Focus on the Family

John Fuller: Welcome to Focus on the Family's weekend broadcast. We hope the following program will challenge you and encourage you in your faith journey.

Jason Benham: For me, anxiety is kind of a constant thing. I fight it a lot, and it's just that persistent feeling that something's wrong, but I couldn't really tell you what it is.

Tori Benham: When I'm anxious, I think about the situation over and over again, and I notice it more so in my chest with my heart racing a lot.

Jason Benham: When I get anxious, it's like I drank too much coffee. My mind is racing, and I'm jittery.

John Fuller: I wonder if you can relate to any of those comments. If you or someone you know does, and you're dealing with fear or worry or anxiety, hang on because we've got some great help for you today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, you can just look at the news. It seems like there's been a can of anxiety opened up, and spiritually speaking, it's true. I think we are a more anxious culture than we've ever been, and everything is causing us worry and doubt. As the Christian community, we've got to get a grip on this. I had a friend of mine who's a non-believer say, "If you guys are worried, we should be really worried as non-believers." Isn't that interesting? What are we projecting as the church in terms of our faith, our hope?

I don't mean that to sound like a guilt thing because we have to deal with anxiety. We have it in our extended family, so we deal with this as well like many other people are. I think the CDC report was as many as 50 percent of 15 to 25-year-olds are dealing with anxiety and depression. So this is something that is hitting almost everybody, and I think it's going to be a topic that will really equip you or help you directly. So stick with us today.

John Fuller: This affects our family as well, Jim, and I just want to tell our listeners and viewers we do have caring Christian counselors here, and I really want to encourage you to connect with them. Reach out to us. We'll schedule a time for them to give you a call back. That's a really good starting point if this is something you haven't really tackled personally. That number is 800-A-FAMILY.

Jason and Tori Benham are here. We love having them here. They're going to share their own stories and experiences about dealing with anxiety, about the deep dive they've done into the word of God in order to really provide hope and practical help. They're coaches, speakers, and authors, and they have a podcast called *Beauty in Battle*. They've written a number of books, and the one we're talking about today addresses this topic. It's called *Unshakable: A Proven Plan to Crush Anxiety, Defeat Overwhelm, and Conquer the Fears That Freak You Out*. We've got the book, and you can learn more about getting a copy and our guests when you go to focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Jason and Tori, welcome to Focus on the Family once again. Good to have you as always.

Tori Benham: Thank you.

Jason Benham: Love being with you guys.

Jim Daly: Just for the viewers and listeners, you've been married how long?

Tori Benham: 25 years.

Jim Daly: 25 years. My wife would say this about watching football: "If I just knew things about the players, I'd be more interested, like are they married? Do they have children?" So how many kids do you have?

Tori Benham: That's true. We have four kids. Our oldest is 23, and then the baby is 15.

Jim Daly: All right, so you're still—you still got action. You're two and a half years away from empty nesting, guys.

Tori Benham: Yes.

Jim Daly: So you think.

Jason Benham: That is true.

Jim Daly: Let's let them think that. Nothing big happens at age 18. We're just going to let you live in that idea.

Jason Benham: Don't steal my hope.

Jim Daly: Anxiety, as I set it up there, does touch everybody in just about every family directly, and we've had it in our family and our extended family. First of all, when we're looking at anxiety, it's not fear. God gives us a sense of fight or flight. That's sometimes survival. So what's that difference between fear and kind of debilitating anxiety?

Jason Benham: That's such a great question. Fear is about a present or a past threat. Anxiety is a future threat. Anxiety is projecting fear into the future, and the specific fear is honestly the loss of control. So as we define anxiety in our book *Unshakable*, we talk about how fear is projected powerlessness.

We got that from the story where Jesus was teaching the disciples, and then he tells them, "Hey, let's get in the boat and go to the other side." Then he goes in and takes himself a little catnap, and then the wind and the waves, all of a sudden this massive storm comes up. What do the disciples do? Well, they freak out. You've got to remember, these are professional fishermen. These are dudes who made their living on the sea, and yet they thought we are going to die.

They woke Jesus up, and they're like, "Come on, man, get up!" Jesus, what's the first thing that he does? He rebukes the wind and the waves. Then he turns around, and he rebukes the disciples. Why? Because they required him to calm down what was on the outside before they were calm on the inside. What they said to him reveals to us that they were operating not by fear alone, but by anxiety.

They said, "We are going to die." What does that mean? That means that we're not dead right now, but here's what's going to happen: this boat is going to tip over at some point, and we're all going to end up in the ocean, and we're going to sink to the bottom, we're going to black out, and we're going to drown. They're projecting powerlessness into the future. We're not going to be able to control it. "Jesus, don't you know this is happening to us?"

So Jesus is like, "Stop all that." Can you imagine if Jesus woke up and he found the disciples rebuking the wind and the waves? He would have commended their faith. So those guys were projecting powerlessness into the future, and Jesus actually rebuked them for it.

