Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast, I’m super glad to have with me Johnny Ardavanis. He’s the lead pastor of Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He’s the founder and president of Dial In ministries, a ministry that provides biblical resourcing for the next generation. Johnny formerly served as both a camp director at Hume Lake Christian Camps and as a dean at The Master’s University. Johnny’s passionate about people coming to know and love Jesus Christ as they pursue a deeper understanding of His Word. Johnny lives in Franklin, Tennessee with his wife, Caity Jean, and their two daughters. Brother, it’s so good to be with you. I’m looking forward to our time together and this topic, which is really talking about your book that you recently released back in October 2024, Consider the Lilies [1]. Welcome the podcast, brother.
Jonny Ardavanis: Dale, thanks so much for having me on. So grateful to be here.
Dale Johnson: Now odd title maybe, right? As we think about God, this is a prayer that we would often pray or think about, as we struggle with anxieties, worries, cares, burdens that we experience. So, I want to talk about your book in terms of that very common question or feeling that we have considered the lilies. I want you to describe—obviously if you’re familiar with the Bible, you know sort of where Johnny may be going here as he’s talking about considering the lilies in relation to our fear and worry and anxiety. Johnny, give us a little bit on how this book came together. That’s always intriguing to me to hear what started this idea. You talk a little bit about it at the beginning of the book, but just give us some context for that.
Jonny Ardavanis: Yeah, I was burdened to write a resource on the subject. You know, you mentioned I was working at a student ministries camp called Hume Lake for several years where there was you know, thousands of students every week that come up to learn from God’s Word. It wasn’t just the students, it was their counselors and their pastors that come with them. One of the prevalent themes that became quickly apparent amongst both the students, the counselors, the pastors is that people were very anxious. Whether that’s a thirteen-year-old or 53-year-old pastor, people were looking for answers regarding what did the Scripture say about anxiety? Even with students, you know, there is just the rise of medication that we had to distribute over the years and it’s not just the students that are medicated. I mean, the number one demographic of people taking antidepressants is middle-aged women. People always talk about this is as a younger people problem and it’s definitely not. So, I started doing an optional seminar during camp, “what does the Bible say about anxiety?” and initially maybe I called it “what does Jesus say about our anxiety?” It was 3:00 in the afternoon and it was conflicting with paddle boarding, volleyball tournaments, and swimming in the lake. It was interesting to me that the chapel would kind of pack out with students and pastors that were really desperate for answers on what does the Scripture say about this prevalent problem? And I started teaching really different features on the character of God and I’ll kind of weave in the story, but it was five realities about the character of God, and then it turned to seven and I started handing out a Google doc to people that were asking, “can you send me your notes?” And over time, you know, I went from Hume like you mentioned and then to The Master’s University and you would maybe imagine that in this very staunch Scriptural environment, where people and students attended Bible classes, Bible chapels and went to Bible preaching churches that maybe the onslaught of anxiety would be more foreign. But even at The Master’s University, which is a Christian University that upholds Scripture, it was still a very common problem, the ideas of self-harm, or crippling panic attacks weren’t like foreign ideas here. And now obviously, I went from a student ministries camp, college university, to now I’m a senior pastor of a very multi-generational church and the issue is still very common. People are anxious, they’re worried, they’re fearful. It could be a potential cancer diagnosis, it could be their washing machine that’s broken or a mole on the back of their neck and they’re wondering, what is this? And so, because it’s so common I think this is an issue that people of all ages are looking for biblical answers on and we can get more into the heart of the book, but that’s at least the initial burden behind it—it was recognizing just how common the search, “why am I so anxious?” is amongst even the godliest of individuals in the church today.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, I think that’s so helpful. I think the best books are written in that way, where it becomes something the Lord helps you to see where people are really struggling. Yet your natural instinct is so helpful, to be provoked back to the Scripture. To say, “Okay Lord, these are experiences that we’re having, surely they’re not foreign to the Word. So, Lord, how do we think about this?” And I know when I’m counseling somebody who’s struggling with despair or anxiety or worry, one of the questions I always lead with is, “Tell me some of the things that you’ve tried to get over this anxiety. What are the things that you’ve done? You find yourself in social experiences and you’re very nervous. You’re worrisome. You maybe even have a panic attack, what are some of the things that you’ve tried to get over this?” Talk a little bit about some of the antidotes that you see relative to fear and worry and anxiety that are so common. Then, maybe talk a little bit about how God consistently, constantly, repeatedly even responds to these anxious thoughts, experiences, and dispositions, in His Word. How does He help us to think through that?
