Category: Mindfulness

5 Ways to Keep a Healthy Mind

One of the major challenges every Christian will face pretty early on in their Christian walk is attacks on the mind. Whether it is struggling with temptations or struggling with guilt of past sins, we are going to find that an important key to living a successful Christian life is in the way we mentally position ourselves for victory against these attacks. The rise in mental health related illnesses and death is evidence that a mental illness is a big part of the enemies strategy to keep people out of the fulness of God’s promise for us (John 10:10). Research estimates that 1 in 6 people experienced a common mental health problem in the past week. This means that most of us will ever so often face some form of attack on our mental health. Often when we think of a mental health challenge we think of white coats, straight jackets and anti-psychotic pills. Of course this can be the case, but mental health is far more than that. Just like being physical ill can be having either a mild cold or a severe heart disease, facing a mental health challenge can manifest on a broad spectrum of severity. Whatever the diagnosis, there are some basic things that you can do to take care of your mental health.

This post is a guide based on biblical principles, which work and have scientific congruence. As always I encourage you to seek medical advise, especially for more serious cases and to follow the advise already given to you by your doctor.

1. Catch the Sunlight
Exposure to sunlight naturally triggers the release of the serotonin hormone, which is responsible for lifting your mood and helping you feel calm and focused. Melatonin, is the sleep hormone which is triggered by darker lighting. Of course we need both of these hormones to live a healthy life, but because we have less sunlight in winter months, especially because we tend to spend more time indoors, where we are shielded from sunlight, we are more likely to experience a deep in serotonin level. A great way to combat this is to spend more time outdoors. As I mostly work from home I find that I don’t get out as much and by the time I do get out, the sun has already set. So, I have started opening up my curtains to get more sunlight into the house and I work under a bright white light.

2. Eating and Drinking for your health
At times when I get really dehydrated I get a headaches, which makes it really difficult to concentrate and if you add hunger to the mix, every activity because a little more difficult. It’s okay to abstain for a short period of time without food, but quite frankly it will lower your energy and dampen your mood. Words like “hangry” or “comfort food” are great examples of how food and water can affect once emotional health. Up to a couple years ago I used to do a long partial fast or a shorter absolute fast leading up to my birthday. I loved spending that time in prayer and meditation to seek God’s instructions and outpouring for the new year ahead. As much as I encourage anyone to implement this, my word of caution would be to apply wisdom to this spiritual activity. Don’t over do it. You are not trying to impress God with your ability to not eat, you are simply submitting yourself to a time of deeper concentration and devotion to God by separating yourself from things that can cause distraction or may be occupying a significant amount of your time. The purpose of fasting is not to damage your health, but to bring increase to you physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally (Isaiah 58:8). There are different types of fasts that you can adhere to, that may be better suited to your health. I still fast, but I fast in a better.

Also pay attention to what you eat so you get the optimal amount of health benefits each time you eat. Whilst eating an extra-cheesy-sloppy-burger with a side of fries might be very comforting and filling it certainly isn’t the best contributor to your physical and mental health and may actually be contributing to your low energy and lack of concentration. Just like Daniel and his friends, you may need to learn how to say no to certain types of foods and yes to others. I assure you, you will reap the benefits.
Apart from eating your fruit and veg, I recommend adding supplements to your daily intake in the winter time. From late March to late September it is likely that you are ingesting and naturally producing enough Vitamin D, so you may not need to take supplements during those months. However, in the colder months it is possible to develop vitamin-D deficiency as we often don’t get enough from what we eat. Taking daily supplements can help keep our v-D levels up and lower our risk of health issues that can lead to seasonal mental illnesses and depression. Again check with your doctor to makes sure that your vitamin and mineral levels are as they should be.