Jim Daly: I like that definition, but Jean and I have fallen into this little trap of bingeing on *I Was Prey*. This cable show about human beings that are out hiking or they're in the ocean and all of a sudden they're being eaten by a shark or gnawed on by a bear. So I would say, yeah, that's true. You wake up with the storm and you freak out for something the Lord knows shouldn't be something you're freaked out about. But if a grizzly is gnawing on my head, I am freaking out and this is fear time. So there is time for fear. So take us to your story of your burglar.

Tori Benham: Yes. This was years ago. The kids were really small. At the time, we had our master bedroom on the top floor. We had an alarm system because Jason traveled often, and I'm a naturally fearful person. So I required that if he was going to be on the road, that we had to have an alarm system. So we had this alarm system, Jason's home, and in the middle of the night, I think it was like 2:00 AM, we hear glass shattering—your worst nightmare, right?—and just this huge bang followed by the alarm going off. In that moment, Jason and I jump to our feet. Our adrenaline is just kicking.

Jason Benham: It sounded like a fire truck in our living room. That's how loud the alarm was.

Tori Benham: And Jason's reaction was to yell downstairs, "Get out! I'm coming for you!" That was his masculine instinct, and he just growled. He tell the kids to get into the bedroom. I'm already calling 911 telling them what happened. We heard this loud bang, and now the alarm's going off. They said get into the master bathroom. So we lock ourselves in the master bathroom. We're on the phone with the police. We're like, "Okay, intruder is in our house." It's so scary.

Police show up, a bunch of police show up, all the lights, everything. I'm looking out the window watching them. They've got their flashlight, they're looking through the windows trying to find where somebody came in. And then they called up to the window.

Jason Benham: I had to give my man card over to them, and I'm up in the window on the second floor and I'm like, "Hey, we good?" They're like, "No signs of forced entry. You can come down."

I'm shaking walking down the stairs to find that the motion detector sensor had just fallen to the ground and it shattered. That was the glass. It fell off the wall, and it shattered. I'm upstairs. I'm like, "Are we safe?" Everything's fine. False alarm.

Jim Daly: Well, and some listening or watching probably they've had the real deal where there's been an intrusion. Those things do happen. But what you took away from that is...

Jason Benham: Our bodies are wired with an internal alarm system that should alert us to danger. So that alarm, had somebody truly broken in the house, the alarm would do its job. The problem is when something else trips that alarm. What we say is that God created us to have fear like we should. Jim, going back to your example, if I'm walking in the woods and I see a grizzly bear, healthy fear—deal with it. Run—well, I don't know if you're supposed to run from a grizzly or not.

Jim Daly: I think it's play dead with a grizzly.

Jason Benham: Play dead. I thought you're supposed to get big and scream really loud. Or you're in Florida and you see an alligator, then maybe run. That's healthy fear. But what anxiety does is anxiety doesn't play on reality, it plays on imagination. It plays on whatever's in your mind. So anxiety then says, "Hey, I'm walking in the woods, there's going to be a grizzly. I bet you there's going to be a grizzly." And now all of a sudden, you're not walking through the woods anymore. You're leaving the path because of what anxiety is doing. It's now imagining that that fear is there.

Jim Daly: Or in worst-case scenarios, that anxiety has gripped a person so badly they won't go to the woods because they're already projecting, or they won't leave their home, they won't go grocery shopping. I mean, that is severe. But I do want to pick up on that because I think the spiritual implication there of what you're saying is when real things happen, whether they're assumed or actual like your indicator or your sensor falling on the ground, you guys didn't know and you're reacting out of that adrenaline. Or if somebody is actually an intruder, those are normal things where anxiety and fear are pretty understood. But the spiritual problem is when you're projecting out in the future; your future will be detrimental or horrific or something like that. Speak specifically to the spiritual connotation of that because that's crippling in so many ways.

Jason Benham: Satan wants to do everything he can to keep you off the path that God put you on. So he is going to do to you what he did to the disciples when they were in that boat. So here's the thing. And I know at Focus on the Family we talk to a lot of God-followers. You have Jesus in your life. And if you don't, I just ask you to get on your knees and ask Christ to come into your heart and have God as your father. You're going to find that not all things just work themselves out magically; you've got some work to do, but God will definitely do something for you.

But when we're talking to God-followers, what you need to know is first, is Jesus in your boat? Is he in your life? Is he on the path with you? Secondly, is he freaking out right now? And thirdly, who's really in control? But Satan wants you to not think about any of that. He wants you to focus on what could be in your life, and all of that is ruled by fear, not faith.

So what faith does is it projects power into the future because we know who's on our boat. We know that we're walking according to what God wants us to. I mean, Jesus told the disciples, "Let's go to the other side." So they were walking in obedience. Look, if you're walking in disobedience, you should be freaking out about some stuff. But the spiritual connotation of this is all Satan is going to use projected fear to keep you off of the path. But you need to know Jesus is in your boat, and if he's not freaking out, you shouldn't be either.

John Fuller: This Focus on the Family broadcast will continue in just a moment.

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John Fuller: Your marriage can be healed. A Hope Restored marriage intensive from Focus on the Family can transform you and your spouse's relationship in just a few days.

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John Fuller: Discover more at hoperestored.com. That's hoperestored.com.

Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. Let's resume now with the balance of today's programming.