Jonny Ardavanis: Yeah well, I think as far as what’s common in the world today—I think it depends on maybe the nature of what you’re anxious about. You know, if it’s a student, it could be the prevalence of vaping or it could be pornography, the common coping mechanisms for anxiety amongst teenage boys. And you know for young men is pornography and vaping, so you have different elements like that. With young adults, you could have the same thing. You could sweep it under the rug, you know, so you have this low-grade anxiety your entire life. You kind of feel like you’re running on fumes when you talk to a lot of people. When you ask a 28 year old how they’re doing it’s busy and tired and staying alive. For a dad for instance, you know one of the things that’s come out really since the book was released in October is even amongst a lot of men who wouldn’t say they’re anxious, they may mask their anxiety with ambition. Like I have this maybe good stress or concern to provide for my family, I wouldn’t even semantically call it anxiety, you know? For them, they call it a healthy concern that they just double down and grind, right? So, it could be a host of different things: It could be antidepressants, it could be medication, it could be something that masks the symptoms without really ever addressing the root cause.
You asked a question: You know, what does the Bible say? And I would just pause there for a second. Well, praise the Lord you can even ask the question, right? Because sometimes we take the Scriptures for granted. Let’s rewind, if you’re a believer. Let’s say you’re not a believer and you’re looking at this from like a blank canvas, does the God of the universe speak to the most prevalent problem in our world today? You’d go, yes, He does. And He does so with a level of clarity, power, grace and compassion that transforms you. And so sometimes you go, “Hey what does the Bible say about this?” Well, that’s amazing, you know, regarding the Scripture. This is one of the things that’s really encouraging. Some of the most heroic people of the faith are crippled by anxiety. Let’s just give a few examples. And I walk through this, not to establish solidarity, but to show the theme of the way God responds to these individuals. So, Moses is you know… Whenever you search a photo of Moses on Google Images, you have this super vascular man. Moses has a commission by God to go to the most powerful man on planet Earth and take on the most powerful army on planet Earth with a stick and he’s anxious. He’s nervous. He says, “God, I can’t do this, send someone else.” And he says it’s because he stutters; he doesn’t talk well. God responds, I’ll get to this in a moment, but Moses is very anxious. Job: there are 15 times in the Old Testament the Hebrew word tōm is used, it means blameless. Only once out of the 15 times is it referred to a man; that guy’s name is Job. You know the story, Job’s life falls apart, Sabaeans, Chaldeans, wind, fire destroys everything. Initially, he responds by saying, “You give and you take away, oh Lord. Blessed be the name.” But by the middle of the book that bears his name, Job says his life has tuned to the sound of wailing. He’s a companion of jackals and he’s saying basically, “God kill me. Take my life.” That’s the most blameless man in the world, saying “God, kill me.” Moses is the lawgiver. Elijah is the law’s most faithful proclaimer. 1 Kings 18, you gotta love the story. Elijah takes on 850 false prophets. He’s the guy that turns the sky to brass for three years, not an ounce of rain. He calls down fire from heaven, and says “Yahweh is the only true God.” I mean this is just an epic account. In the following chapter, he finds out that Jezebel is coming for him. He hides under a tree, and he begs God to kill him. Now David, just a last example: Of the 42 kings in the Old Testament, only one of them is referred to as a man after God’s own heart. That guy’s name is David. You look up David, I mean, that guy is a warrior. He’s a man’s man, but 33% of the Psalms are lament and in some of those psalms David is saying, “Every single night I make my bed swim with my own tears, where are you God?” So, I mention those four characters because those are some of the most notable characters in the Old Testament, who deeply struggled with anxiety, worry, and depression to the degree that a couple of them asked God to take their life.