3. Physical Exercise to work your body
Staying physically active is a great way of allowing blood and oxygen to pump through your body and brain. The adrenaline rush coupled with the dopamine rush that comes from achieving a health goal or from participating in a competitive sport is a good natural way of keeping your mood and spirits up. But not only does the dopamine and adrenaline that comes from exercising improve your mental health but, regular exercise will help you sleep better, which is beneficial to your mental health. A major blessing of the modern age is the ability to have access to a lot of lives necessities with very little work or effort. Unfortunately, it means that we don’t get enough of exercise in natural ways. In the pre- technology and industrial world, people used to walk everywhere, most people would grow their own food themselves and herd their own cattle. The physical excretion of a labour worker meant that they would sleep deep. Additionally, they completely relied on the sun as a source of light, which meant that they would go to bed early and wake up early to start work. The post technology world means that we not only sleep less, but we also don’t sleep well. Ecclesiastes 5:12 says this;

The sleep of a labouring man is sweet,
Whether he eats little or much;
But the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep.

This scripture is obviously comparing the life off a rich man with the life of a poor man, but the principle can be applied to this scenario of exercise. The context of this scripture is set in an agricultural scene. Even back in the days of the scripture wealthier people did not labour in the fields instead they hired people to do the more strenuous work. Wealthier people, were transported in chariots and carried around in seats between two long poles. I am very sure that the men who walked around carrying these poles on their shoulders where very tired at the end of the day. That same practice continuous today, the only difference is that you don’t need to be so rich to afford comfort anymore.

4. Make sure you Sleep well
The scripture above shows that wealth does not mean happiness and rest, in fact it suggests that people who are richer may suffer from sleeplessness, because they constantly worry about what they have. Rich people not only have a lot of valuable possessions, but they also tend to have a lot of mouths to feed. Being rich is not just about having a lot of money in the bank. It’s also about having access to basic necessities of life that some people might not have. If your primary concern is finding the perfect hair dryer, what happens next on your favourite soap opera or your next crypto currency investment, then I’d like to suggest to you that you are not poor. It may just feel that way, because you are spending a lot of money on the latest wants. My question to you is what is keeping you up at night? Are you constantly worrying about what’s next? What’s next on your agenda, what’s next on that tv show, what’s next on your wish list, what’s next on your to do list? We are living a life were we have so much to lose, but all these things that we have to lose don’t seem to have so much value. Could this false pursuit of happiness be robbing you of rest?

5. Pray about everything
A famous scripture in the Bible tells us to not be anxious about anything, but to pray about everything. Whilst, that may sound easier said than done, I find that it is a lot harder to live in perpetual worry and anxiety. God, the one who is all knowing, all seeing and all powerful, invites us to a therapeutic and soul detoxing session, where we can talk to him about every single concern. Whatever it may be that keeps you down, that worries you and that extinguishes that inner light we all have inside, God says tell me about it. Isn’t it wonderful that we have a someone like this we can talk about things with?

Here is a few lines from one of my favourite hymns for your meditation:

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, “Thus saith the Lord!

“Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

S.A.D and the Winter Blues

During the Winter months it’s common to feel a little down, which is why I typically emphasise the importance of gratitude and take intentional steps to be thankful at this time of the year. I noticed a few years back that I tended to feel symptoms associated with anxiety at the start of Autumn. My first memory of this was about 6 years ago when I felt a sudden wave of panic at the thought of summer coming to an end. At the time I thought it was to do with a new academic year beginning and needing to work harder to get my certifications. I told myself that it would all be okay and the slight panic that I could feel rising subsided, but the dread remained. The cold season has never been my preference. Unlike Elsa, the cold has always bothered me. I chucked it up to personal preference and a twist of fate that I was born in Autumn instead of Spring or Summer.

It wasn’t until 2018 that I realised that there might be more to this than just the downsides to an introverted personality. I was crying every day for about a week and didn’t know why. I felt a deep sense of despair and hopelessness and I didn’t understand why. At the time, I was between jobs, moved homes and had just enrolled on a Masters program. Yes, all this was tough and tasking, but I had been through worse and didn’t have to deal with feeling unmotivated as a result. In the grand scheme of things everything was fine and I had everything that I needed. But I was still really sad. Rather than give in to the feelings, I resisted it, didn’t tell anyone what was going on, hid my tears behind forced smiles, and tried to get through it with positive confessions. “We walk by faith and not by sight”, “Faith over feelings”, “God is more real than what I am feeling”. It wasn’t working. I felt more emotionally worn out, with each confession. My constant smiling made me feel like a fraud. I was faking it, but never making it. I eventually broke out of it, and I will come back to what exactly helped me, but I want to highlight the importance of knowing what it is that you are facing.