Jim Daly: I think it's important we've laid the groundwork, but the hope there, it's hard for people that have chronic anxiety to hear, "Yeah, just don't perpetuate that anxiety into the future." It's easy to say, it's easy to hear, it's hard to do for people that have anxiety. So especially for the Christian community, I think you look toward 2 Corinthians 12 and the promise God is making us there, which is our only hope.

I mean, when you get down to it, if you have that kind of stifling, crippling anxiety, you've got to get it into your heart that you're okay, that the Lord's going to take care of you even through death. May I say that regardless of what happens, that it is quite freeing to understand that—that not even death has a grip on us because we have an eternal life with the Lord after this. It's good to hear, it's comforting, but do we really believe it? I mean, that's the core thing. So how does 2 Corinthians 12 comfort us? Let me read it because I don't want this to be a pop quiz on you, but it starts with: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

Jason Benham: Man, when I was at the height of my anxiety battle, the Lord brought that scripture home to me to just let me know it's okay. Like, yeah, you're in a weak spot right now. And I felt sick, very sick, and we'll get to share the story here in a little bit of what that all looked like. But when God came in and was like, "You know what? My grace is sufficient. That my strength is made powerful in your weakness," in that moment, I was in such a weak state, and I really did find hope and comfort in that.

You know, we've talked about this before on one of your other podcasts, where trust is a choice that you make, and hope is the feeling that follows. You can't have hope if you don't first make the choice to trust. It came to a head for me in Vidalia, Georgia. I'm going to remember that town in particular because it's the home of the sweetest onion ever made, Vidalia onions. My brother and I, at this point, I had been speaking professionally for like a decade. Public speaking was not a problem for me.

Just before I was to get on stage, about five minutes before, all of a sudden, I start having hot flashes. I started sweating, my head started spinning. I honestly thought that I was going to pass out. My heart was racing out of my chest. I had no idea.

Jim Daly: Did you think it might be the flu or something like that?

Jason Benham: I thought it felt like I was having kind of a miniature stroke or heart attack. I'm serious. I mean, you start going, "This isn't me. What's happening right here?" I'm sitting there, and I'm literally holding onto the table. I remembered somewhere in the confusion of all of this that if you feel like you're having low blood sugar, eat some sugar. There was a piece of chocolate cheesecake, so I smashed that cheesecake.

Jim Daly: That's my solution for everything.

Jason Benham: Well, that didn't work, and I just started praying. The only verse that I could think about was the Philippians 4 verse where it says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God." I'm like, "God, I've got to go up here and speak in front of all these people. I can't pass out." So I was having this fear that I was going to pass out.

I walked up there on stage, and fortunately for me, I have a twin brother and he was speaking with me that day. I brought my glass of ice water up there with me, and I stood on stage and David opened up and I had my glass of ice water and I started pressing it onto my head just to get recovered. Because I was like, "I'm going to pass out. Like, either I'm going out voluntarily or involuntarily, I have got to control myself." I was taking sips of water, and my knees were shaking, and it got to my part and I started speaking and it started to wane a little bit. It started to calm down, and I felt like the Lord was giving me some reprieve.

We were able to get through a 45-minute talk and I walked off of there and I was wondering what in the world did these people think about me drinking this cold water and pressing the glass against my head? We got done and David was like, "Man, you look like a ghost up there. What was wrong with you?" I was like, "I think I almost had a heart attack or something, I don't know." Well, I began to look back at that, and I realized that was a panic attack. It was full-on anxiety attack, which I've never had before. Never. Ever. And I was not nervous to speak in front of people or anything like that.

But the very thing that I was called to do, now I was struggling to do, and it hurt. It felt like somebody poured boiling lava on my chest while I got dropped ten stories in an elevator. A feeling like that, and it was just awful, and it was a cluster mess. That was my first bout with anxiety.

Jim Daly: And then Tori, pick it up. I mean, you're like...

Tori Benham: It wasn't the Jason that I knew. It was scary. It's scary to be someone who has never seen that before. Jason is always—he's a very strong leader, and I look to him for a lot of security in my life. He's always the strong one. I'm usually the one more crippled with fear and anxiety. And then I'm seeing this happen, and it's a little bit scary at first. You're like, "Oh, what is going to happen?" and you can easily start to think to the future, like "How long is this going to last? Are we going to be okay? Is he going to be okay?"

I remember just going to the Lord. One of the things that I'll never forget in that season was how Jason fought. He fought so hard to break free. This is where the book came from, was that fight. The book was birthed out of a fight to come free from this. I was watching him. He was waking up early in the morning and going out in the sunlight and just getting before the Lord and just hands open to the Lord, crying out to him. I'm watching this, and I'm fighting with him inside in prayer and asking the Lord, "What is my role? What do I need to do? How am I going to help?"

Because those feelings kept coming back. For the next three months, I kept feeling like, "I'm going to pass out." I got to a point where I didn't even want to drive anymore, and I didn't want to public speak, I didn't want to do anything. She was watching me spiral.

Jim Daly: This is a really personal question for you, Tori, but I would think you mentioned how much confidence you had in Jason, how much you depended upon him for that stability and being the rock, which allowed you a little bit of sway to have those emotional feelings. In this season, how did you process, "Uh-oh, my rock is not so solid," and how did that impact you personally? Did you have more fear like what is happening and what does this mean for me?