Now, you have to ask the question: If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, how does God respond to these individuals? And the argument that I make in my book Consider the Lilies is the way that God responds to them routinely is not by saying, “let me tell you why this is happening,” but by declaring, “let me tell you who I am.” For instance, with Moses, He says, “Moses who made man’s mouth? Is it not I the Lord? I’m going to go with you.” To Job, I mean God comes out of the whirlwind in chapter 38. You know the story, and He doesn’t say, “okay Job, to be fair you’ve been dealt a bad hand.” No, He says, “Job gird your loins” and “I’m going to declare who I am.” And for four chapters He declares His sovereignty, His power, His majesty. At the end of the book Job says, “I’ve always heard about you with my ears, but now my eyes see, I get it.” With David, God proclaims His character through the power of His spirit. With Elijah, God comes to Elijah and He proclaims His character. Obviously, you know, one of the things I include in my book is that He first gives Elijah a nap and a snack because we’re body, soul, and mind. You can’t demarcate the physical from the spiritual. Martyn Lloyd-Jones talks about that in Spiritual Depression. But God declares who He is, and in each case that affirmation of God’s character is not just something we objectively affirm—It’s something we also subjectively believe. It has to be true in our heart and it has to be dominated in our mind.
When you get to Jesus in the New Testament, He’s beckoning His anxious followers to think, to consider, to grapple with the truth about who their heavenly Father is. The antidote remains the same, its God’s character, God’s character, God’s character. I used to tell students this, and then I want you to chime in, Dale, I’m not trying to filibuster here. I used to tell students that if Jesus was going to show up (and I tell my church this) to preach on anxiety in 2025, Stonebridge Bible Church featuring Jesus of Nazareth on the subject of anxiety. Jesus would walk up behind the pulpit and He would say, “Open your Bibles.” He’s got nothing new to say, right? The Word of God is sufficient. We always think about the people that are anxious on the mount of beatitudes being farmers with pitchforks. What could they possibly be worrying about? Well, they’re under the ruthless regime of Rome. It was the Roman tetrarch who chopped off the head of John the Baptist. Rome used to crucify men, women and children for 40 miles. This was a regime that was ruthless. Jesus is addressing people with a real battle for bread and real relational problems. He doesn’t dismiss their anxieties, instead He points and directs them to the character of God by saying, “look at the birds, they neither sow nor reap yet your heavenly father feeds them.” And then He wants to argue with us from the lesser than to the greater than: If God cares for the birds, that in Matthew 11 are sold for a pair for a penny—they’re not made in the image of God and you are made in the image of God. If God provides and cares for the larks and the lilies, how much more does He care for you? So, God’s character is the antidote to anxiety, and it’s obviously more than just, “I believe He’s sovereign, I believe He loves.” We can talk about that more, but that’s the general theme of my book and of Scripture, I believe.
Dale Johnson: The next question I want to talk about is the character of God. How is this a consistent response in Scripture? But before, I don’t want our listeners to miss something that you said that I think is really important—that you just gave four examples, but what you’re showing is consistency of human experience. You said that God is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. If that’s the case, if He’s teaching us as people who love ourselves and are dependent upon ourselves, He’s teaching us how to be less dependent—because that’s killing us—and more dependent on Him. Then the reality is, this is a common experience that we’re going to feel, right? Jesus even teaches on this issue of being anxious. Paul readily teaches on this issue. What that teaches me is that we’re going to have lots of opportunities to feel anxiety, just like you described it. It’s a very natural human experience. What we’ve done in our culture, however, is we’ve described these things as being abnormalities and therefore made them into illnesses and so on. That’s different from the way God presents these things in the Scripture. When we describe these experiences the way the culture does, now we don’t see the beauty and consistency of the method that you just described. We have a tendency to take the character of God and dismiss it as if it’s insufficient, not helpful. What’s helpful is if these things are spiritual, but not in the real issues of anxiety. I think that’s an important distinction that we need to make and so, that leads me to the question of the character of God. So many people would say, “Well that’s terrible counsel. why should we start out there? we need to deal with x, y, &, z first, before we even talk about the character of God.” But genuinely, as you’ve demonstrated in this book, and just briefly in your comments, the character of God really is the place where if we gazed, it starts to settle the heart in a way that nothing else can. I want you to talk a little bit about the beauty of the character of God, and how focusing on God’s character is not just a lofty, intellectual idea. It becomes something that’s very practical and effective that helps to guard the heart and destroy these feelings that we’re overwhelmed with, with anxiety.