I firmly believe that you cannot fight something that you refuse to face. Whatever it is that is troubling you be it a health issue, a bad habit, an addiction or even debt, if you don’t face it you’re never going to overcome it. This doesn’t mean we lose faith, or that we stop praying. It means that we channel our faith in a specific direction and pray specific prayers. For me facing it was knowing that this was seasonal affective disorder. Knowing this meant that I could channel my energy into taking care of myself in a suitable way, I can refrain from things that could be a trigger and open me up to relapse and I could better position myself in prayer. I know that SAD is not my portion or my inheritance in Christ, so I positioned myself accordingly. Because I knew what I was up against I could fight back in faith with the invisible weapons at my disposal. That is what the fight of Faith is; Fighting a battle that is not visible to the physical eyes, but will yield (positive or negative) results. I have learnt that invisible battles can leave very visible scars. I have had to learn to fight better and smarter.

Counter attack is my favourite way of dealing with issues like these. Winter blues and sadness in general, causes us to want to withdraw and isolate. A little down time and alone time is good and healthy, but it can lead to other things like self-piety, self-loathing, low self-esteem, increased sense of hopelessness and worthlessness, these are all friends of the enemy, which can be used to keep you away from joy, gratitude, healthy relationships and communion with people around you. Instead of giving in to the narrative of loneliness, spend time with people. Don’t go over board and plan an elaborate party, which may make it worse. Just find 1 – 3 people who you can sit with, talk to or engage in a mild activity with. Being with and talking to people is a great way to regain perspective.

One of the things that I find often happens when we feel down is that we lose clarity. We don’t have a clear picture of what we want or where we are going. This is because we are so overwhelmed by the predominant feeling of sadness, which distracts us from our objectives. A great way of counteracting this is by writing. Journaling has a way of organising our thoughts. When we write we not only think about what we want to say, but we also think about how we feel as we say it and how we want to say it. This is a good way of practicing to process our emotions. We all have emotions, but in order to learn how to control our emotions we need to process them first. I would suggest writing no more than 20 minutes daily, and encourage that you end each journal entry with a positive statement. This could be something you are grateful for, something you look forward to, or a good memory from the past.

The symptoms of depression, seasonal affective disorder and some other mental health illnesses, include physical and emotional tiredness, lack of motivation and reduced interest. Because of this people often develop feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. A great way to combat these thoughts and feelings is to revisit previous achievements. The other morning I went back and read the devotional I completed and published last year. I was blessed by what I had written, I took my own advise and applied some of the scriptures that I had written down. The things you create through God’s creative power become a memorial for you. You realise that although you don’t feel it right now, there is a powerful deposit inside of you that can only come from God. Your life is a testimony! Go back and visit your moments of triumph, your personal victories, your achievements and your testimonies. You are definitely worth more than you have achieved, but you also need to remember that you are more than what you feel. If you journal and take notes of good days and also take pictures, I would recommend that you re-read older entries and look at those pictures again. Use them to remind yourself that better days are coming.

Whether it is SAD, depression, anxiety, end of year stress or anything else, you can overcome if you will chose to believe that you can. Get help facing it from loved ones and health professionals. Help is always available if you reach out for it.

January in Summary

I have spent the better part of January praying and waiting on God for what he has for me. I don’t have all the answers but, I have made a conscious choice to make sure that I am in a place where I can get the answers and directions, I need to ensure that I end up in the place where God has destined me to be. I can’t achieve the dreams God has given me by myself. I need the interference of someone who knows better and someone much stronger than me to help me get to my desired destination. My natural self is prone to discouragement and inconsistency. Without his divine assistance I will lose strength and momentum along the way. Because I know this, I have given myself over to prayer and supplication and focused more on receiving what I need to excel this year and the decades to come.

