Anxiety - Summer in the Psalms - Sermons - Colin Provart - 8.2.26

**Colin Provart** (0:01)
Good morning, Storyline Church, how are we doing this morning? Good. If I don't know you, my name is Colin, and I have the privilege of getting to serve as one of the directors here at Storyline. And it is a treat to be with you this morning as we wrap up our series through the Book of Psalms. This summer, we've really slowed down, and each week we've opened a different psalm. And as we open the psalm, we've looked at emotions. And I ask the question, how do we live our whole lives, quorum deo, before the face of God, how do we bring our emotions to God? The good ones and the hard ones. And this morning, we're gonna be in Psalm 46 So if you have a Bible, Psalm 46 is where we're gonna be. And I'd love you to be there and follow along with us this morning looking at the emotion of anxiety. 18% of adolescents face active anxiety. That's federal data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In any given year, 42.5 million people may meet the diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder. The American Psychiatric Association says that 67% of adults reported feeling anxious about current events happening in the world. 62% worry about keeping their family safe. 61% worry about paying their bills. 77% of Americans report regularly experiencing physical symptoms from stress and anxiety. That's fatigue, muscle tension, headaches, or nervousness. I could keep going with different statistics, but I don't think I need to, because we all know anxiety exists. We see it, we feel it, we experience it. I think a lot of us know that we're likely living through one of the most anxious generations in history. And even if you don't believe, you fall into one of those anxiety statistics, I would guess that you still have moments in your day or your week that you would say, man, I'm feeling a little anxious right now. Anxiety is one of those things that comes in all different forms. It's tightness in the chest, it's when your palms start to sweat, it's sleepless nights, stress, control issues, constantly living in the worst case scenario. Feeling paralysis towards a person, an event, life itself.
You have a hard time even showing up this morning because you feel anxious.
There's a clinical diagnosis of anxiety in your life. I want to say from the beginning that I don't want to fight with or disagree with any medical professionals. They know you and they know the human brain far better than I do. And so I want you to listen to them and to lean into the medical professionals. But what I do want to pull the curtain back on this morning is to show us that all of our anxiety, I think at some level is spiritual in nature. So what I'm not saying is if you feel anxiety, you are a spiritual failure, but anxiety raises questions around safety, control, the future, whether God will meet us in the midst of life. So anxiety is certainly spiritual in nature. To all people, anxiety is spiritual in nature, and I'm not trying to disagree with medical professionals. I just want to reveal to us what God might say to our anxiety this morning. Psalm 46, starting in verse 1 God is our refuge and strength, a helper who's always found in times of trouble. Therefore, we will not be afraid. Though the earth trembles and the mountains topple into the depths of the sea, though its water roars and foams, and the mountains quake with its turmoil. Psalm 46, what happens when the unshakable things in life begin to shake? What happens when the steady things in life become uneasy? The earth isn't meant to shake. The mountains of the Rockies aren't meant to fall into the depths of the ocean. That's why we love living in the Mile High City. We're not like one of those lowly coastal cities. Like LeBron has certainly made a mistake by going to a city a mere 39 feet above sea level. Please.
We take pride in being the Mile High City because the mountains feel immovable, and yet life has a way of moving the perceived immovable. I remember feeling anxiety a little over two years ago. A little over two years ago, my wife and I were ready to welcome our first baby. And when you're a month out of welcoming your first baby, everyone has an opinion for you. Oh, the first six months of parenting, they're the worst six months of your life. You just have to get through them. The next conversation, the first six months of parenting, they're amazing. The first six months of parenting, I've never fought more with my wife. The first six months of parenting, it really just brought us together and unified our marriage. You know, the whole sleep thing kind of overrated, and you end up getting more sleep than you think. All the baby does is sleep anyways. Oh, I've never slept less. Like, I haven't slept in the last 18 years, you know? It's like, I don't know what I'm going to expect. And on top of that, we didn't know the gender of our baby. It's like blue, pink, who knows? Like, this is a little bit anxiety-inducing. And a month before, we had Kyler. I remember going to the doctor, and I got a really scary diagnosis. The type of diagnosis that makes you ask the question, what's the next month going to be? What's the next year going to be? Like, am I going to be able to help the way I thought I would? How about three years? Five years? I remember, in the lowest of those moments, thinking, regardless of the outcome, is God going to be kind and gracious to me?