friends. I said, I would open the phone lines so that you’d have a chance to talk to Jason. Why do I want to do this? Because I know there’s a lot of you within the sound of our voices for whom this is where you live. This is your struggle. You’re embarrassed. You think that somehow you get a C minus on your Christian report card because you deal with anxiety. And what Jason would, Josh wants to tell you through his experience is that he’s been there and he wants to share with you what God has done through these experiences in his life. That’s why Josh Weidmann has written the book, the end of anxiety, the biblical prescription for overcoming fear, worry and panic.
If you are joining us, speaking of anxiety, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. This hour, Josh Weidmann is with us. He’s the senior pastor of grace chapel in Denver, Colorado. And he’s been speaking and writing about the power of the Lord for decades. He is a graduate of Southern Baptist, theological seminary, a certified biblical counselor, and the author of the book. That’s the basis of our conversation. This hour entitled the end of anxiety, the biblical prescription for overcoming fear, worry and panic. (877) 548-3675 (877) 548-3675.
Rachel, let me welcome you from Illinois. Your question for Josh, please.
Rachel: Is it possible to have panic attacks to the point where you feel like you no longer Christian?
Josh Weidmann:
Hi, Rachel, nice to meet you. I understand that feeling and that it shakes your world even to the point where you question salvation. I think yes. To answer your question, it’s possible to have that now. Is it true that your panic attack in any way causes you to lose salvation or lose God’s grip on you? I would say, no, I, nothing can get us out of God’s grip. So if our faith is in Jesus Christ and we believe in him, and as our Lord and savior, then we, we are firmly in his grip. And even in the moments where our emotions feel overwhelming, and that we’ve been shaken to the core, which includes even our security in Jesus Christ. We can come back and renew our mind and think things, think God’s thoughts after him in order to gain the peace that he promises us in Romans chapter 12, verses one through two, it talks about renewing our minds to think God’s thoughts after him in Philippians chapter four, verse eight, only a few sentences away, or even a few words away from the statement that says, be anxious about nothing.
He tells us to think about things that are honorable and that are trustworthy and true. And all of these things relate back to the core of who God is in his character. So yes, our panic at times will cause us to feel like even our salvation is shaky, but the truth is if our salvation is founded upon the rock of ages, God, himself, then nothing can shake us out of his hand. And we should see our panic attacks as a way to come back and find ourselves broken up on him and find true salvation in Christ alone.
Janet Parshall:
Rachel, thank you so much. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to piggyback on your question, Rachel. So I see an ugly cycle here and Rachel, you just beautifully exemplified it with the, your question that you asked and Joshua intimated it in yours. So you’re in an anxiety cycle and you start worrying about the fact that, Oh, I, and I refer to it as getting a C minus on your Christian report card. So you become anxious about being anxious because Christians aren’t supposed to be anxious. And you’re in this ugly cycle where the anxiety gets worse and worse and worse. How helpful would it be when you’re not in a moment of anxiety when you were in that moment of calm when things are in order, God’s in his heavens, all right, with the world, as the poet says, and you started writing down the nature of who God is, how much he loves me, how nothing can separate me from the love of God, how he quiets me with his singing, how I can find shelter under his wing, all of those wonderful pictures. And when those anxious thoughts come, if the directive in scripture is to put your mind on things above, then pulling out that first state kid of the word and starting to say those things out loud, that he loves you, that you’re silencing those other voices that tell you to be, would that be effective?
Josh Weidmann:
Yes, absolutely. I used to carry around a three by five cards with lies that I was believing on written on one side and truth about who God was and his character on the other side. And I would just flip them back and forth until the truth replaced the lie. It’s exactly what you’re saying, Janet. I think we can allow the truth of who God is and his character to replace our most anxious thoughts or the lies that we’ve began to believe. So that in the moments of panic, we’re prepared to run to the rock of ages.
Janet Parshall:
Yeah. Amen. And I thank you for that answer.
Kurt. You are in Illinois. I thank you for joining us. Your question, please for Josh.