With the month rapping up I have confidence that God has my back because I have taken out time to make the necessary sacrifice that will enable me to excel this year. Of course, there is the requirement for ongoing, supplication further down the road, but for now I know that it is time to begin the journey and take that first step in Faith. Faith that God has heard your prayers and that he is with you and won’t let you take steps in the wrong direction. You can only have this assurance if you have really spent time in surrender to God in prayer.

Another thing I have been more deliberate with, which I will certainly continue to practice is reading the word and praying it back to God. The Bible in one-year plan on YouVersion has been a great resource in maintaining this. The plan gives you 4-5 chapters in the new and old testament to read daily and encourages you to write your thoughts and take away points at the end of each daily reading. It is spilt up in monthly portions so you can catch up here with February, if you would like to join. You are also able to invite others to join you with your daily reading habit and turn it into a group bible study. It’s also a great way to get your family members involved and keeps you accountable. It is a very useful and helpful tool if you are seeking to develop discipline in this area of your spiritual growth.

Finally, I’d like to encourage you to review yourself each month. How did your January go? Did you pray more like you said you would? Did you stick to your goals? Did you commit your goals into the hands of the Lord and trust him? Did you write down the words and instructions you received from him? Are they in line with the Word? Which scripture spoke to you the most this month as you read the word?

As you continue to ask yourself questions that evaluate your journey into 2020, think of what you can do better or differently in February and set yourself small targets to do things that will further develop your spiritual life. Yes, I am asking you to prioritise your spiritual goals above every other goal. This is what Daniel and his friends did. Their spiritual goal was to please God and worship him alone and to fulfil the requirements of the law of God even if that meant going against the customs, norms and legal decrees of the Land. Instead of their health, education, careers and finances declining, they flourished, prospered and excelled in all that they did. I strongly believe that if you prioritise your spiritual goals and do what is said in the scriptures you will also begin to experience flourishing in your finances, relationships, career, health and wellbeing. This is what God wants for us and what he is willing to give us.

Reflecting at Christmas

This is by far the busiest times of the year and it’s not because of all the shopping. Actually, according to Shopify, November is the busiest commercial month of the year. I think it’s all the end of year rush, last-minute work targets and personal goals we want to achieve all between now and the 31st 23:59 which gets us all worked up. And on top of all that we want to enjoy the festivities and rest. We will soon discover that we cannot rest if we don’t eliminate the stressors in our way. At this time though I would say that one of the most important and beneficial things you can do for yourself is to spend time in reflection. When I’m reflecting or journaling it is in these moments when I’m most aware of what God has been teaching me through the day or the year. We need to intentionally create moments where we have epiphanies based on what is happening. Significant changes do not happen with the turn of a calendar it happens when we allow our minds to receive and engage with what is happening in our environments. We are praying for God to change our stories in the new year or decade, but we must ask ourselves what God has been engraving on the tables of our hearts over the last year or even decade that we haven’t paid attention to.

Beyond the feelings and the goosebumps, we might get when we encounter God, there are notable changes that take place in less spectacular ways inside of us. Being a lot more reflective, has help me understand that I ought to look for the mundane. Looking for God in the silence and seemingly insignificant is how Elijah got his life back as he stood on the mountain of God at the brink of depression.

I’m thinking about my life and things I want to focus on improving and things that I should keep and be more consistent with. Reflectively, I can say that I have grown over the last year. One of the key areas I have experienced growth and change in is how I think about giving and receiving love. It’s important to regularly reflect on how we relate with people and things.

Earlier in the year I had a conversation with someone that helped bring the thought process to mind and I can say that on reflecting on my understanding of extending love and hearing what the other person had to say, I found myself thinking that maybe I didn’t quite have a full understanding of what love – the God kind of Love – is. Maybe my limited understanding of how vast God’s love is keeping me from receiving all the wonderful gifts of God’s awesome love. I’ve begun thinking of love in a different way which has led to changes in how I practice love. Nothing drastic or dramatic, but significant enough for me to desire and chase after more of God’s kind of love in my heart. It is the kind of love that chases you and woos you regardless of how you are or what you’ve done. That love, loves you just because and nothing you could do could make it grow or diminish. Can I be that way towards myself and the people in my life? Can I be more loving regardless of what if?

