‍Jo Vitale [00:00:35] So welcome to the podcast where we invite you to ask away. 

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[00:00:43] Hi, friends. Welcome to Ask Away. We're glad you're here. We met someone this weekend who told us that they listen to our podcast and find themselves talking back as they listen. That's awesome. If you also find yourself talking to your phone and want to contribute to the conversation, please send in your question and let us know why you're asking? We really do love hearing from you and engaging with the topics that are weighing on you or your loved ones. 

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[00:01:08] This week, we're sharing with you a talk Vince gave a couple of months ago in Toronto on an issue that burdens many of us today. His title is How Can I Deal with Anxiety? Secular Models, and a Biblical Promise. In responding to this question, Vince references a few pieces of art along the way. You don't need the visuals to listen, but if you'd like to see them, then we'll soon be posting a video of this talk on our website, where you can also find other content from Vince and me that we hope is a blessing to you. Just go to www.kardiaquestions.com. Here's Vince. 

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Vince Vitale [00:01:52] I grew up near New York City. And so this is one of the most vivid images from my youth. This is Atlas, the 15-foot, Greek god statue that sits at the center of Rockefeller Center, just triumphantly thrusting the celestial heavens above his head. And I wonder what words come to mind for you when you see that image? For me, as a young person, this is the image of strength, success, winning, conquering, conquering the world. Friedrich Nietzsche once said-- well, one of his characters, kind of as his mouthpiece, said, "If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god?" I sort of resonated with that quotation, sort of who I wanted to be here: strong, successful, a Greek god. And the image it symbolizes all the mantras of my youth. I was trying to list these phrases that really characterized in a vivid way, sort of what I wanted to be true and how I wanted to live as a young person. Never show weakness. There's nothing to fear but fear itself. You can do anything if you just put your mind to it. The world is your oyster. The future is bright. Nothing is impossible. 

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[00:03:15] And as a child, these themes seemed to me initially like they sort of reflected reality. I remember as a young kid, I must have been about eight or so, there was this tree in our backyard and I made this deal with my dad that every year on my birthday, he would put a wooden step on this massive tree in our backyard. And I had this image in my head that many years from then I'd be able to climb up like hundreds of feet of this tree, and who knew what was up there? And I'd get to sort of look out over the entire neighborhood. There was just this sense as a child of everything being within reach. I can remember sort of thinking I could fly as a kid. I don't know if I'm just the only weird one or if anybody else ever tried this as a kid. But I can remember going into the backyard and just standing there and closing my eyes and just thinking, if I just try hard enough, I might just open my eyes and find myself off the ground. 

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[00:04:10] I can remember as a kid thinking I would never die. Just, I don't know, as a young kid, the idea of coming to the end of my life just seemed so inconceivable. And I thought surely it would just sort of keep going. I had these great expectations for life. I had this deep sense that the universe was on my side, that things were going to turn out well, that my dreams were going to come true. And then, and many of us have experienced this, the harsh realities of life begin to chip away at that childhood idealism. I experienced failure. I experienced bullying. I experienced suffering. I experienced losing loved ones. I remember my cousin Charles dying. He went to dinner with my aunts, his mother, and he started choking on food, and they couldn't get the food out. And a couple of minutes later, he had died. And I just remember this awakening almost to the fragility of life. And it felt like the naivete of my youth at the same time. And so this sort of childhood idealism started to become this adult realism and then almost sort of cynicism as well. 

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[00:05:35] And I feel as I kind of got later into my teenage years, began to just settle for more of a kind of hedonism, more of a hedonistic way of living because I just lost this childhood idealism. And I started to kind of rethink those mantras from my childhood, and all of a sudden they sounded really differently when I would say them. Never show weakness. Well, I wasn't trying to, but it didn't really feel like I had a choice. There's nothing to fear but fear itself. Really? In this broken world? It seemed increasingly, as I aged, that there was all sorts of things to fear. You can do anything if you just put your mind to it. Are you sure? Because I stood in the backyard and I closed my eyes and I really tried hard, and when I opened them my feet were still planted firmly on the ground. I wasn't so sure anymore that I could do anything if I just put my mind to it. The future is bright. It seems so obvious at one point, and then all of a sudden it was like, is it? for who? For everyone? Just for the lucky few? 