Tori Benham: I did, yes. I think it was a moment for me though where I knew that I had no other option but to depend on the Lord. Thank God that I knew where my strength comes from. Of course, in that moment, there were moments of shakiness of, like, "Oh, what is this going to look like?" I began to ask the Lord, like "What are you saying through this? You need to tell us what to do here."

I remember one morning Jason, he looked so frail. He looked like a shell of the man that he was. He was sitting in front of our fireplace because he was really cold, like even his temperature, everything was off. He was sitting in front of the fireplace with a blanket, and it just did not even look like Jason. I kind of get a little teary-eyed thinking of it because it was hard to see him like that. I can relate to so many other people out there that you're watching your loved one go through this, and it's sometimes I think it's almost harder for the person watching it from the outside because it's not the person that you know.

Jim Daly: And it's scary. Like what is happening? And I have no control. And neither does he.

Tori Benham: Exactly. This man that is usually so in control and takes such reign of our home, it felt like he was slipping away. So I was just before the Lord, "God, what is going on? What do you need me to say to him? What are you doing? What are you saying? Speak."

I remember very clearly the Lord saying, "You need to let him know that this soon shall pass." Like this is not going to last a long time, you're going to be okay and it's not going to be that much longer.

Jim Daly: That takes a bit of courage. I mean, you've got to go say this to him in a time when he's not himself and isn't feeling that.

Tori Benham: Yeah, and there's kind of a part of me that's like, "I hope I heard that. I hope that was the Lord. I hope that's just not me." But I did. I went to him and I said, "Babe, I just I really feel like the Lord just said this is not going to be much longer. This too shall pass, and you're almost through it. Don't let go, keep fighting, you're almost through it."

Jason Benham: She gave me hope. I felt literally I felt something lift in my spirit. Now I had a lot of work ahead of me, and I want to tell you guys about it, but that day, I mean when she offered hope to me like that, I felt like a lightning bolt in my body. We were raised Baptist, we're not the prophetic, all that kind of stuff, but I'm telling you I felt like that was a prophetic word for me, and I just felt it in my body. It was like the Lord was saying, "There's a finish line to this."

That's when the Lord began to really do some stuff, and that's why I began taking notes, writing everything I could about anxiety. But let me just tell you about how bad it got. Those feelings that I had before I was speaking at that place, it happened so bad I passed out once in church. Literally just sitting there. Somebody was giving a testimony, and they started talking about some accident that they had, and I'm not good with talking about bodily fluids, specifically blood. They started talking about that, I literally just passed out right in church.

So now I started having a fear of passing out. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I almost passed out when I was on stage." I was speaking at Liberty University, and I was on stage there at one of their business classes. It wasn't in the big chapel, but it was at one of their business chapel classes. Almost passed out there, had to have them bring me a chair, I had to sit on it. Now remember, I had already been speaking for a decade. I'm confident. I'm not scared to speak in front of anybody at any time. I'm not scared to drive. Now I don't want to do either of these.

It got to a point where I didn't even want to travel to Nashville, Tennessee from Charlotte to go see my son's basketball game. When my family would go out to dinner, I'm like "I..." all of my feelings were gone. It was like it was burnt, it was charred. I wasn't mad or angry. I was just done. For the first time in my life, I understood what depression must feel like.

I had at that point had businesses that ran themselves, investments, happily married, healthy kids, financial freedom, everything that you could want, and yet I felt done. I just want to encourage some listeners right now that you feel done. That's exactly where God wants you because he's going to build you right back up. I felt at that moment, "If I continue to feel this way, I would rather not live."

Jim Daly: That's danger's ground.

Jason Benham: It's very dangerous ground. Now I wasn't ruminating on suicidal thoughts or anything, but I did feel like I just don't want to continue to feel this. It was at that moment I was in front of the fireplace, shell of a man, Tori came up and gave me hope. So that's why we speak to people who have somebody in your life that's got anxiety: give them hope. Be patient with them.

Jim Daly: Well, this has been a great start. We're going to come back next time, keep the discussion going and bring more of that hope and structure and how to think through these things. So if you're in that spot, I think we've laid the groundwork as to what might be occurring in your heart and your soul and in your life, and we want to be here for you. So get in touch with us. Get this great book, *Unshakable: A Proven Plan to Crush Anxiety, Defeat Overwhelm, and Conquer the Fears That Freak You Out*. I could think of ten people that need this just in my life, and I'm sure you're very similar. It may be you. Get in touch with us.

John Fuller: Call today. Our number is 800-A-FAMILY, 800-232-6459. Let us know you'd like to speak with a counselor, and we can schedule a time for them to give you a call back and help you make some healing progress. You can also request Jason and Tori's book, *Unshakable*. Make a monthly pledge of any amount today, and we'll send a copy of that book to you as our way of saying thank you for helping us strengthen and support families around the world. And if you're not in a spot to make a monthly pledge, we understand that; make a one-time gift, that certainly makes a difference as well.