At this point, I can say that any work that you catch me doing is related to reflecting and checking that the plans I make for the coming year are in line with the work that He has already begun in me. After all, what good is a perfect gift if I don’t take out the time to enjoy and use it?

Christmas blessings!

What do I do when one assignment comes to an end?

A couple of months ago I wrote about embracing your call and understanding that an assignment from God, be it staying at home to raise your children or working on a job that is not quite your definition of a ‘dream job’, is the call that he has for you. Wherever God has placed you is where he wants you to be and that is your calling.

But where do we go and what do we do when an assignment ends?

It can be really disconcerting when your routine is interrupted by a change in affairs. It could be that you have been made redundant at work or you have recently graduated and are looking to get into work. Or perhaps your children are grown and have moved out. No matter what your stage in life is, change can be uncomfortable and requires you to adjust your position. If you have been focused on a particular assignment for a long time it can be a lot more shocking and strange to suddenly be doing something else.

God moves us from one assignment to the next in order to keep us from becoming stale. Sometimes it is because we have outgrown our previous position. Embedded in every assignment are learning curves and challenges that are designed to stretch us. We don’t always feel the stretching. We don’t always feel growth pains, but it doesn’t always mean that we are not growing.
There are a host of reasons why God would want to move us to the next assignment. Whatever the reason, just know that it is to bless and increase you and not to subtract from you.

The commandment of God to humanity at the very beginning was for us to “be fruitful and multiply”, to “subdue the earth” and to “have dominion”. That commandment is still true today. It is not the purpose of God for our lives to be stuck in one spot. He desires that we spread and become masters over things. With this in mind we can start to understand what we should be doing when one assignment ends.

1. Give Thanks
Your attitude should be one of thanks giving. 1 Thessalonians 5:16, tells us to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Just over a week ago I was laid off a job that I had received a few months prior by what I could have only explain to be the intervention and grace of God. I which things had been different, but In my hearts of hearts I am thankful to God for the opportunity to learn, grow and be a blessing. I rejoice because I know where my source really is.
I don’t see it as a cut in my financial supply I see it as a step to doing something new, because God is my provider. Don’t be down cast.

2. Get Closer
The second part of that scripture says, ” pray without ceasing”. We should be praying to God all day, all the time. We can do this by praying in our hearts and rehearsing scriptures as we go through our day. (I will talk more on this in a separate post.) For now though I think that we can all agree that our lives get so busy with work and routine that we don’t put so much emphasis on praying as we should be. When our routines are interrupted we look for new things we can do to keep us busy again. This is the perfect time to get back in touch with God. You have all this free time now to pray more and study the word more. Go on hour long prayer walks or worship walks. Spend time with God. In the process, you will get clearer understanding of his purpose for your life and insight into your next assignment.

It’s so powerful how God created a part of the earth each day in Genesis 1 and then paused after each day to look at what he had done and then said that it was good. God modelled the nature of putting our work and aims under review before moving on to the next thing. It’s the principle of watching and praying. If you don’t keep your eyes and mind open you will miss the instructions God has for you. I have find that God has spoken to me more about what he wants me to do and the direction to take when I was preparing myself by putting myself through training, reflecting and listening.

I hope you find your feet landing on the path God has set before you. And may you find grace and peace in every season you find yourself in.

3. Prepare
‘Prayer is the master Key! One key for every door.’ This is the truth that we have been feed since first coming to the faith. What we fail to do alongside praying is prepare for what we have prayed for. Have you taken time out to recubirate, rest and skill up for the next assignment. Between each assignment there is a moment, an opportunity for you to clean and sharpen your tools. This moment can be used to reflect on the past. What would you change or do better? Sometimes God puts us on intentional pauses because we haven’t taken out time to give ourselves a break.