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[00:06:41] I remember journeying with one seeker on his spiritual journey, a guy named Dylan, and I thought he said something really insightful. He said life is like a movie. But the problem, he says, is that the credits never roll. When you finally get to the point of resolution in the story, it just keeps going and it cycles back into the same challenges and the same problems and the same frustrations over and over and over. And it kind of reminds me of Albert Camus likening life to the myth of Sisyphus condemned to roll a boulder up a mountain for all eternity. Roll it up, rolls back down, roll it up, rolls back down. Camus said we faced never ending defeat. Maybe some of us can relate to that feeling. When I meet people, I like to ask how they're really doing. I like to kind of get below the surface. It's something I really enjoy to kind of have meaningful conversations. So I try to think of creative questions to ask people rather than just, how are you doing? Fine, thanks. How are you doing? Fine. 

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[00:07:42] So one of my questions is, what causes 80% of your stress in life? Which I'll never forget the very first time I ever asked someone that question, I thought, oh, I've got a good question. And the very first time I asked someone, they didn't skip a beat and they said, "People like you asking me questions like that." I thought, how did you come up with that so fast? And I said, well, what about the other 20%? And we still wind up having a really good conversation. But asking that question and other sort of meaningful questions of people in terms of how they're really doing, it's really convinced me over time. For many of us, we've lost that childhood idealism. For many of us, life is not turning out the way that we dreamt that it would. And there's a second famous depiction of Atlas. This is the Farnese Atlas. It's a second century Roman, marble statue. It's the oldest depiction of Atlas in existence. And it's a very different depiction of Atlas, older, falling to his knees, head strained to the side, uncomfortably off balance. Doesn't look like he can hold the heavens for much longer. 

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[00:09:05] The words that come to mind when you look at this image are very different: burdened, weighed down, defeated, tired, crushed. I wonder if anyone looks at that and thinks me. That's how I feel under the burdens of life. And this is actually a much more accurate depiction of Atlas. Atlas is not actually holding the heavens in victory, but in defeat. Atlas and the Titans had warred against Zeus and the Olympians, and they had lost. And so Zeus condemned Atlas to hold the celestial heavens for all eternity. Atlas is not actually a symbol of success, as I thought in my childhood. It's actually a symbol of punishment, and I find that very interesting how easily we sort of confuse the two. How do we set out for success and strength and somehow wind up punished under the weight of life? How do we seek to have the world in the palm of our hands, only to eventually be crushed under the weight of it? What's the process by which that happens? 

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[00:10:22] And I remember that one point asking, a mental health expert this question. How does that happen over time in life? And why are so many people experiencing that as they get older? And I remember he said to me, well, burden or anxiety or pressure in life is like water pressure building up behind the dam. And it builds gradually. It increases and it increases day after day, year after year. And so, you're a young person and you're you sort of worried about your grades in school. And then you get a little bit older and now popularity becomes a thing. So now you're kind of stressed about your popularity, but you're still stressed about your grades. You still have to kind of carry the weight of some good grades, but you're worried about the popularity, too. And you keep growing and all of a sudden you start dating and that brings kind of concerns and responsibilities. And then now you're a professional, now you're working. You have a job. 

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[00:11:19] Maybe you get married. Maybe you have a family. Maybe you wind up with kids and you're still worried about being popular and you still have this job. That's a big weight in responsibility. But you had your first kid and then maybe you had a second kid and you don't get rid of the first kid when you have the second kid. You still have the concern over the first and then the second, and you don't lose these anxieties, these pressures in life at the rate at which you accumulate them. And so this water pressure just kind of keeps building behind the dam. And it might seem dramatic, but the data suggests that on some analysis over 30% of adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their life. Look to your right and your left. That's one in three. People are really hurting. And the scary thing about that analogy, is that when the water pressure is 1 pound less than the dam can take, everything can look completely normal on the other side. And then when it's just one more pound than you can take, everything falls apart. And so we do need to ask ourselves how much water is behind our dam and for how much longer can we hold it back? What are we supposed to do in this situation? 