Jim Daly: And here's why your financial support is so important. A woman named Annie is a stay-at-home mom raising three teenagers. She wrote to us and said, "I listen almost daily to your broadcasts. The variety of your shows provides guidance and encouragement to me as a mom and wife, but also as a Christian. God is really working through this ministry, and I just love that comment, John." That's what we're aiming for, to give people hope and help in Christ. And when we work together, marriages are strengthened, parents are empowered, preborn babies are saved through Option Ultrasound, and so much more. So please be generous with your giving to Focus on the Family today.

John Fuller: Again, our phone number, 800-A-FAMILY, or donate and get the Benhams' book at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Thanks for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we continue the conversation with Jason and Tori Benham and once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.

Jim Daly: Welcome back to Focus on the Family. It's so good to talk with you guys.

Jason Benham: Yes, great to talk to you, brother. Enjoy it.

Tori Benham: We're so glad to be here.

Jim Daly: I'm so glad you're here too, Tori, because you bring that woman's perspective, and I know a lot of the listeners and viewers appreciate that so it's not just three dudes talking here. This is an interesting topic. It can be a heavy topic, and I appreciate the tenderness we've all had with it. But it is about how to unlock somebody from this bondage, really. People feel guilty even hearing that. That's not the intent of it. It's how do we get you to a better place? That's the goal. I think deep down, that's where you want to be. It feels impossible, and we're going to hopefully make the impossible possible, and you can get to that place.

Jason, last time we talked, many stories you guys shared about how it felt. You kind of fell into this anxiety moment about to give a speech, a talk. You're the third person—I'm sitting here going, "When is that going to happen to me?" I'm hoping not. You're the third person that has shared an experience like that. But also in the book *Unshakable*, you shared an analogy. It's like being in a car and all the things that are going on in a car. Illuminate that for us.

Jason Benham: Right. Well, looking at anxiety as projected powerlessness, you know, it's projecting fear into the future. First, Tori and I are not PhD type people. We didn't come at this from a technical angle. I'm just a simple former jock who struggled with anxiety and figured out a way out of it because I dove so deep into it, read everything that you could read on anxiety. I was thinking if my kid was struggling with anxiety, how would I describe it to him? I thought of this analogy of a car.

Now just imagine a car, like a luxury vehicle, but the kind that actually has a driver, a chauffeur, and you're going to ride in the back seat. Not a Tesla, but your body is the car. Your brain is you. You're in the back seat, right? You're calling all the shots. Your nervous system is the driver. Now there's the parasympathetic, sympathetic—we don't have time to go into all of that stuff. But so long as everything is good, your driver, your chauffeur, is pressing the gas when it needs to go, pressing the brake when it needs to stop, and everything is totally fine.

But then all of a sudden, you pull up to a stop sign and an intruder jumps in named Anxiety and gets into the back seat and starts screaming in your ear, "Hey, danger's ahead! We're being followed by a black car! They're coming to take you out!" What do you do? You yell at the driver, "Floor it! Let's go! Push the gas!" That's where all of a sudden now your nervous system takes over and your car—now just imagine if that anxiety stayed there, kept yelling into your brain. Because that's what anxiety does: it hijacks your brain. Then it distorts your emotions, and then it actually perverts pressure.

But next thing you know, you've got your driver, your nervous system, is flooring it, and that's your adrenaline and cortisol is jumping out there and doing all the stuff, and your parasympathetic nervous system is not able to press the brakes and say, "Hey, slow down, rest, digest." So all of that stuff happens. Next thing you know, your body starts to break down. Can you imagine driving from Dallas to Colorado Springs just floored it as fast as you can go without ever stopping?

Jim Daly: I did that once. I slowed down in the cities. But I get your point. Your body is too high on adrenaline.

Jason Benham: It's what happens if you've ever seen the movie *Inside Out 2*. I encourage everybody—it's a Pixar movie—go watch *Inside Out 2*. But anxiety jumps into the brain of this little girl and it does the very thing: it starts to take over, it hijacks the brain and starts screaming, "Alert, alert, alert! Danger, danger, danger!" and it's pulling on your natural fear response, which is a good thing. We should have a natural fear of putting a fork into an outlet. Imagine if you didn't have that fear; you'd shock yourself. But what anxiety does is it starts pulling that alarm and alerting you to fear that doesn't really exist.

Jim Daly: I think the difficulty, again, is for those that are in anxiety, we're trying to provide you handles to understand what's going on. Because again, you had to climb out of that. And thank God you did. And Tori, thank God you were there to give him hope, and we talked about that last time. But it feels hopeless, and I don't want to diminish that because I know people are watching and listening that are in that spot. They're not out of it yet. They're maybe at the beginning where you were. So this is really designed just to give you the hope that you need to see things differently. That's the start, correct?

Jason Benham: Absolutely.

Jim Daly: Your dad was in the book as well. You shared a story about him as a pastor, and he had a desire, a hope, a dream, but something happened to him when he was young that continued—that voice in his head that kept telling him something. What happened there?