Don’t settle for Good

I’ve just realised something – The prayers and diligence of my parents can make me a good person. But to be more than good will require knowing God myself.

I have met people who have put a lot of time and effort into raising there children and not just with principles but also with praying power. Their children are good people and have done well for themselves. However, when it comes to deeper character issues that distinguish a christian from a non-believer there is not much to show.
I’ve noticed my mothers prayers have strengthened and upheld me. Yet, the thing that makes the difference for me is knowing the power and the grace of God for myself.
Our parents can make us good, but only God can make us great. So, I’m aiming for great.

Me, God and Obedience

I’ve been reading through the book of 1 Samuel over the last few days and I thought I should share some of my thoughts with you today.

As I am reading through, I realise that one of the biggest themes running through this book is Obedience. We first encountered this through the prophet Eli and his sons. Eli’s sons lived a very immoral life and did not follow the commandments of God. They disobeyed God in how they treated the sacrifices of the people. Eli was judged, because he did not caution his children. He shared in their disobedience by not disciplining them and by eating out of the portion of the sacrifice that was not meant for the priest. The consequence was that the priesthood was taken away from Eli and his descendants and death and suffering was introduced into the family. There was a generational curse that would limit the descendants of Eli, even though they had nothing to do with the initial disobedience. (1 Samuel 2:27-36)

Additionally, his disobedience caused the glory to be temporarily taken away from Israel. (1 Samuel 4:11, 21)

The disobedience continues with Saul after he became king. In his heart, he desired the approval and praise of men rather than the approval of God. His reign was so much about keeping appearances that he broke the protocol and made the sacrifice that was not his place to make. (1 Samuel 15:1-10 ;15:20-26)

He gives three reasons for his disobedience: (1 Samuel 13:8-11)

  1. The Philistines (his enemies) were closing in on him.
  2. The people were afraid and scattering away from him.
  3. Samuel had not arrived at the time that he said he would.

To be very honest and frank these are the reason that I also sometimes feel inclined or tempted to disobey God. We often go off and do things in our own understanding because God is taking too long. We are convinced that God is late – that he cannot tell time or that he doesn’t understand the pressure that we are facing. What is very interesting in that story is that Saul had already waited for 7 days. 7 days was the exact number of days he was instructed to wait (vs.8). It was on the 7th day when the appointed hour had come that he gave up the wait and made the sacrifice. The full instructions was that he should wait for the 7 days at which time Samuel would make the sacrifice on behalf of the people. To him it was a small thing but to God it was a big deal. Partial obedience is still total disobedience.

“Waiting reveals the content of the heart. The longer you are left to wait the more of you will be revealed. You cannot outsmart time.”
ACMorgan

Here are the three things that we need to remember when we find ourselves being tempted to disobey.

  1. God is Bigger that our problems and greater than our adversities.
  2. God’s approval is more than a thousand confident votes of people.
  3. God is never late – He is the creator and the controller of time and space.

If we remember these three truths we will make our decisions based on what God wants and thinks and not what our situation is telling us to feel and do.
We need to understand God’s heart in order to understand why he would tell us to wait and why he would give us the instructions and commandments he does. I find that it is much easier to follow him when we do. God cares for us. He loves us and feels what we are feeling. He never wants us to be afraid or intimidated by our problems and challenges. His thoughts and plans for us are good, to prosper and not to harm us (Jeremiah 9:11). When problems do come our way God’s commitment is to make them turn into situations that will prosper and profit us. But he needs our cooperation to do this.

God is a god of process and principles. He lays them down for us in order for us to measure and test our hearts against. Anytime you find yourself in conflict with what He has said, we can step back and check our hearts for wrong motives and hidden agendas. It’s important to check and correct ourselves instead of forcing it, because we not only make mistakes, but we also miss out on the opportunity to grow in our character. God wants to change us as He is changing our circumstances. He can’t have old you in the middle of the new thing He is doing (Mattew 9:17). So, He needs change in the inside of you too.

