MAX LUCADO

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Is one of my all time favorite authors. Love your preaching and now you've got Max Uh an inspiring book that is so timely with me as Max Lucado, and we're going to talk about um your new book that that the timing could not Sadly, the timing could not be more perfect. There seems to be, by the way. Thank you so much for for the opportunity. I think so highly of you and uh, just hearing your voice warms my heart. So I'm so grateful to be to be with you. There's there's so many causes for anxiety

in the world. It just seems like we're at a fever pitch uh and uh and and people are struggling to find a way to calm down and to uh and to take a deep breath. Uh. Some of these are natural disasters, some of these are political concerns. There's threats from you know, North Korea. There's there's conversations about conflicts, and so it's it's difficult, uh to find a way to kind of settle down and calmed down. And when I wrote this book about I guess I finished it

seven or eight months ago. I thought, well, it'd be good to have this book coming up now because of all the anxiety over politics. And now I'm thinking, well, it's a good thing is coming out right now because there's a lot of things that about natural disasters and politics, and so I guess anytime you talk about anxiety, it's

a needed topic. Well, we do we we do have the natural disasters, the largest hurricanes to ever hit US, and wildfires out of control, and as you said, that conflict going on with insanity in North Korea and trying to understand that, but Max, I think just our lifestyle, just our lifestyle is so anxiety producing. You know that the tablets and the you know, the devices that kids now have, little kids, little kids, not just you know, teenagers who need to call home or do homework, but

little kids. And and the way we are constantly bombarded with images. Yeah. I read someplace, uh that the average American and spends between six and eight hours a day either consuming TV or media on a device. Wow, how can that be? Yeah? And if you compare that with two or three generations ago, our ancestors, you know, they shut down when the sun went down. They they went as far on a given day as their horse or camel would take them. But we don't shut down when

the sun goes down. And we see uh night as a great time to take the red off lot so we can be at work in the morning. And it's a hectic, hectic time. And I believe we're starting to really pay the price for that, Tolna. You know, we're we've learned that that this the United States is officially

the most anxious nation in the world. Uh, And that this generation is the most anxious nation since anxiety, you know, has been measured, and so the land of stars and stripes has become the land of stress and strikes, and and we find ourselves just wrapped tighter than mummies and not knowing how to handle, uh, the challenges that come our way. So you said something that just struck a chord to me. You said, the presence of anxiety is unavoidable,

but the prison of anxiety is optional. Absolutely. I don't think anybody in the world escapes anxiety. I'm confident of that. And if anybody says they're never anxious, then I've got another book I once wrote on honesty. But you know, even Jesus in in the in the stories in the Bible, even Jesus felt anxiety on the night before the crucifixion. Is that powerful, poignant story of Jesus in the Garden of Gestimony, uh, praying asking to be delivered from what

he was about to face. He was overwhelmed by fear. Now, the difference is he didn't let fear win, but he did face fear. So so I think anxiety comes with life, but it just simply doesn't have to dominate our lives. And I think there are ways we can learn to talk ourselves back off the ledge to calm ourselves down. There's certain UH tools we can develop to help us move from people whose lives are characterized by chaos to become people who's really their lives are characterized by calm.

And I really think we need a quorum of people who will simply calm everything down. You know, I'm almost hesitant to post anything on face hoo can you more, Lalla? Because it seems to stir up an argument from somebody somewhere that there there there, there are, There are trigger points that I didn't know existed. And I think it's because we're anxious and we we don't. We don't. We're starting to lose our ability to have reasonable conversations and

to be civil with one another. Can does that make sense? Oh? Does it make sense? Come on? Max? I I can put up the sweetest, most simple little picture or just a little quote, you know, a post about hope, and people attack me. I'm like really, come on? Yeah? And I'm sorry to say this because I'm a pastor, but sometimes Christians UH can can come across as harsh and dogmatic and sometimes as if sometimes sometimes being generous sometimes and I hope I want to say it's a minority.