Jonny Ardavanis: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think for anybody that would maybe claim that the Scriptural prescription for anxiety is antiquated, you then have to just consider then is Jesus all-knowing? Does He know what we need? Does He know us? And you could go back to the life of David. I would say certain things that David experienced were truly traumatic. You know, you have a guy that is on the road hiding in caves for 10 years from his father-in-law, desperately seeking to kill him. It’s not like David was just having a series of bad days. He’s hiding for 10 years. So, when you say like, “hey, the character of God—is that maybe just an empty platitude that Christians adhere to because it’s something to encourage them, but then they’ll go somewhere else to get real help?” Well for David, when he is anxious hiding in caves, he’s meditating on the character of God. Psalm 103 has great thoughts about the love of God and about the forgiveness of God. Psalm 139: “Where can I go from Your spirit, where can I flee from Your presence?” David’s in the middle of nowhere and he’s asking God, “if I go to the heavens, You’re there. If I make my bed in the depths, You’re there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, or I settle on the far side of the sea, You’re there. If I say surely the darkness will hide me and the night will become night round me, even there You are.” I mean, David is comforted by the presence of God in his life. That’s His omnipresence—which if you look at God’s omnipresence, you go okay checkbox, God is everywhere. For David that is the most thrilling reality, that no matter where he goes in his flight from Saul, God is there with him. He is with Him behind and before, and then David says, “you’ve laid your hand upon me.” That God is not just this distant, transcendent God; He’s a God who’s with us. David talks about that in Psalm 23, “even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Why? Why David? For you are with me. Paul’s going to use the same idea and I’m just using one attribute of God—His nearness. Right before Paul says in Philippians 4:6, “be anxious for nothing”, there’s four proceeding words, in Philippians 4:5, he says the Lord is what? He’s near. Then he says, “be anxious for nothing.” All of these different examples, they’re drawing truths from the attributes of God. And then even the love of God, let’s just take the love of God. A lot of people know that God loves them, but for David this was a thrilling reality. For Moses who was anxious—he has a certain prayer. He wrote one Psalm and in that one Psalm he says, “satisfy me in the morning with your lovingkindness, that I can be glad.” And this is an anxious guy, who has the responsibility of 2 million people, and he has a prayer: Satisfy me with your love. He doesn’t just say, “help me to believe this theologically.” So, there are these truths regarding God’s sovereignty. For instance, you know, it’s one thing to say, “God is in control.” It’s another thing to truly believe that God is orchestrating everything in your life, even the great difficulty and pain to weave out His plan, that’s for His glory and your good. And to acknowledge that there is never anything that God will do for His glory, that is not for your good. He’ll never do anything that is not for His glory. All of these truths are absolutely indispensable, have peace, and you mentioned anxiety is natural. That’s what struck me in reading Knowing God by Packer. I mention his book frequently. He just says, when you consider the world we live in, of course, we’re anxious, right? You can hardly process one tragedy before another one slaps you in the face. That’s why Paul calls it a peace that surpasses, what? All understanding. So, if you want something the world can’t buy, you need to follow the road map that’s provided for you by God.
Dale Johnson: I think that’s clear. Maybe one final thought. I want to make sure that I’ll have you back and if you’ll agree we’ll do some more on this as you think about this concept. It really is more than just an intellectual pursuit. God reveals Himself intentionally for our human response to be lived out very practically in life. Talk a little bit about God’s sovereignty. Bring it not so that that doesn’t remain a lofty, wonderful, intellectual thought about God being all powerful. But it’s intended to have consequences in the here and now. Talk about the sovereignty of God over all things, over the types of things that make us anxious—like what we’ve just been through in a political cycle, the financial pressures that we feel every month or every couple of weeks, relationships, common sources of worry like that. How does the sovereignty of God really become practical and meaningful, where we see the beauty, kindness of God by His sovereignty for our good.