My Prayer for you today, is that you hear God in a new way and that you will have the grace and the contrite heart to obey His word and will for your life. I pray that you receive clear instructions today from above about what you should and should’t do, in Jesus name.

In my Feelings…

So, I manage two blogs and got talking to someone about it a while back. I said that one was a Christian blog, and the other did not necessarily have a religious angle or was centered on christian beliefs. I can’t remember exactly the words he used, maybe it was ‘naughty’, but before i could explain he said something  that implied that I had another blog that was a little more loose, a little less holy and a little less christian. I obviously quickly shut down the notion, but at the back of my mind I’ve been playing with the ideas and the underlining concerns that I felt throughout the conversation.

When It comes to faith I’m all in and so are most of the Christians I know. I think that most people won’t sacrifice faith on the alter of secularism, but we may toy with secular ideas and themes, especially when it comes to creative art. As the conversation grew someone else remarked that they would definitely still write and release non christian songs and content. The reason they gave was because they felt that emotions are part of life and and are meant to be expressed. The implication obviously being that christian music is too restrictive for the expression of certain emotions. Interesting!

My believe that we worship God and love him with all our hearts, souls, minds and strengths. In other words, all we are consumed and aware of His presence in our lives that He is all we feel. God can and will overwhelm our emotions if we allow Him. But aside from this I honestly think that we are free to express all our emotions to Him in worship and praise. Like a parent wants their child to come to them with their emotions in the same way God wants us to come to Him with or deepest feelings.

I guess some people will struggle with this idea, as there are some feelings we would much rather our parents did not know. But God already knows what we feel and desire. Even the secret feelings. When we bring them into the light we gain perspective and learn to bring our emotions under the authority of God.

Elijah went to God with feelings of sadness, weariness, weakness, suicidal thoughts and depression and he heard from God, gained perspective and became re-energized (1 Kings 19). The woman with the Alabaster box (Mary Magdalene) came with guilt, sin and shame before God and poured it all out in worship before God and she was forgiven (Luke 7: 37-39)

Good things happen when we bring our honest and sincere feelings to the alter of worship. He might scold us and chastise us, but we can feel His love and acceptance. He will never leave us without His blessing. He won’t let us go naked.

King David wrote songs reflecting his distress, and His feelings of God forsaking him, but his psalm ended in praise. Solomon wrote songs and poems of love, marriage and intimacy.

We are immersed all the way, death, resurrection and ascension, in Christ Jesus and totally grafted in Him. We need to remember this when we create. God will inspire us with the right words when we let Him all the way into our feelings.

 

Practical Worship

Situations such as heavy traffic are designed to test and strengthen your godly character.

You wake up in the morning get dressed, feeling good, looking like heavy bling and then you get out of the house only to discover that traffic has built up outside your house and you can’t get out of your road let alone into town to catch your train. You try to walk and catch up with the bus in front, but the driver refuses to open the door, mouthing something like he is in the middle of the road and not at the bus stop. Then he turns the other way, brings out his sandwich and takes a hearty bit.

When you prayed this morning, you were not given the update about traffic making you late for work. Maybe if you had been informed you would have set out much earlier and arrived ontime. Maybe even a little earlier to impress your manager. But you’re not impressed. In your head the verse of the day is ringing, “This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoce and be glad in it”. So you force yourself to smile and not join in with the building crowed that is murmuring and complaining about the situation.

It’s hard, but you know you have to give thanks in all things. So, you internalize a prayer of thanks. You think about it and role over it in your mind until you are able to verbalize it and formulate it into words. Slowly but surely you realize it isn’t such a big deal and you find yourself thanking God you were not in the car crash that caused the traffic in the first place. Your thanksgiving some how made you see the bigger picture. That maybe your safty is more important than being on time to work. That your punctuality was given in exchange for your perfect peace and protection. That providence wasn’t sleeping when it heard your prayers sending the presence of God ahead to make rough paths plain.

Sometimes something as trivial as traffic can be big enough to cause an obstacle to your worship, but “I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart, I will enter his courts with praise”.

This is worship in Practice.