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[00:12:47] I saw a commercial a while back that suggested one solution. It was a weird commercial, and so it depicted a baby being born. And then the baby sort of shot through the air and flew through the sky. And as this baby was flying through the sky, you watched the baby go through each progression of life. So became a toddler and then a kind of a young boy and then an adolescent and then an adult, and then begin to get older and then begin to be elderly. And then at the end of the commercial, comes kind of down out of the sky and crashes into a grave- dead. Yeah. And then the screen went black and these words appeared across the screen. Life is short, play more Xbox. And I sort of responded just like you guys did. I laughed at first and I'm like, that's really funny. And then I also caught myself and I was like, that's also devastating. Like, really? Is that really the best we've got? Life is short and it's full of brokenness and death and injustice, but there's nothing you can do about it, so just try to distract yourself, try to entertain yourself, see if you can find some coping mechanisms. Play more Xbox. Is that really the best that we've got? 

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[00:14:09] Maybe instead of distracting ourselves, what we need to do is actually realize that we're stronger than we think. And I'm going to really be kind of boiling things down to just kind of a crude, basic summary. But that is the premise of certain forms of dialectical behavior therapy. So maybe what we need to do is work harder and train smarter. Maybe through different forms of therapy, we need to build up our skills. Our skills of mindfulness and just stress tolerance and emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. And then well maybe we'll find that we do actually have the strength to carry the burdens of life. And now I believe that some of these skills and training and therapies can be helpful. I'm for that. But as any athlete knows, there comes a point where no amount of additional training is going to give you the strength to lift the weight. If you can lift 150 pounds and then you need to lift 155 pounds, okay, let's do some training. Let's see if we can get there. But a lot of people's experience of life is that they can lift 150 pounds, and they've been saddled with 500 pounds or 1000 pounds. And there is a point at which you know no amount of increased training is going to allow me to lift this burden on my own. 

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[00:15:37] The other main secular approach to dealing with anxiety or this burden in life is cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. And so maybe what we need to do is really stare at our problems and see that they aren't as big as we think they are. So not that we're stronger than we think they are, but that our problems aren't actually as heavy as we think they are. Maybe those with anxiety disorders, for example, are overestimating or exaggerating the dangers of the things they're worried about. And cognitive therapy, in some forms at least, is designed to help us to see that our anxiety or fear is perhaps out of proportion with the reality of the circumstance that is causing it. In other words, the weight on our shoulders isn't really as heavy as we think it is. And if we can get ourselves to understand that, then maybe we can carry it after all. And again, sometimes that's right. Sometimes that can be helpful. That's fine and good with an irrational fear. 

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[00:16:38] If you have an irrational fear of spiders in a place of the world where there are no dangerous spiders, then great. Let's talk that through and let's do some fact checking. And let's develop some new patterns of thinking and some new neural pathways and let's align more closely with reality. That can be a helpful process. But what if our most fundamental fears are not out of proportion with reality? What about even that fear of spiders is not really a fear of spiders, but a fear of losing control in this world that can seem very out of control. What about when we fear that the relationships that mean the most to us won't last? What about when we fear that we'll never accomplish our dreams? That despite all of our effort and all of our training that we'll live lives of mediocrity and insignificance? What about when we fear loneliness and suffering and death? The secular models, in one way or another, tell us that we can get back to Rockefeller Center Atlas. They say either we are underestimating ourselves or you are overestimating our problems. Either we're stronger than we think or our burdens are actually lighter than we think. Either way, we can get back to triumphantly holding the celestial heavens above our heads. 

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[00:18:03] But here's the thing and the main point that I want to make this morning. Christian faith is neither of these things. In fact, both of them are in serious tension with the gospel. Christianity does not say that if we just work harder and train smarter, we can become strong enough to be our own saviors. And it also does not say that our burdens are light. The scriptures tell us there's an enemy who is prowling around like a roaring lion looking to devour us. The world, the flesh, the devil, these are not light burdens. And so here's the question that every person needs to answer. What do we do when our most fundamental fears are not exaggerated or irrational, but are actually grounded very firmly in the reality of our broken world? What do we do when our burdens are legitimately too heavy for us to carry ourselves? And only one thing can help, and this is the biblical promise that transcends all of the secular approaches, in my opinion. We can hand over our burdens to someone else. 