Jason Benham: You've got to get to the root of your anxiety. When you know what it is, which is projected powerlessness, and now all of a sudden you're experiencing some of those things that are happening in your body, in your brain, you're starting to ruminate and all the stuff's starting to happen, you've got to get to the root. We do have a little small acrostic that really helps: STOP. Like, how do I get to the root? Think of STOP.

Let's start with S: Sin, self-talk, stress. First, ask God, "Is there anything in my life that I have let come into my life that shouldn't be there?" It might not be the case, but it's always a good place to start because here's the thing: Satan has hijacked conviction and calls it anxiety. We have coached people who are struggling with guilt over sin and they're like, "Well, I'm struggling with anxiety." I'm like, "Well, no, you need to repent of some..." S: Sin, self-talk, negative self-talk, and then stress.

Then you've got the T, which is trauma. That's trauma that could have happened to you emotionally, but it could have happened to you physically. You've got the O, which is origin. Maybe you're somebody that runs like a sports car, or maybe you're somebody that runs like an RV, a recreational vehicle. Origin in terms of your family, the way that you were raised, nature-nurture. Then P would be products, the stuff that you're putting into your body, whether it's food, whether it's alcohol, whether it's caffeine, whatever it is.

But when I get to the T and I think about trauma, my dad experienced this. When my dad was in junior high, he had a teacher named Ma McKenna. Now my dad is 77 years old. He's spoken all over the world. He's a preacher, stood on stage and preached, and I remember once asking him, "Dad, why don't you have a book?" He said, "I'll never write a book." I'm like, "Why?" He said, "Because of Ma McKenna." I was like, "Wait, I don't... well, who is that?" He's like, "That was my seventh grade English teacher, and I wrote a paper once and she wrote so much red on there that it looked like she bled on it, and at the top, she actually demeaned me in something that she said, and then she spoke it to the class. She told the class about it." He said it was humiliating. "And I vowed at that moment that I'd never write." He said, "To this day, if I write a sermon or anything like that," he said, "I'm self-correcting while I'm writing because I still hear Ma McKenna." This is six decades later. That was a traumatic event. Ma McKenna didn't mean that, but he went through something that was an emotional trauma there. That's why I say 2 Corinthians 12 is so powerful, that God was saying, "My strength is perfect in your weakness. I'm allowing you to be weak because I'm about to show you how I'm going to be strong, but you're going to have to get to some roots first."

John Fuller: This Focus on the Family broadcast will continue in just a moment.

Jim Daly: Hey parents, *Adventures in Odyssey* has been helping kids like yours form relationships with Christ for almost 40 years. Now the animated *Adventures in Odyssey* film *Journey into the Impossible* will reach a new generation of families. But we need your help to finish the film and launch it in theaters. Your gift will be matched dollar for dollar before May 1st. See the trailer and donate today at focusonthefamily.com/impossible. That's focusonthefamily.com/impossible.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. Let's resume now with the balance of today's programming.

Jim Daly: Jason, explain why you believe God uses fear as an invitation. I mean, fear can be confusing. "Fear God"—I mean, fear is in the Bible a lot. But we're trying to say sometimes God will use that to set an environment that draws you to him.

Jason Benham: That's exactly right. You cannot be courageous if fear doesn't first present itself, right? That's why I think in Psalm 23 it says, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." It's not the valley of death because the reality is always not as bad as the possibility. It's the shadow of death. What's bigger, death or death's shadow? The shadow. If I were to see a wolf, that would be pretty bad. But if I were to shine a flashlight out and see the wolf shadow, that's monstrous. That's terrifying. The shadow is always worse. Tori has a story of where she had to face that fear and realized that that is an invitation for you to stand strong and see what God can do when you operate out of faith and not fear.

Tori Benham: I grew up in a really small town in Torrington, Connecticut, and everyone that I knew—my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my best friends' parents—they all worked together. It was just like a very close-knit community, and that was just what I knew. When Jason and I first got married, we started having kids right away. That wasn't the plan, but I got pregnant five months after we got married, and that started baby number one, two, three, and four, and it kept me busy.

A few years in, Jason was traveling a lot, and he had started several businesses, and there was an angst in my heart. I was home all the time, and I felt left out of Jason's life. I remember hearing John Gottman—he's a leading psychologist—he said that at the gridlock of every marital conflict are unrealized life dreams. I remember thinking that it really resonated with me because I had forgotten that I had had a life dream to work with Jason. I thought my life was going to look like my parents' life and my grandparents' life where they just did everything together. Now here's Jason, all his businesses, he's got business partners, and I'm not the business partner. I remember just feeling that I longed for that, that I wanted that. That was a life dream of mine.

Shortly into our marriage, Jason has his master's in marriage and family. So that opened the door to where a lot of couples were coming to us and saying, "Oh Jason, you're a licensed marriage counselor, can we get some marriage counseling?" We're just a couple years in, and we're like, "Sure, but we're having our own issues." But what it did is it opened the door for us to do marriage ministry together. Slowly but surely, we began to do other things. We wrote a book on our marriage, and then we started getting asked to speak. That's when anxiety entered the picture for me.

