Psalm 139:8 says, “If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!”
But Scripture also says multiple times that God will never leave us or forsake us.
Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Hebrews 13:5 reminds us of this: ‘…God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”
This line is echoing God’s promise in Deuteronomy 31:6 to never leave or forsake his people.
In that sense, God isn’t just present, he’s also with those who follow Jesus.
In Isaiah 41:10, God says, “fear not, for I am with you.”
Joshua 1:9 says, “the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Psalm 23:4 says, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”
1 Corinthians 3:16 tells us that we are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in us.
Dwelling involves a conscious choice to not just be present but to also to be committed to the wellbeing of the home.
There’s a big difference between being present with someone and being with someone.
Being present is a matter of logistics. It involves putting yourself in the same space as someone else. God is present with everyone.
Being with someone, on the other hand, is a matter of the heart and will. It’s a conscious choice to align with someone not just physically but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Many parents are physically present with their kids but not emotionally with them.
Sometimes, as children of God, we can find ourselves believing the same about God:
We know that God will never leave us in the sense that he will always be present; we’re just not sure that he’s with us.
You can’t go anywhere God isn’t.
But then there’s another piece of God‘s character.
He’s on your side, wishing and willing your good in all circumstances.
It’s often very difficult to see God as someone who’s rooting for us to win and willing it to be so in every moment.
Seeing that the God of the universe is truly on your side no matter how good or bad you are gives you confidence to do the good work he’s put in front of you.
He’s not waiting for you to get your act together.
He’s waiting for you to realize that he wants to call your heart his home.
And he knows, of course, that once you open your heart to him, then the right actions will flow from that naturally.
When our actions start flowing from our understanding that God is actually with us and not just around us, then the goodness we’ve been chasing starts following us instead.
Culture often says to conquer fear by mastering it. But what if you don’t need to master it?
Fear can’t take anything from you. It can only tell you stories and receive what it convinces you to hand over.
And most of the time, we give it more than we realize.
Fear shows up any time you’re close to something meaningful. That’s not a flaw, that’s often confirmation.
But at some point, we started treating fear like a signal to stop instead of another sign post along the way.
There’s a moment in Moses’ story where God tells him to lead his people out of slavery. Moses is 80, unsure of himself, and afraid of public speaking. He tells God all the reasons he can’t do it – his past, his weakness, his fear.
God doesn’t reassure him with comfort or confidence. He just basically says, “Go, I’ll be with you.”
That’s it. No motivational speech, just a promise that he’ll be present.
The fear didn’t leave, but Moses stopped letting it convince him to give it control.
And that’s the shift – fear doesn’t have to go away for you to move forward, you just have to stop giving it the authority to decide what you do.
Here’s what I’ve noticed:
Fear is very real. But it’s not a flaw. It’s part of being human.
Fear grows when we give it energy by obsessing, avoiding, or trying to outsmart it.
But you don’t have to argue with fear to move forward. You just have to see it for what it is and keep going.
Fear feeds on control. The more you try to reason with it and manage outcomes, the louder it gets.
Peace doesn’t come from having a plan, it comes when you decide that it’s okay if you don’t have one.
What if instead of overpowering fear, you just stop giving it the right to decide what you do?
Fear will ask for what matters to you. But you don’t have to hand it over.
There’s a widely-accepted lie in our culture that we blindly embrace. It’s like Santa Clause for adults.
The lie we all willingly believe in is the lie of control.
The signs of chasing control are everywhere:
Anger from frustration
Fear, anxiety, and worry
Stress and sickness
Selfishness and disunity
These are all byproducts of a mind that is set on control but can never find it.
We decide that our ideal – our “Eden” – is something we can create.
But God (and the laws of the universe) have their own plans.
Here’s where the disconnect comes from:
We’ve been programmed by modern advancements to believe that everything around us is under our control.
With one glance at the device in my pocket, I can instantly know what the weather will be like for the next 10 days or more.
I can instantly get a virtual tour of the Eiffel Tower anytime I want.
I can speak with anyone, anywhere on this planet, instantly whenever I decide to.
No other generation in history has had the level of access and control that we have today.
Every other generation had to become very comfortable with uncertainty.
Before the Industrial Revolution, families depended on whether cycles to bring them crops. Survival itself depended on elements that were outside of their control.
They:
ate what was available
did activities that were available
wore what was available
worked at jobs that were available
used the products and services that were available
…and they learned to deal with circumstances as they came.
But now we have options for everything.
Jobs, food, clothes, friends, church, entertainment – we have endless choices.
A major side effect of a culture filled with options is the misconception that certainty is not only possible, but that it’s just within reach.
But it’s an illusion.
The best plans can instantly change.
Weather patterns get interrupted, family members get sick, jobs cease to exist, and our worlds of comfort and predictability can be stripped away in an instant (see 2020 for reference).