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[00:19:11] In this third depiction of Atlas, he's depicted handing the heavens to Hercules. And this is actually how the myth of Atlas and Hercules unfolds. Hercules was tasked with stealing some golden apples, but he had a slight problem in the myth, and that these apples were guarded by an immortal dragon with 100 heads. So pretty major problem. But he went to Atlas, who's holding the celestial heavens, and he says, look, if you can go and get these golden apples for me, if you can get through the immortal dragon with the 100 heads and get the apples, I in turn will hold the heavens for you. I will take that burden off of you for all eternity. And Atlas was like, absolutely yes, I will take that trade. I don't care what it takes. I will get the golden apples. And so he gives the celestial heavens to Hercules. He takes off and he accomplishes the task. He gets the golden apples. He brings the golden apples back. Hercules is ecstatic, and he says, Atlas, thank you so much. I will honor my promise. If I just could give you the celestial heavens for just a moment. I just want to get some soft padding to just put on my shoulders and then I'll take that back. And Atlas said, of course, no problem. What's another moment in the context of eternity? He hands the heavens back to Atlas, reaches down, picks up the golden apples, and takes off. And Atlas was just saddled with the heavens once again. 

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[00:20:55] That right there is the problem. Who can we hand our burdens to? You may have 1000 friends on Facebook, but if your life is falling apart and you're in crisis and it's the middle of the night and you need someone to just drop everything and do whatever it takes to take our burden off of you, who do you go to? Who do you go to when there's that 1000-pound burden? Sure, if you need help like moving house or something and you're like, hey, can you help me carry the couch? Then, yeah, I can help you with that burden. And we are called as Christians to carry each other's burdens. So that's something that we should be doing for one another. But when we start talking about sickness and abuse and anxiety and injustice and shame and guilt and trauma, suffering, depression, death, who can carry those burdens, who is strong enough and present enough and willing enough, loving enough? And here's the most important question how can we trust that someone is actually going to take those burdens from us and not just trick us and hand those burdens right back and turn their back on us and run off? 

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[00:22:08] Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. Cast all of your anxiety on him because he cares for you. This is the biblical promise. Our burden does not need to crush us, but that is not because it is lighter than we think. It is not because we are stronger than we think, it is because we are not supposed to be the ones who carry it. Our burdens are meant to be carried by someone else, the one person who is strong enough and loving enough and willing enough and trustworthy enough. A friend of mine is a professor of psychology and a clinical therapist at an Ivy League institution. He told me about a young woman who came to him with a long history of cutting herself. And they had a first session together, and then at the end of the first session before they ended the session, she said, "Well, there's just one more thing before I can trust whether you can work with me or not." And he said, okay, what's that? And then she he rolled up her sleeves and she said, "Will you touch my scars?" And he asked why that was important to her. And she said, “Well, that's the only way I'll know if you really care about me. If you're willing to cross a divide and touch my scars and my wounds." 

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[00:23:36] And as my friend put it, she needed to know, will you viscerally descend into the darkness with me? Are you willing to reach out and actually be identified with my brokenness? Are you willing to reach out with your being and be identified with mine? And so they talk this through, and through their counseling, my friend had the privilege of sharing with this young woman that there is one person who was willing to literally identify his being with ours, who was willing to experience her brokenness, who was willing to reach out and touch her scars. And Jesus went even further. Not only was he willing to reach out and touch her scars, but he was willing to be scarred for her and then further still, to even invite her to reach out and touch his scars. And he shared about the apostle Thomas, who initially doubted Jesus's resurrection and said, "Unless I actually put my hands into the scars of Jesus, I won't believe." And Jesus didn't get offended. He knew the fear and anxiety that must have been caught up in those words. And one week later he stood in front of Thomas and the first word out of his mouth was peace. Peace be with you. And then he said, "Put your finger here. See, my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side." And that was the moment when Thomas knew he could trust Jesus. 