Kurt: Hi, Josh. I really related to what you said to that lady about the battle of the inner and the outer of being both a spiritual and psychological issue. And for myself, I find pride or perfectionism kind of get wrapped up in their spiritual warfare. I was wondering if you see the connection between perfectionism and anxiety feeding each other.
Josh Weidmann:
Yeah. Well, good question, Kurt. Yeah. I would tell you that I’m a recovering perfectionist, meaning that I’m constantly battling perfectionism or the longing of perfectionism in my life. Um, I overachieve or overtake the goal most of the time, at least in my mind, even before I’ve kicked it, right. I’m just constantly putting some kind of standard up there that I want to achieve. And, and notice my language. It’s usually something I want to do or something that I think is best rather than relying upon the strength of Christ that’s in me and relying upon who Christ wants me to be. So one of the things I wrote about in my book is to remember who you are and who you are not. And I think at times, our battle with perfectionism is remembering who we are not, we are not our own perfect savior, but the enemy wants to rub it in our face or say, you’re not good enough, or look where you failed here.
Or man, if you just would have tried harder here. And then all of a sudden our anxiety just starts rising and rising and rising. And we have to remember who we are not, we’re not perfect. We are falling. We are going to fail other people’s expectations and our own, but we must remember who we are. And we are sons and daughters of Christ. We have been made new. We are new creations in Christ. We are co-heirs with Christ in the kingdom of God. And so when, when I have spikes of perfectionism that result in anxiety, I usually come back to remind myself of who I am in Christ. What’s my Christian identity in Christ in order to fight those feelings of perfectionism, that then will result in some kind of anxiety.
Janet Parshall:
Kurt, thank you. I so appreciate your being a part of the discussion in your book. You talk about fighting fear with fear, Josh, how does that work?
Josh Weidmann:
Well, I that’s it same idea when we are so afraid of failure or so afraid of failing someone’s expectations. It usually that we’ve set ourselves up or the fear of failure up higher than our view of God. And so when I talk about fighting fear with fear, it’s remembering who God is. And then we must have a right view of him, at least for at least it’s Patrick or Paul David trip. Talk about this idea of spiritual amnesia. And I talk about it a little bit in that chapter, in the book that we have this spiritual and Nisa, we’ve forgotten who God is or his goodness or the greatness that he is in our life. And so in order to fight the fears that we are facing, whether they’re real fears or irrational, imaginative fears, we must remember who God is when we remember who God is and see him as he is, then all of a sudden those other fears begin to go away. So it’s fighting our fears on this earth with a right view, an awe, a reverent fear of God.
Janet Parshall:
Josh Weidmann is our guest is the author of the book, the end of anxiety, the biblical prescription for overcoming fear, worry and panic. Vicki, thank you for joining us in your patients. Your question now, please.
Vicki:
What do you do with the anxiety? Fear of dying and then thinking the thought, what if God, isn’t real. How do you deal with anxiety of what if God, isn’t real? What, what verses or whatever do you use?
Josh Weidmann:
Mm, well, that’s good. Yes. To Vicki. Thanks for the vulnerable question. Um, so I have a daughter who is, um, just about seven years old, almost eight years old. And this is a very real fear to her right now. And we’re dealing a lot with her anxiety over that. But whether you’re seven years old or 70 years old, we still can feel this anxiety over the end of life issues and, and dying and then questioning what’s on the other side with my daughter. Well, we’ve been using is some of the Psalms that say, I have no reason to be afraid or do not fear for the Lord is near. And when we’re doing with her is we’re helping her or count just how faithful God is that he is alive. He is true. He is trustworthy with our life. So whether it be like a song like one 39 talking about how he knew us before we were born, or even Psalm 73 there in verse 16 and 17, where it talks about him and camped upon his throne, or then the new Testament passages talking about the days to come and the Christ will have power over all things like John 1633.
And these in these verses, we’re pointing out that God is overall thing, including life and including death. And one of the ways that I talked to my daughter about death, or I’ve talked to people in our congregation about death, is that for a Christian to a true believer in Jesus Christ, death is just a speed bump or a doorway. It’s something we pass over or through, into eternal life while it is an event, for sure it’s an event, it’s something we go through. It’s only an event. It is not an end in and of itself. So we go through the event of death, physical death only to find ourselves again with God on the other side. And on this side of that event, we must continually reassure ourselves that there is a God who knows everything about us, who created us in our mother’s womb and will hold us far on the other side of this, this earthly life we’re living now.
