Depending on God with Blair & Shai Linne
Today we get to hear from Shai and Blair Linne on the topic of anxiety and how God has met them in the various difficult aspects of their story. We pray that this episode encourages you to see the Lord’s kindness in showing you your own need for him in whatever he is walking you through today.
NOTES & QUOTES
Shai: “We're all born into this broken world, and we need a Savior, and there's nothing we can do to make ourselves clean. We have to have a foreign righteousness that God graciously provides us through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So Penelope Judd is that story. And I really hope that it will help parents in communicating the gospel in a clear way to their kids.”
Blair: “We all need God's help to breathe. But how many of us are asking God for that? Going through these panic attacks I certainly have had to ask God, ‘Help me, Lord, to breathe.’ What it caused in me is a greater dependence on the God who has the resources that I don't have. Often anxiety, behind it is this lie that we are in control of our life, of all these things that we're concerned about. And so we're trying to control it. But the truth is there's only one person who has sufficient resources. There's only one who's not anxious and that's God.”
Blair: “My circumstances of feeling anxious helped me to see how much I have to depend upon my God, the One who has the resources I don't have. And so in that, it strengthened my faith, matured my faith, and helped me to be able to even thank the Lord for what he's doing in the midst of the hardship, because it's creating a greater dependence.”
Blair: “Scripture talks about Christ being perfected, his strength being shown in our weakness, and when you are at the end of yourself, by God's grace, he shows up and says, ‘I want to be here with you in the midst of it.’”
Blair: “So many passages of Scripture say, ‘Do not fear,’ and we focus on that and we stay there. And sometimes we use it almost like a rebuke. But he says, ‘For I am with you. I am with you in the midst of it.’ And that is what really strengthened me to understand who is with me in this fight, who is with me in this suffering and affliction. And it is the ‘I am.’ It is the God who is holy, holy, holy, who knows all things, and yet is right here lovingly with me.”
Blair: “What does it look like to tremble before God? It's not a terror. It has nothing to do with condemnation, but it is a fear that is sanctified. It's a reverence and awe because of the love God has lavished upon us like a father to a child. That is the comfort I received in the midst of this very difficult season. And it’s the same comfort I seek to share with those who read [my book].”
Blair: “Even in the end when the Lord started to wean me from feeling anxious every single day. I remember telling God, ‘Please don't take away what you've taught me.’ I never want to forget what I've learned in the process. Because this dependence, this is the call for all believers no matter what your circumstances are. And so I can rejoice because you've used this very hard thing to show up and show me yourself.”
Shai: “There's truths we learn when we get saved and as we're growing in Christ…and we believe them, but it's when the rubber meets the road where we're like, ‘Wait, do I actually believe this?’ So often what I found is that it's not so much about learning new things as you go on in the journey, it's about getting a deeper understanding of the things you first learned when you got saved.”
Shai: “Psalm 90 says, ‘Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.’ And one of the best things that can teach us to number our days is to just walk around an area where all you see is tombstones. Because that day is coming for all of us. And so then the question becomes, ‘How are we going to prepare for that day?’”
Shai: “How are we going to prepare to meet the Lord? It's his truth, it's his Word, it's the gospel. Those are the things that are going to keep us even on our deathbeds. I want to communicate things that will help you on your deathbed.”
Blair: “Be clothed in God. Be filled with all the fullness of God, as it says earlier in Ephesians. And know who your God is. So that means in order to be able to hold on to the truth, we have to know the truth. We have to spend time in his Word, surround ourselves with the means of grace, with those who love his truth and will tell truth to us.”
Blair: “In our humanity, we thank God for the natural ways that he helps us to see our humanity, that we are not in control. I love walking along the beach and praying, and you see those big waves and you say, ‘Okay, God, you put these waves here. And you tell them where to go, and they can't go any further.’ So it points us back to who our God is.”
Shai: “In thinking about the Lord's Prayer, he says we are to pray, ‘Lord, give us this day our daily bread.’ That idea of daily bread. Particularly in places like here in America, we go to Costco, we have stuff a month out. But that idea that we need God on a daily, moment-by-moment basis—we need to be aware of that. Part of that prayer is making us aware that we need him. We need to call out to him regularly. And God is faithful to put us in situations where we recognize that we need to call out to him.”
RESOURCES
God Made Me and You: Celebrating God’s Design for Ethnic Diversity by Shai Linne
The New Reformation: Finding Hope in the Fight for Ethnic Unity by Shai Linne
Made to Tremble: How Anxiety Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to My Faith by Blair Linne
Finding my Father: How the Gospel Heals the Pain of Fatherlessness by Blair Linne
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Have you or has anyone you know ever experienced anxiety? What has that been like to walk through?
How has God’s love met you personally in the darkest places of your own story?
How have your struggles been the very means that God has used to show you more of himself?
What from this episode has helped you to see ways that you might come alongside a brother or sister in their struggles?
What might you do or implement based on what you learned in this week’s episode?
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IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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