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[00:25:10] And I think every one of us needs to know the same. We can trust Jesus with our scars because he trusted us with his scars. Many things compete to be gods in our lives, to be the ones who will save us from the burdens of life and the scars that they leave. Not all of them are trustworthy. For example, Hercules was the son of a god and of a woman. But he warred against Atlas. When Atlas warred against Hercules's father, Zeus, and Hercules came for revenge. And he deceived Atlas with those golden apples. And he tricked him, and he turned his back on him. And he came across as trustworthy, and he just ran off, and he just shouldered Atlas with those burdens heavier than they ever were before. But praise God, there is another character in history who was both God and man. This one not a mythical character, but one who proved his character in history. 

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[00:26:16] And in another story also about forbidden fruit, we warred against his father. And he had every reason to punish us, and instead he became the true Atlas. The one who held the universe in his hands, who literally had created it and sustained it and breathed life into it at every moment. And then he voluntarily dropped to his knees. He chose to be crushed by the very universe he had created. Though he had no burden of his own, he took our burden and he hoisted it up on his shoulders. And then he carried it to the top of the hill, and there he stretched out his arms. They thought they were nailing his hands into a beam, but he was nailing our burdens into his hands. And there on that cross, Jesus became the true Atlas; who raises his arms not to carry his own punishment, but to carry our punishment. And Jesus kept those scars in his hands and in his feet to remind us that he will never give our burdens back. He will never saddle us with them again. They are his to carry once and for all. It is finished. 

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[00:27:39] In his own words, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. You will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." And that finally answered for that young woman that my friend had the privilege of counseling. It finally answered for her whom she could hand her burdens to, whom she could cast her burdens on to, who she could trust with her scars. And she did wind up putting her trust in Jesus Christ. And after she did, she spoke these stunning words. She said, "I know now that my scars likely will not disappear, but I have hope that one day they will bear the glory of the one who was scarred for me." The image that I had in my heart as I prepared the sermon for today was when my three-year-old and my five-year-old are carrying something and it's actually too heavy for them to carry. And dad is actually carrying it with them, but they're straining like every muscle in their body. They think it's all on them. They think if they let go, it's going to fall and it's going to break. But their dad loves them and he's stronger than them and he knows. And so I've got my hands right there under their hands. And when they come to the end of their strength and they are forced to let go, it doesn't fall and it doesn't break because I've actually been carrying it the whole time. 

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[00:29:10] And as we just entered into a few minutes of prayer here at the end, I just want to make an invitation to anybody who's walked in and just knows, as I've been speaking, they've walked in with a burden that's too heavy for you to carry. I truly believe you don't need to carry that burden as you walk out today, and it's not something that you need to do because actually good and powerful and loving father that's already carrying that burden, who already has his hands underneath your hands, and if you just surrender that and let go, you will find that he's carrying that burden because he cares for you. So why don't we bow our heads? And I just want to offer that simple invitation. If you know you need to let go of something today, if you need to stop trying to carry something yourself, and you need to know that God will carry it for you, I want to invite you to just raise a hand right now, just with our heads bowed. Nothing magical in raising the hand. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's very encouraging. 

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[00:30:14] Raising that hand not as that Atlas who is raising it to carry your own burden, but raising it as a way of surrendering it and handing it over to the God who would delight in carrying it for you. And so, Lord, I raised my hand as well with my dear brothers and sisters this morning, and we just say to you that we're letting go of these burdens, and we need you to catch them. We are casting this burden onto you, and we need you to carry it. And Lord Jesus, I trust that you will, because you have already carried my greatest burden, the burden that sent you to the cross. Lord, you reached out and touched my deepest scars. Thank you, Lord. You were scarred in our place. Thank you. Lord, you hear the cry of our hearts today. Please bear our burdens. Take the weight off of our shoulders. Give us that hope that you spoke of, that one day even the burdens that I have carried and the scars that they have left will bear your glory. The glory of the one who was scarred for me. And Jesus, we put our hope and our trust in you. This morning we say that you alone are worthy of our worship and we give ourselves to you. And we ask you this day to come and have your way in Jesus’ name, amen.