Walking through a season of profound uncertainty leads me to unhealthy coping strategies. Outside my window, green shoots burst forth, birds sing, and blossoms paint the fields and trees with lovely pastels. But at times, my pathway descends into some dark places. Sharp turns bring endless changes and status updates. My anxiety drives me into hypervigilance. Operating in fight-or-flight mode causes hope to slip out of focus, and exhaustion covers me like a heavy blanket.
Soul-Care Strategies
In seasons of feeling powerless or out of control, author Aundi Kolber suggests some self-care practices.
Observe your emotions with compassion.
Engage in nurturing spiritual practices.
Mindfully move your body- for love, not punishment.
I notice my anxiety, my concern for family members who are struggling, and my anger over some things that were done and left undone. I make space for sadness and mourning and sit in those feelings for a while.
Next, I will choose the spiritual practice of praising God without knowing the outcome.
Perhaps it will help me remember that God sees the end of this story and all the stories that make up my life and everyone else’s. He not only considers the outcomes, but he shapes them for his good purpose.
As I mindfully move my body on a walk today, I will observe God’s displays of beauty right outside my door. Psalm 67 will prompt my prayers of praise and petition.
Vessel of Blessing
1May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah 2 that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. 3 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! (Psalm 67:1-3 ESV)
God, you are gracious and seek to bless us. Please help me to see the flickers of grace in every situation. Reveal the ways I can be your vessel of blessing to the community where you have placed me.
Choosing Praise
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah 5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! (Psalm 67:4-5 ESV)
Forgive me for being quick to judge and generous in my desire to guide when these burdens are yours. Let me rest in your authority and the knowledge that I don’t know all the motivations and mitigating factors involved. I am likely better off for it. Instead, I can join a chorus of praise for your kindness, equity, and wisdom. In obedience, I will praise you before seeing the outcome of my difficulties.
God Reigns
6 The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us. 7 God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him! (Psalm 67:6-7 ESV)
In Spring, you have surrounded me with solid evidence of your ability to grow, renew, and increase all around me. Help these clear and present reminders to instill in my heart and mind the knowledge that you reign over all of the earth and everyone in it. Nothing escapes your notice or is untouched by your hand. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
How about you? How do you handle uncertain times? Do you have prayers or spiritual practices you use?
Our arms were raised. Our voices united in song. Suddenly I felt a shift in the room as the Holy Spirit flooded the sanctuary with His presence. While I detected fresh power moving about, I found myself utterly focused and engaged in worshipping God. Nothing else mattered. No longer multi-tasking. I no longer considered the schedule of the event I led. I became keenly aware of the closeness I felt to God. When I picked up the microphone, I couldn’t help but testify to what I just experienced.
Worship can become contagious in all the best possible ways. Others attending the service that evening also felt the change. Some were ushered into God’s presence.
Donald S. Whitney in his book, “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life” says,
To worship God is to ascribe proper worth to God, to magnify His worthiness or praise, or better to approach or address God as He is worthy. As the sovereign judge, to whom we must give an account, He is worthy of all the honor we can give Him and then infinitely more.
Worship is a spiritual discipline hard-wired into the core of our being. It is what God’s creation is designed to do. However, God wants us to choose and offer it freely. Worship requires intentionality and focus. Each participant can choose to actively take part or be distracted by other activities.
Psalm 95 calls God’s people to worship.
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Psalm 95:1 NIV
Sing and Shout
God gifted me with a voice that I can use to sing or speak or even shout. Singing and shouting to the Rock of our salvation, singing along with hymns or contemporary Christian music can provide an easy way for me to worship God. The lyrics help me recall God’s character and ways of doing things. Musical worship can be done in a church service in a building with great acoustics. It can be done in my living room with my small group. It can also be done with me alone in my car singing as loud as I would like.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
Psalm 95:2 NIV
Give Thanks
Another way to worship God is to spend time giving thanks for all He has done for me and my people. I tend to easily make a list of all I don’t have. However, what a wonderful way to focus on God by giving thanks to God for all He has done today, this week, or recently.
One practical way to create a thanksgiving list is to go through the alphabet and try to think of a thing to give thanks for featuring each letter of the alphabet.
1. Avocados
2. Beautiful weather
3. Cameras to capture photos of those I love…
3 For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
Psalm 95:3-6 NIV
Bow Down in Worship
Physical activities help remind me of certain truths. When I bow or kneel before God, I remember that He is God, and I am not. Bowing or kneeling can be physical acts of surrender. While I certainly am not required to kneel or bow, sometimes it is a wonderful way to focus my attention. It is much harder to try to check my phone or take notice of those around me when I am kneeling or bowing with my head down. The Lord my maker knows the struggles I have with distraction and anxiety. He offers this posture to help me with my heart’s desire to wander off.