I had always longed to do more with Jason, but I am not a public speaker. That is not something I ever wanted or asked for. But we did it, and it was horrible. I was so anxious. I was so tied up inside. I hated every minute. But the Lord continued to open up these invitations for us to come and to go and to speak together. As time went on and the Lord opened more doors, I thought I was kind of breaking through it. I was getting some headway.

We were asked to speak at a marriage conference, the Focus on the Family marriage conference here in Colorado. We showed up to this event, and Dr. Gary Chapman was in the room. We walked up to him, and Jason put his arm around him and he said, "You know who this is? This is Dr. Gary Chapman. He's written the best-selling marriage book of all time, *The 5 Love Languages*." I think he's the most prolific Christian author ever. He's a legend, and he's a good friend.

He looked at me, and he said, "What are you guys speaking about tonight?" and my heart just went to my feet because in that moment, I felt like such an imposter. Like, who am I to speak in front of Dr. Gary Chapman? What am I doing? It was—I just felt the weight of anxiety, projected powerlessness. I can't do this. I'm not a speaker. This is what Jason does. How did I get roped into this? I excused myself, and I went to the bathroom, and I sat in the stall, and I was just gripped by anxiety. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here.

It's in those moments of desperation that the Lord always speaks to me. I wish it wasn't so. I wish that I would be more intent to listen to him in less intense moments. But in those moments of desperation, I said, "God, help me. I can't do this. I don't know how I got here, but here I am, and I need your help, Lord." I just remember looking at the back of the stall, just thinking like God was there, like he's going to say something. He's got to say something. You've got to help me. I just felt the presence of the Lord come over me, and I felt like he said, "You don't have to do this. I invited you to do this."

It was just this calm that came over me when he said, "You don't have to do this. There's no pressure here. This is—I just invited you to this." It was like this just moment for me where I realized that just like I had this longing in my heart to do stuff with Jason, the Lord was giving this opportunity for us to do more. The Lord was saying to me, "I want to do stuff with you too. I am inviting you into a space with me, and I know you can do it, and I just invited you to come, but you don't have to do it. This is just an invitation." Everything shifted for me. It wasn't "I have to do this, I can't do this." It was the Lord saying to me, "Come. Do you want to come?"

It reminded me of Peter in the boat when he wanted Jesus to step out. He's like, "Invite me to come, right? Like call me out." Jesus says, "Okay, I'll call you out." Jesus says, "Come on." Then he gets in the water, and he's fine until he thinks about himself. It's not that he's not trusting Jesus; it's that he's trusting his own ability. He's like, "I don't walk on water," and then he sinks. I was doing the same thing. I'm like, "I don't do this. This is not who I am," and I began to sink because I was focused on me. I was focused on my own limitations, and I wasn't focused on the one who was saying "Come."

Jim Daly: That is such a wrap of what we're talking about. I mean, that really—I hadn't thought about that scripture in that way, but yeah, that's all about anxiety and "What am I doing, and I'm sinking!" and the Lord reaches down and pulls Peter up out of the water. That's like everyday life for all of us in our own context, whatever that might be.

Jason Benham: In moments like what Tori was experiencing, there are three things that you need to do: you need to recognize, renounce, replace. You need to recognize where this thought is coming from. You need to recognize what's happening in the moment and that it comes from Satan. You need to recognize it happening in the moment. Now that you've shined the light on the enemy, how do you defeat him?

Well, first, you have to renounce the lies he's tempting you to believe in that moment: the lie that you're unsafe, the lie that you need to control everything, the lie that it's all going to end in disaster. It's a lie. It's just a lie. Then you need to replace it with truth. What does that look like? It looks like replacing worry with worship in that moment. Listen, anxiety focuses on *how*. Worship focuses on *who*. Anxiety is going to focus on the problem, but worship focuses on the person.

So in that moment when Tori was in that stall, God got her out of thinking about herself and got her thinking about him. That's why we say that fear is an invitation into something greater. But that recognize, renounce, replace formula is—we dive into that in our book, and the whole book is about that and we dissect that to help people and give them practical handles on how to get out of anxiety.

Jim Daly: You know, and I think when you look at maturing in Christ, I feel we need to say this not to throw water on that, but the healthiest place you can get to is even if your circumstances are not dictating victory, that your trust in Christ is there. I think God smiles on that soul who can say, "Yeah, hey, don't crucify me the same way as the Lord. Turn me upside down," which is what Peter said. That's having a grasp of your circumstances and then controlling them, actually, being victorious in that. And I don't mean that to be overly dramatic, but my goodness, talk about managing your fear and saying, "Hey, I know what's coming. I know death is going to come eventually for me, but I'm going to be submitted concretely in Christ because that's where everything comes from. That's where life comes from."

Jason Benham: That's so funny you say that because I literally thought that very thought in the middle of my anxiety, and I thought, "Well, what's the worst that could happen?" I thought, "Well, I could die." Then my brain went into, "Well, what happens if I die? To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I would be with the Lord."

You know who I thought of? I thought of John the Baptist. We think about John the Baptist lost his head in prison. He literally had his head cut off. But I think about that. The few seconds just before his head was cut off, he's John the Baptist in a prison cell. A couple seconds later, he's John the Baptist giving God the Father a high five and hugging him up and God's like, "I got you here earlier than you thought, but it's a direct route." So it is kind of like where you can catastrophize it on purpose, go to the worst thing that can happen, and be okay with that, and then let's start working backwards.