When you realize certainty is an illusion, life gets simpler.
Control and the desire for certainty are forms of self-captivity. You’re only stuck because you’re holding onto the prison bars.
But freedom comes from release. It comes from letting go of the need for certainty.
Because you were chasing an illusion anyways.
And man is it freeing to realize you were free all along. (Luke 4:18)
What we do with the desire for control is what will determine whether or not fear grows inside of us.
We can do one of two things:
Be willing to sit with the discomfort of what’s uncontrollable without trying to fix it (which is REALLY difficult)
Run in circles chasing a solution until our brains go haywire with stress, anxiety, and panic
Unresolved pain will always lead us to option B.
A person with an open wound has to give up control to a doctor to get healed.
Hiding the wound until it gets infected would cause unnecessary pain, anger, fear, and irrational behavior.
Fighting for control leads to the opposite of what you want.
Release is simple, yet counter-intuitive:
Practice release in the small, mundane things, and start storing up positive outcomes.
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart…” (Luke 6:45)
Memories drive behavior.
Give your brain micro-experiences of releasing control throughout your day, and start storing up positive outcomes (not all will be positive, so more reps are better).
With a memory bank of positive outcomes, releasing control will feel less and less like a death sentence.
And over time, you’ll see that life and healing go hand in hand with release.
I used to think anxiety and panic attacks only happened to people who had mental health issues.
Turns out, we pretty much all have some form of mental health issue.
1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year. (And I think the other 4 people were in denial.)
Of those who experience mental health illness, anxiety and depression are by far the most common.
And at the pace we’re all going these days, it’s not if but when you’ll experience feelings of anxiety.
If you’re going through anxiety, depression, or panic attacks, know this:
You are not crazy and this will not last forever. Take my word for it.
I know what you’re feeling.
The first time I felt a panic attack, I resisted it. I tried to shake it off, but it only made it worse.
In the aftermath, I researched everything I could to figure out how to stop it from happening again.
And I came across something that stuck with me:
You only beat anxiety when you stop fighting it.
So I stopped fighting and started noticing it instead.
When it showed up, I didn’t try to fix it. I tried my best to not label it as good or bad. I just noticed it.
As hard as it was, I just let the discomfort be there without trying to fix it.
Like watching a wave come in, then go back out.
I learned that peace doesn’t come from avoiding anxiety. It comes from letting go of the need to control it.
A certain amount of stress is part of life. Anxiety comes with caring deeply. There’s no version of life on this side of eternity where those things disappear.
But you can get better at not running from them.
And when you do, they slowly lose their grip. And slowly you find freedom in the release.
I walked through this reality, wrestling with releasing control to God, for years.
Then last night, panic showed up again.
Not the band. The band would’ve been much cooler.
This was the old familiar feeling of a panic attack.
It was 2:30 am, and I woke up to use the bathroom. I had just had a dream that I can’t remember, but I do remember I woke up with a slight pit in my stomach.
It was fear that something was coming. Maybe it was sickness, maybe it was just the expectation of something bad.
It’s wild how expectations can create realities.
I laid back down and I could feel the thoughts coming.
The internal dialog went something like this:
“There’s a pit in my stomach. Am I getting sick?”
“I’m not getting sick.”
“But what if…”
“I’m not. Go to sleep.”
“If I am getting sick, this is the beginning of hours of misery. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“That’s right. If it’s coming, it’s coming. Nothing I can do about it.”
“Now my nose is stopped up. It’s hard to breathe. I can’t get a full breath…”
“Calm down. You’re fine.”
“Oh no, I really can’t get a full breath…”
“This is temporary. Sit with it. Ride it out. It’s just a wave of anxiety. It can’t do anything to you.”
“I feel like I’m going crazy.”
[at this point I feel the wave of butterflies start in the middle of my stomach and shoot out to my entire body]
“Here it is. The panic is coming…”
“It can’t do a thing to me. Thank you Lord for being right here.”
[I’m laying on my stomach and I feel God say to turn over and lay flat on my back with my arms out and my legs fully extended.]
“I give everyone and everything to you, Lord.”
[I start box breathing for a minute, then because my breaths are rapid, it freaks me out more that I can only breath for 2 seconds in and 2 seconds out. So I stop box breathing and keep releasing control to God.]
“I give it all to you, Lord. You’re in control. My body and my life is in your hands, not my own. Let what comes, come.”
I laid there for a few minutes facing the panic without trying to control it. Just noticing it and sitting with it.
At that point I felt what I can only describe as a calm discomfort.
The next thing I remember is waking up at 5:30 am.
Panic came and the panic went. And just like every other time, I was fine. It didn’t do anything to me.
If I had been sick, running with spiraling thoughts wouldn’t have helped a thing.