Jonny Ardavanis: You know, I think for something to be applied, you know, a truth to be applied—and this is maybe a big part of what’s in the title with consider the lilies—it implies an element of meditation upon these realities, right? You can’t just affirm it. You have to dwell in it. That’s the whole point of the Psalms and the doorway to the Psalms begins with that blessed man. He meditates on these truths day and night. I hope my book is a blessing to people. You can’t read a book and be anxious free unless you implement the realities of Scripture. You can’t read your Bible once a week—and you know, of course you’re anxious, because the Scriptural call is to dwell deeply on these truths’ day and night. That’s Joshua 1:8. That’s Psalm 1. So, regarding God’s sovereignty, it’s a great question because Spurgeon says, “this is the pillow that you can lay your head on.” Bunion who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress while being in jail for 12 years, that’s where he wrote his best-selling book. He said, “the sovereignty of God is the impregnable rock you cling to.” And you mentioned things in our everyday life, politics, family, finances. You would just have to cling to certain truths of Scripture and then you ask God through the power of His Spirit to stamp those realities upon your heart. So, let’s just take political stuff for example, in the chapter I wrote on anxiety, it is deep theology, Dale. So, I think sometimes Biblical answers aren’t always easy to swallow. So, whenever you’re talking about the sovereignty of God, you are talking about deep theology. So, if I’m sitting with a sufferer—at the end of my chapter on anxiety, I tell a story about one of my best friend’s mom. His mom died following our college and I remember it was very sudden. She died of breast cancer. We flew home. We were in Australia and a couple days later his mom died. It was just like, wow, what happened? Someone just comes up and slaps him on the back and says God’s sovereign. And you’re going… That’s true, but one thing regarding the attributes of God that is very critical for at least this conversation is that God’s attributes are not pieces of a pie. You have to understand that God’s not 50% sovereign, 30% love, 10% justice, 5% omniscient, 2% omnipresent, He’s all of the attributes all of the time in full measure. So, He’s never flexing one attribute at the diminishment of another attribute. You can never untether God’s love from His sovereignty and never untie God’s sovereignty from his wisdom. So, you have to hold all of those things together or you’ll begin to view God as a capricious king pulling strings, not caring about you. I’ll get to your answer, but in Isaiah 43 you have this reality that God’s the sovereign King. He looks out at the inhabitants of the world and they’re like grasshoppers. He holds the waters in the palm of His hand. You get this magnified view of God, right? He’s a sovereign King. Gratefully, in the verses that precede that it says, God is like a nursing shepherd who guides. So, I would just encourage someone as he listened to me talk about the sovereignty of God or studied the subject in the theme, you always have to hold it in check with God’s love, his wisdom, his goodness. So politically, for example, I use the example in Daniel 1. You know, we live in a political, messy world and it says in Daniel 1:1, that in the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and besieged it. That’s the newspaper reading. Interestingly in the next verse, it says, “and the Lord gave Jehoiakim into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.” So, the world’s report verse 1. Second verse is God’s report. So, you see that Daniel’s grounded in an understanding that the king’s heart is like channels of water. He’s orchestrating everything. Even this president was elected by God. So, was the last president and so is the next president. That doesn’t ever diminish human responsibility. It doesn’t maybe negate our rights to vote. God’s sovereign over every king and every kingdom because every kingdom is orchestrated for His glory. So, you have that and you rest in that.
Obviously, I go into greater detail on how God is Sovereign over suffering and pain. If you don’t believe that, you’re going to have a difficult time rejoicing in trials. You know, one of the things that I was telling even my church a couple weeks ago is, I think subconsciously, we have Genesis 50:20 memorized, “What you meant for evil God turned into good.” That’s not what Joseph says. He says, “what you meant for evil, God meant for good”, you know, God is not up in glory, huddling with the angels, calling audibles, trying to salvage bad situations. He’s got a divine purpose, and he uses even the suffering in our life—1 Peter 4, “let those who suffer according to the will of God, knowing that we’re refined like gold in the furnace of affliction.” Psalm 103:19 says, “He’s sovereign over all.” So, all includes everything—Satan for example, in Job, is the one to ask God for permission, right? This is obviously a long subject, but I think even this idea, you know, people say, “Well, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of darkness. We live in a demonic world, a spiritually dark world.” I want to encourage people to know that God and Satan, God and the forces of darkness are not in this cosmic tug-of-war battle. It’s not Rocky vs. Drago: one punch and another punch. But we know God will win in the end. Satan is a runt pawn; God is the King. Martin Luther, I think said, “The devil is God’s devil or he’s on God’s leash.” Everything that maybe would trip us up—finances for example. Jesus says, in Matthew 6, “Who of you by being worried will add a single hour to his life, look at the lilies of the field, Solomon in all of his glory. Solomon had an allowance of 14 billion dollars a month, you know if you calculate the gold. God says, not even Solomon is clothed like one of these. And if God cares for the larks and the lilies, won’t He continue to do that for you? Paul says he’s going to meet your every need in Christ Jesus. So, the Scripture just responds, and you have to meditate on these truths. But you tell me what you’re anxious about, I understand the temptation to despair. Paul didn’t write be anxious for nothing from a corner office. He wrote that from prison and I think that’s another thing to consider is yeah there’s difficulty in our life, we’re all going to walk through trials, but God’s sovereignty is what allows you to know that He’s with you, that He’s got a plan and if you ever have a hard time trusting the sovereignty of God you just have to realize that in the sovereignty of God, the greatest evil happened to the greatest, most blameless individual because that’s where Jesus died. You know, the greatest demonstration of the sovereignty, love, and justice of God is the cross. And so, that’s what Peter preaches in Acts 2.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, so helpful and helpful context to weave all of that together. Not just cherry-picking passages, and we’re so guilty of that. One final question, the way we titled this, was maybe a way in which we try to ask God to deal with our anxiety. I titled this one today God, Take my Worry away and we find ourselves asking that question a lot. I want to frame it to you like this, when we feel that pressure, that anxiety, that tendency to distrust God in this circumstance, is that a good way to approach the Lord, “God, take my worry away.” Is that a good way to approach God to pray, if it’s not, is there a better way that we approach God in prayer?