But but I do think that there is a you know, to be able to sit down with somebody and disagree agreeably requires a certain level of confidence and uh and and and in peace within yourself. But if I'm an agitated person, if I'm an anxious person, I'm going to have a hard time having a disagreement with somebody agreeably. I'm gonna get defensive, I'm gonna withdraw, I'm gonna polar I'm going to create an island upon which I live

and not let anybody else in. And I think what we're seeing in our country today now see hold on, just hold on just a second here, because you just painted a picture of my sister, you did, you painted them When she's anxious, when she's stressing, she withdraws, she goes to the island. I when I get anxious, when I get exhausted, I'm the one that storms your island,

demanding that you see things my way. It's true. And when I get anxious, and for me, uh, if I don't take care of first things first, if I don't get enough sleep, if I don't need healthy, if I don't get some exercise, those three things, that's when my anxiety starts to build. And this past summer, my husband and I took ten kids in a year old RV to Yellowstone, Um and some somewhere along the way. We thought that was a good idea, you know, to sleep intense.

They slept intents. We slept in a year old r V with orange cheg carpeting, and so sleep patterns were interrupted. Kids were cold at night, everybody was grumpy, and I found myself going ballistic over a bag of peas that disappeared. I bought a bag of peas at a farmer's market and I couldn't find him, and I was a screaming maniac in the campground over a bag of peas. Anxiety can can turn us all into crazy folks. It does,

It really does. My godson actually said, Mom, I think if you had a videotape of yourself right now, you would be really embarrassed. Yeah. Well, I don't know who told you it was a good idea to take ten kids on a camping carpalogy. You know, you've got to You've got to bear some of the consequence of that yourself. Yeah, but what did we once we got some sleep, what did we have fun? You did I bet you did. You were intense in a different way. Yes, yes, I

was intense in a different way. The kids were intense, and so was I. Okay, back to steps we can take. Number one, don't take ten kids camping in a year old. But other steps we can take, Max, and you outline these so sweetly in calm uh to find that that I of the storm, that place of peace. A favorite book of mine in the Bible for many many years has been a little four chapter letter called Philippians. And it was written by the apostle Paul while he was

in prison. Uh. And I say that to say that when you read the letter, you'd think he's on a Jamaican beach, sitting on my time, because it's a happy letter. It's it's it's full of joy, it's full of hope. And yet here's a guy sitting in a Roman prison, and odds are he's going to be executed in the any day now. And yet he pens this beautiful epistle, and right in the middle of it is that phrase from which we got the title of the book, be anxious for nothing. And so I took that passage in Delilah.

I just divided it up into four sections. And here's his way, he says, to deal with anxiety. First, he would say, celebrate God. He says, rejoice in the Lord. Again, I say rejoice. So we celebrate God's goodness, we celebrate God's strength, we celebrate all the wonder whole things about God. And then we celebrate the things we don't know about God. You just say, Lord, we trust that you're in control. But then the second thing he says is ask the Lord for help. He says, be anxious for nothing, but

in everything, let your uh. Let your prayers and petitions be men known to God. In other words, just pray about it. So, rather than react before your troubles get a hold of you, give your troubles to God. And then the third word, third key word is uh, the letter L. Leave. Leave the problem with God. Paul says, do this with thanksgiving. So you do so. With thanksgiving. You trust that it's in his hands now and now

that you don't have to worry about it. Then Paul says, now, meditate on these things, and he gives us a list of nine virtues to think about. It's basically, whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is good, whatever is hopeful. In other words, quit focusing on the messiness of life. Make an intentional decision to look at the rainbows, to look at the unsets and and it's very practical. Counsel So you celebrate, you ask, you leave, you meditate, calm. It

literally calms a person down. And I think everybody who finds himself in an anxious situation, rather than to give in to the anxiety, can step in and and and hold it back and begin to react in this way, and they'll find themselves calming down. Okay, So see a l M. Celebrate, ask, leave, and meditate, and meditate, Celebrate God's goodness, ask God for help, leave the problem with him, and meditate on good things. This is good because it's simple. I need simple. Yeah, you and me both like the

term kiss keep it simple, silly, Yeah, I need. I need these little simple tools to get me through. We all do, we all do. And anxiety is you know, it's it's a challenging thing, it really is, and I sure don't want to minimize it. If your anxiety has gotten to the point where you need pharmaceutical help or counseling or pastoral visit, do whatever it takes. I believe anxiety, Uh, perpetual anxiety, de Laila, this, this lifelong anxiety can really bring a person down. It it can, It can just

