Matthew in Edmonton, Alberta writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, I was wondering how exactly to go about casting my anxieties on the Lord. For example, do I need to pray and explain every anxiety I have, or can I just trust Him without signifying it with prayer, much like conversion does not need to be signified with a prayer?

Maybe I'm thinking too mechanically about it because I end up feeling more anxious about it and I feel I'm not explaining the anxiety well enough. So I get anxious that I'm not casting every little anxiety on Him." Pastor John, what would you say to Matthew? Overly introspective people can get so tangled up in the processes of sanctification that they are paralyzed.

And Matthew seems to wrestle with that tendency. I'm making a judgment call. He can decide if I'm right or not. A lot of us are like that. It is good to be introspective. If I don't know what I'm feeling, I won't know whether I should give thanks to God for His blessing or counter Satan's assault.

If you're never introspective, you don't know what you're feeling, then you don't know how to do anything spiritually. So we have to be aware of what's going on inside of us. So yes, amen. Matthew's doing the right thing in analyzing his own soul in that regard, but there is an unhealthy preoccupation with ourselves that can produce no good fruit.

So for example, if you're feeling anxious and you ask God to give you peace, it won't work to fix your gaze steadily on your soul and analyze whether the peace is happening or not. You'll never have peace that way. Why not? This is going to take us into the answer to Matthew's question about what it means to cast your burdens and your anxieties on the Lord.

It does not mean cast them and then stare at the soul to see if it feels unburdened or anxiety-free. And the reason that won't work, and you can't have peace that way, is that our souls were made to be drawn out of themselves to Christ. We're made to be drawn out, our focus to be drawn out, our attention, our love, our admiration, our focus is to be drawn out to Christ.

This may be the most important thing I could say to Matthew that he needs to get a handle on introspection or looking at the state of our souls to see if they're peaceful or if they're anxious or if they're coveting or if they're lustful or if they're puffed up or if they're ungrateful.

The reason for that inward look to see if we're in the grip of any of those things is to help us know what to look to Christ for. Let me say it again, the reason for the inward look is to know better what to look to Christ for. Look to Christ for.

Look to Christ for. Christ is our peace. Christ is our safety. Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our satisfaction, which means that the key to experiencing peace and safety and holiness and satisfaction is to look steadily, steadfastly to him and not to whether our souls are having those experiences or not.

Now, let me be a little more practical, a little more specific to what Matthew is asking. I think the answer specifically to his question about how to cast our anxieties on the Lord is made problematical because Christ is invisible. You can't see him, and I'm telling you, look at him, look at him.

So what do I mean when I say look to him? And what I mean is look to his promises. We see Christ through the Word of Christ. First Samuel 3, 21, "The Lord revealed himself to Samuel by the word of the Lord." He revealed himself by the word of the Lord.

That's how we fix our gaze on the Lord. That's how we go out of ourselves to the Lord. We see him through his word. So practically speaking, we get outside ourselves and experience the peace of Christ by fixing our consciousness on a particular promise that God has for us because of Christ.

All the promises of God are, yes, in Christ. We fix our gaze on one of those promises, and we see Christ speaking to us through that promise. I did that so many times, Tony, as I stood up to preach. It was as though the Lord just looked me right in the face and said, "I will help you." And that was a quotation from Isaiah 41.10.

I didn't make that up. He said that to me. And so that's what I mean by meeting the Lord in his word. So Matthew, if you want to get the whole picture of how I work on this, the book Future Grace is what that's about, or the boiled-down version of Future Grace is called Battling Unbelief.

So one last thing. You ask, "Do I need to pray and explain every anxiety I have, or can I just trust him without signifying it with a prayer?" Okay, I hear what he's saying there, because it says in Philippians 4, "Let your requests—don't be anxious about anything—let your requests be made known to God." And he's saying, "Do I have to do it with every anxiety all day long?" Well, it doesn't say, Matthew, it doesn't say, does it, how often to let your requests be made known.

It just says, "Let them be made known." So here's what—here we are sitting together, Matthew, you and me in a counseling room. I'm sending you out with this practical counsel. The way I would suggest that Matthew go forward is this. At the beginning of every day, call to mind from the Word some promises, two or three or one, promises of God that relate to the typical anxieties that might crop up that day.

You're going to be going through a storm in that day, and he finds a promise or two that relates to that. Then pray and ask God to help you believe that promise. I would say, Matthew, write one of those down on a little piece of paper and stick it in your shirt pocket, and then head out into your day.

And periodically, periodically—don't ask me how many times, just as you feel led—periodically through the day, pull out that little piece of paper, read that promise, and say to God, "Help me trust this promise," and then enjoy him saying the promise back to you. "I will help you. I will strengthen you," and go back to the work that you're doing.

And don't worry that over the next two hours you're not going to be saying to the Lord, "Help me," because you're concentrating on your computer programming or whatever you're doing. In other words, you don't have to be asking for help consciously all day long. There is a rhythm, a rhythm of life in the Holy Spirit, and he'll guide you what that rhythm is.

Wonderful word. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the question, Matthew. For more details about those books, "Future Grace" and "Battling Unbelief," go to DesiringGod.org and click on the "Books" tab at the top of the homepage. As always, this is the easiest way to find John Piper's books.

Most of them you can download in their entirety for free, and it is possible because we have generous financial donors who support our work and who I know listen to this podcast, so thank you. Will Pastor John encourages Christian leaders to give their lives to build a risk-taking local church?

That's tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.