Janet Parshall:
Hmm. And I thank you so much for being a part of the conversation. Josh, if I may, the evil twin sister of anxiety is depression. Is that something that you saw as the two halves of a whole in your experience?
Josh Weidmann:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I call it the anxiety’s evil cousin in my book. It’s something that’s very real I’m in depression has been something that has plugged me along with many other preachers, some of who are alive and dead. One of the men that I study a lot is Charles Spurgeon and he had his own major bouts of depression. And so, yes, I do think they go hand in hand and we have to continue to battle them. But I would say even depression can be a momentary, uh, spiritual amnesia episode it’s or maybe it’s more than just a momentary thing. It can last for months and years. It’s where we start to lose perspective of who God is. And so I think with anxiety and depression, Janet, we have to continue to remind ourselves of God’s greatness and we need to continue to run back to him and see just how wonderful he is, how great he is, how in control he is of every detail of our lives.
Janet Parshall:
Yes. You don’t hear anything else? This are, I hope you remember what you just heard Josh say, if you want more information on the book, the end of anxiety, you can find it on our website, go to in the market with Janet partial.org, click on the red box. It says program details and audio, it’ll take you to the information page. There’s a longer bio of who Josh is. There’s a link to his website that bears his name, Josh weidmann.com. And also there’s the book, the end of anxiety, the biblical prescription for overcoming fear, worry and panic. More of your questions right after this Visiting with Josh Weidmann, who is the senior pastor of grace chapel in Denver, Colorado. He is also joining us today as the author of the end of anxiety, the biblical prescription for overcoming fear, worry and panic, (877) 548-3675 Travis in Florida. Your question, please.
Travis: I, I, uh, I am struggling right now with, um, really just the existence of God himself. And, uh, I’ve always struggled with anxiety and I’ve recently found that I’ve been having some really high anxiety, panic attacks, really just on the, of trying to just battling it out, trying to figure out what I even believe about God. And so when I’m struggling with that, I’m having a hard time hearing someone’s con uh, consoling, uh, when it has to do with truths from scripture, I don’t really know how to handle it since I don’t really feel like I have anywhere to go now.
Josh Weidmann:
Sure. Well, thanks for being honest, Travis, I would say, I think that anxiety is a way for us to be catapulted into figuring out our own doubts and what we believe about certain things, uh, chiefly, uh, what we believe about God and where our salvation lies. I think there’s kind of four different categories that anxiety falls in, uh, or relationally. I think we can have anxiety circumstantially. I think we’re going to have anxiety over those things. I think physically we can have anxiety because of things happening in our body, but the fourth one is spiritual. I do believe that God allows anxiety in our life for both Christians and non-Christians as a sport of a sort of warning light on the dashboard of our life to cause us to have to really poke at what we believe. And do we really trust that there is a God who’s completely in control of every detail in our life?
So Tarvis, I would say to you, first of all, I would use your anxiety, not as a means by which to, um, disprove, uh, anything that you’ve heard from Christians or from others, but rather to use your anxiety as something to catapult you to either to see and trust that it is true. Uh, you should poke it, the things you’ve heard. And I don’t think anyone who’s dealing with anxiety and I’ll repeat myself. I don’t think anyone who’s dealing with anxiety should be given just these Christian phrases or Christian platitudes to try to make people feel better. And I for sure know that those things don’t help me. And I don’t want to hand a bunch of things to you, like just trust God or just run to Jesus. And you’ll be better as Janet’s already pointed out in the program. Those things are not always helpful.
What’s helpful is when we really dig down and are authentic about our struggle and we deal with that openly with God. I have a chapter in my book that I wrote called becoming brutally honest with a gracious God. And I wrote an entire other book about this with moody publishers called honest to God and Travis, I would encourage you to be brutally honest with a gracious God. I would encourage you to hold your doubts and the things you don’t believe about him, or you struggle with about him. You hold those with your palms wide open, and you say, God, if you’re listening and if you’re out there, I want you to see these things in my heart that I’m struggling with. And please, please show yourself. And he, I believe he can use our most honest and raw thoughts to prove himself in a very powerful way.