suck them into a well of despair. And I believe that there is a good God who will help us, who doesn't desire that we live in this state of perpetual anxiety. We let fear do its work. Fear is God's idea, that's what keeps us from, you know, stepping out into traffic. But we don't let fear turn into this perpetual anxiety that keeps us from ever getting in a car and going out on the road again. So we let fear do its work. But then we let ourselves rest, We recover, We try to think clearly, and

most of all, we ask God for help. And I think, I think there's this, there is a way out of this anxious pattern that people find themselves. There's something in this this new book Anxious for Nothing Max That, Uh, that was so beautiful. You wrote it so beautifully. What you just said, that there's nothing we can do to earn God's loves. Yeah, and he'll never be mad at us again. That blew my mind. I mean I know that, but the way you wrote it, so simply and so

sweetly blew my mind. And it's hard because we do. Everybody else treats us with conditional love, even our best, best people. They love us more when we're better, They love us a little bit less when we're less. Think you know, they love us more when everything's great, they love us less when we're all in Yellowstone. But you know that's that's that's human nature. But there is a perfect love. There is an unconditional love in the universe. Into this, cover this, and live in the shadow and

the overflow of that. That's that's just really last changing, it really is. Well. I would love to get some more copies of this so I can send them out to my listeners, because you know, when I'm interviewed, when I'm interviewed by radio or TV or whatever, one of the questions I get asked a lot is, Delilah, you've been doing this show for many years, many decades at this point, have you seen a change in the kinds

of calls you get each night? And Max, I take sixty calls a night, And the biggest change I think I've seen, especially the last five years, is in the level of anxiety in my listeners, people call, and God bless them, they sent on hold for five minutes to get to talk to me. And nine percent of the time when they call with a Delilah dilemma or whatever, it is, this anxious mess in their heart that a five minute phone call in us four minute song isn't

going to fix. And and I spend as much time counseling as them as I can, sharing you know, my faith. But if, if, if I could send or encourage every

person listening to go pick up Anxious for Nothing. If you are dealing with anxiety, if your teenager is getting into drugs, if your husband is being unfaithful, if your wife just walked out the door, if you lost your job, if your house was affected by the hurricanes, if there's a wildfire near your home, if there's uh you know, being bombarded by social media, the political climate, whichever you know, left or right, or fighting you're doing with your best friend.

Spend a few hours reading Anxious for Nothing and find that calm, that calm. Are you gonna go crazy? I lose you? No, I'm doing my favorite thing. I'm listening to Thelima. But really, I mean and and don't you think that, like mental illness and heart disease and cancer, the core roots. You know, if you were a surgeon and you could cut that tumor out, the core of that tumor often times I think is anxiety and anger, because in me, anxiety always produces anger, always it does.

I would encourage people don't don't beat yourself up for feeling anxious. I've been surprised how many people in this conversation say, oh, I feel so bad about being so anxious. Now you're worrying about worrying. You know, it's it is a hard laugh, it is, so don't beat yourself up. But at the same time, don't assume that you're going to spend the rest of your life living in this a petrol state of anxiety. There are ways you can learn to talk to yourself, back off the ledge, there

are ways you can learn to calm down. There are ways and uh, and most of all, I believe there is a good God who loves you and who will help you. And and there are people who don't live in anxiety. That's what's encouraging. There really are pockets of people who are finding peace. They're they're not naive about life, but they're they're peaceful about the future, and they're trusting in the presence of God. They're not antagonistic, they're not devices.

They're just good, healthy, hopeful, hope filled people. And I think that's what our country you need, and really that's what the world needs. Just the passage that this book unpacks has a neat phrase in it. The Apostle says, let your gentleness be made evident to all, and gentleness there is a word that really means even tempered, nous or level headedness. Couldn't we you is a fresh batch of even tempered, level headed people helping us navigate our

way through this world. Who who can build bridges, who can help us communicate better? That's what we really need. And I think that's the kind of person that that faith can build. Uh. And that's this even tempered person. And then the other promise in that passage is that God will give you a peace that passes all understanding. Amen? Can I get an amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? And

don't we need that? Max? Thank you You're so kind Galilah and uh to some of my happiest moments or back when I had a community, I don't have one anymore. I work at home too, but I used to listen to you every evening driving home, and just hearing your voice now it brings back such great memory. So thanks for what you've meant to me and millions of us through the years. Thank you, slow down and less amer which you lie. Love,