Jonny Ardavanis: You know on the one hand I do want to be fair and acknowledge that multiple times in the Psalms David will say call on the Lord in the day of trouble. I think it’s perfectly biblical to say God help. But I make the argument in the book that God doesn’t simply want to remove your anxiety, He wants to replace your anxiety with trust because God’s will for our life is not just neutrality, it’s deep faith in the promises and character of God, with a deep sense of fellowship and intimacy with Him. So, I would think a more appropriate and biblical prayer would be “God, would you help me not to be anxious” but continue and go “Lord, would you help me to honor You, by trusting that You’re a sovereign God, that You rule, and that You reign, that You uphold the universe by the word of Your power”. It says in Hebrews 1:3 but Lord, You also uphold and sustain me, You’re mindful of me, help me to know that You know me, right? Augustin says, “I’m a puzzle in a mystery to myself” and the Word of God says, you’re not a puzzle or a mystery to me, I know you and the God that knows the worst about us is the one that loves us the most. Help me Lord to believe that. Help me to believe that you’re not disillusioned by this posture and version of me that I present, and that I’m truly loved and truly known by God. That You hold me and that you’ll guide me. Help me, Lord, to believe that you answer my prayers and hear my prayers. Help me to see you both as a father and a king, knowing that if I only see you as a father it might become your sentimentality and if I only see you as a king, then I’ll see you only as this may be capricious God, exercising control without the reality that you hold me in your hand.” So, I want to have a comprehensive view of the character of God and the Word of God because A.W. Tozer said “it takes a whole Bible to make a whole Christian”. So, in that regard, “Lord, would you ground me deeply in truth, not as the end, but as the means to the end, which would be knowing Jesus Christ.” And I think that’s a big thing, Dale, that I would want to encourage people. Truth is not the end. It’s the means to the end and the end is knowing a person, The person of Jesus Christ, John 17:3. And so, I think a lot of people are anxious because they know God as a subject, and if you know God has a subject, you will be anxious because you need a friend. Jesus says, “I’m a friend of sinners.” You need a shepherd and Jesus says, “I’m a shepherd,” you need a guide He says, “I’m a guide.” I want that deep sense and I think sometimes, you know, Dale, you and I come from similar environments that values the objectivity of truth. I think one of the things that I see in the Scripture is that objectivity produces a real sense of subjectivity of God does love me, and I know it. That’s not seeker sensitive, that’s Romans 5:5, the role of the Holy Spirit is to pour out the love of God into your heart so that you go, “Jesus loves me and I believe that.” And so, I think that’s one of the key ways that prayer does come in is, “Lord I don’t want to just affirm these truths, I want to experience them, not in a mystical way, but in a way where David says, because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise you.”
Dale Johnson: Well done brother. I mean very helpful, challenging. This is the good kind of challenge. We’re at the end of that. What we see is the full riches of Christ and the comfort—oh my goodness the comfort that we walk in because of it. I think the more that we walk through the difficulties of life, the greater we see the beauty of the treasures of riches and knowledge found in the Lord. We see it differently. We see it better. We see it more clearly. And I think you’re expanding on that so well and you do so in the book too. And I want to recommend to all of you, you get Johnny Ardavanis’s book Consider the Lilies [1]you won’t regret it I think it’ll be refreshing to your soul, feeding to your soul. I find it very practical. The next time that you walk through temptations of anxious thoughts, anxious feelings, anxious circumstances. So brother, thank you for being with us today.
Jonny Ardavanis: Thanks for having me on and God bless you and your ministry.