Jim Daly: But you know, even in that example, it's fascinating that John sitting in prison said, "Go to Jesus and ask him, 'Are you the one?' because if you're the one, why am I in prison?" I mean, that was really the extraction of that. "Am I missing it? Did I not have it right?" Then the word came back to him, "No, you're in the right place, and just trust the Lord."

It's so cool the heroes of our faith we can identify with them. John the Baptist, he might have been a little offended. But just think about Jesus in the garden when he sweat drops of blood. Go and look that up. That's an anxiety episode in that moment. It shows you that Jesus died with no sin. He didn't give in to anxiety. He didn't give in to that, but he was experiencing pressure to a point that I think only one other account in human history where they've sweat drops of blood. Where Jesus actually faced down anxiety and made it through. Our own Savior experienced some of those same feelings that we have—the gut-burning sensations and all that kind of stuff—but he made it through. If he can make it through, we can make it through.

That's the whole point. You know, the last thought here is a child. There is something about a child that is so simple. They trust they're going to have a meal, they trust they're going to put their head down and get a good night's sleep. Jesus himself said, "Don't hinder children coming to me, for the kingdom of God is like these children." I'm just sitting here thinking, while you're yoked up with the Lord in this life to have that conversation with him, that's what he's looking for. Just to look at him and say, "Lord, man, this is easier, or thank you for this. Why is this easier?" and just let your heart hear from him through the Holy Spirit, the word of God. Those are the promises that he gives you: have that childlike heart to trust that he is there, to trust that he is.

Jason Benham: I love that you brought that up because when Tori and I did our interview with you guys on our book *Beauty in Battle*, our marriage book, I had just gotten past this anxiety stuff, and I hadn't written the anxiety book or anything. While I was doing makeup down with your makeup lady down there, I started to feel an episode coming on, and my knee started to shake. This was right before I was coming on with you guys. So if you go back and watch that episode of *Beauty in Battle*, I was suffering some anxiety while I was talking with you guys. My knee was shaking. But I held on to what God reminded me of when I was sitting in her chair: "Hey, you get to do this. You get to be on Focus on the Family. There's no organization that has helped the family more worldwide than Focus on the Family," and I should be thankful for that. I was thanking the Lord. Halfway through our talk, I was great. This was fantastic.

Jim Daly: Well, we're thankful you said yes several times and to have both of you here. Tori, it's great to have you here. It's just been a delight to remind everybody of what it means to rest, to be at peace with the Lord, to take that yoke up with him and not try to carry this on our own. If you're in that spot, could you get a hold of us? We're here for that. Nothing's going to embarrass you. We've been at this 48, 49 years now, and we've heard a lot of input from listeners in the past. We've put that all in databases. We have resources for just about every situation you're going to face in your life.

Let us be there to minister to you. It's a privilege for us to do that and for the donors who support Focus to be able to make that happen. When I'm meeting with the donors having a meal with somebody that has helped us, they are in. They're saying, "This is what we want you to be doing." I love it. My job is to run Focus effectively and efficiently so you can do ministry through it with your finances and your prayers. I'll make that commitment, and we just need you to step up and support us as well. If you can make a gift of any amount, we'll send you a copy of the book as our way of saying thank you for being connected to the ministry and providing those counselors to do those calls and helping people get to a better place with Christ.

John Fuller: Pray with us and for us, and we so appreciate that. And as you can, donate generously today and we'll send the Benhams' book *Unshakable* to you. Our number is 800-A-FAMILY, and we've got details about connecting with our counselors, donating, and getting this book and other resources to help, all on our website, focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Let me encourage you to make a monthly commitment to Focus. Jean and I support Focus that way. I know you and Dena do as well, John. Thank you, by the way, if I haven't sent you a note lately. I believe in this ministry. But let me tell you why. Here's the payback. Here's the report on the investor investment. We got a note from a gentleman named Andy and he said, "Even as a Christian, I struggled with resentment, insecurity, and shame. Those are all things that can lead to anxiety. The Lord uses Focus on the Family's podcast as one of his tools to bring me out of those pits. Thanks to you and all of your guests who have been willing to share their brokenness and point people like me back to Christ. Humility is a precious commodity. Keep shining it." You guys have done a beautiful job of that. I mean, that's written right to you to be able to come on talk about your lives, that brokenness but where God healed. Thank you for doing that on behalf of Andy.

Jason Benham: Appreciate it.

John Fuller: Thanks for having us.

Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

Jim Daly: You're listening to Focus on the Family's weekend broadcast. We'll take a quick break and then return with the second half of this program for your family. Stay tuned.

John Fuller: Chat GPT and AI can offer you ideas and attempt to give you answers, but it can't listen with compassion, pray with you, or offer biblical wisdom. Real connection is what brings true hope. Focus on the Family offers a free confidential consultation with a Christian counselor to guide you and help you find hope with whatever you're facing. Go to focusonthefamily.com/gethelp or call 1-800-A-FAMILY. That's 1-800, the letter A, the word FAMILY.