But then Travis, I want to encourage you then to have eyes wide open and a heart wide open to see what God does next. Because when you were really looking for the almighty God, the one who created the universe and hung the stars in the sky, that God to move in your life, he can come in and he can infiltrate even the worst of panic. The worst of worry, the worst of fear. But I think it starts by you being honest and even telling God where your doubts lie and what you’re struggling with. And I believe if you’re keeping your eyes open, you’ll watch him move in a powerful way in your life. Janet, would you agree with that or add anything?
Janet Parshall:
In fact, Josh, I was just thinking when you were talking, that’s such a good word and I have to tell you, Travis, you’re in really good company. What you just asked could be summarized and these words, which I think I read somewhere, I believe helped me in my unbelief. And I wonder going back to what you just said, Josh, about absolute, complete transparency, Travis, God knows that knows you’re struggling. So just pour out your heart to him and say, God, I need you to show yourself to manage yourself. I need you to reveal yourself to me. I don’t know if I trust your book. I want to believe it. I don’t know if you’re there. I want to believe it, but God make yourself known. If we seek him, we will find him. If we seek him with all our heart, he will be found.
So you just got a great word, Travis from Josh. And I would try that. And by the way, don’t beat yourself up. Okay? There are periods of doubts and great believers lives. That is not germane just to you. They’re in Florida. It happens to a whole lot of people. And I will tell you that Josh was intimating. And I hope you got this. That sometimes in those moments where you’re really in the pit is where you really get refined and you come out a different person than before you started. So all those trials and those tribulations, they’re not always bad. Are they Josh?
Josh Weidmann:
None at all. And God uses him. He’s using everything. Even our worst doubts, our greatest fears. He uses all of them.
Janet Parshall:
Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. You say something in the book that I love. You said don’t rely on this health help gospel. Talk to me about that,
Josh Weidmann:
Janet. I think sadly so many Christians, but maybe just the world in general, tries to fix emotions with self helps. So there can be things like go yell in your closet or go squeeze an ice cube for 10 minutes or do this or that, or download this app and maybe it’ll help you. And while there may be benefit in all of those things, there might be some, some things that can bring some sort of relief. Usually those things we do to help ourselves are not things that are going to keep, give us some kind of longterm relief specifically with anxiety. And so what I’ve called for in the book is to abandon self-help gospel, to start to, to start letting go of the idea that you in and of yourself can handle the emotions that are overwhelming to you. It isn’t just about doing things that will help you for 10 minutes or 10 hours, but rather it’s about doing something that will help you for the rest of your life. And I believe that’s trusting Jesus Christ to be the sovereign over even the most overwhelming feelings we face.
Janet Parshall:
I could not agree more. Josh, thank you so very much. And again, let me end if I may please, the way I started, which is, there’s just something about, particularly when we’re dealing with those deep intimate issues of the heart and mind and soul that we can say, wait a minute, I trust you can, can I listen to Josh and believe there’s really transparency and authority and authenticity there. And isn’t it interesting that out of your brokenness comes that kind of credibility and integrity. So live your story and then don’t be afraid to tell somebody else what Jesus is doing in your life as well. That’s what Josh has done in the end of anxiety.
Josh has good days and he has bad days, but I’ll tell you what’s consistent is God is King. Jesus is the same yesterday, today forever. So even as he has these moments where things are out of control and unbalanced and you can’t breathe and fear of attacks and depression sits down beside you. There he is —that one who loves us, the unconditional lover of our soul, and nothing will ever change that. Josh, thank you so much.
If you want to learn more about “The end of anxiety: the biblical prescription for overcoming fear, worry, and panic,” check it out at, in the market with JanetParshall.org. Hope you’ve been encouraged. This our friend. I just love spending time with you. So thanks. We’ll see you next time on in the markets with Janet Parshall.