7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
Psalm 95:7-11 NIV
Listen with My Ears and a Tender Heart
After they left Egypt, the Israelites wandered in the desert at Meribah where they ran out of water. Fear and anxiety fed a wave of grumbling and complaining that cascaded through the camp. Grumbling hardens hearts and stops up ears. God’s people couldn’t hear the clear directive God gave in His provision of water to come from a rock. Moses was asked to bring water out of a rock for the people and the livestock. (Numbers 20)
Moses chose not to listen to God and allowed his heart to be hardened by the people’s complaining. In anger, Moses tried getting water out of the rock in his own way. His disobedience and failure to worship God for what he was going to provide had long-lasting consequences.
Worship matters because it shapes our souls.
Lent can be a wonderful season to try different spiritual disciplines. Worship could be an ideal one to work on this week by reading and praying through a worship psalm like 95. Some other worship psalms to examine would be:
24, 27, 36, 98, 102, 103, 104 & 110
Psalms provide a beautiful blueprint for praise and worship. Try one on for size this week and watch to see how your heart and mind might be transformed.
Far more often than I care to admit, I do not prioritize soul care. Worship can be a great way to access some soul refreshment. I would love to hear how you practice worship this week.
Prayer
Lord, expand my capacity for greater worship. Help me to spend time alone and with your people giving honor and glory to You. Cause me to hunger and thirst for more worship in my life.
(A plug is being plugged into a wall power outlet.)
Sometimes when the power goes out at my house, I have a terrible habit of continuously trying to turn the lights on. Then, as I move about the house and get busy working on other things, I forget about the lack of electricity. I keep doing this repeated action and almost seemed surprised by the outcome every single time.
If I decided to stand in my kitchen and keep flipping the light switch on in a “try harder attempt” to overcome that lack of electrical current flowing into my home, most observers would be concerned for my sanity. No amount of turning on the light will cause the bulb to be illuminated without access to electricity.
Sometimes my approach to prayer can look a great deal like this exercise in futility. I pray, but I get distracted, confused, concerned, and defeated. How often am I simply approaching prayer with little preparation?
Are my prayers plugged into the power source God has provided? In my case, not always. If I am being honest, not very often at all. I want to complete my prayer tasks rapidly in the name of efficiency. I want to move through a list of requests and check them off. And yet I struggle…
So, what is the power source?
Before I can plug into God’s powerful provision, I need to review some basic communication principles. Prayer is, after all, my communication with God. So how does God speak to His people? How do I hear from Him?
Psalm 19 points to one way God speaks: through his glorious creation.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Psalm 19:1-6 NIV
In His kindness, God also speaks through the Bible.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.
Psalm 19:7-10 NIV
Every sunset, sunrise, mountain vista, or starry sky speaks volumes for God and His character. God reveals Himself in the world He placed His people in. If I choose to notice, I can take in God’s stunning creation every single day.
In His kindness, God also speaks through the Bible.
God’s word provides warnings, guidance, and soul nourishment. It refreshes the soul. Since He created me, He knows exactly what my limitations are. God knows what I need and what would be best for me to avoid. The Bible overflows with gifts for me, but I must open them. Also, and perhaps the part I have so often missed, I must take time to meditate on God’s word.
Sadly, the secular world has hijacked the notion of meditation and perverted it into something to avoid at all costs. While Eastern meditation practices are not tools for me to use, the practice of meditation itself is neutral. It all depends on the focus of my meditating mind. Spending time focusing on God and His word is a way for me to tend my soul and plug into the power source God has provided. Taking time out of my busy schedule to sit and dwell in God’s presence as I read or listen to His word provides a needed reset.
11 By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
Psalm 19:11-13 NIV
Focused time in God’s word can keep me on track with His will and serve as a warning when I go off course. God’s word brings ongoing transformation.
14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Psalm 19:14 NIV
This final verse from Psalm 19 is a pattern for powerful prayer. Donald S. Whitney, in his book on spiritual disciplines, explains, “…meditation was a catalyst that catapulted David (the author this Psalm 19) from the truth of God into talking with God.” Taking time to process the input of God’s word steeps my heart and mind with His presence. Continually repeating this process with a daily intake of scripture begins to change me from the inside out. My prayers will transform because I will want what God wants. My mind will shift because I will think about what God thinks about. My heart will change, and I will enjoy what God wants.
The psalms can provide an ideal starting point for meditation that leads into prayer. Each psalm provides both a focus for meditation and a written prayer. For example, read Psalm 19 to begin and ask the Holy Spirit to highlight one verse or phrase.
Ways to Meditate on Scripture
Read the psalm a second or third or fourth time
Read the psalm in different versions of the Bible
Listen to someone else read it to you
Look for a song that features the passage of scripture you chose
Try drawing a picture or painting something from the psalm
Read each line, pausing and listening for God to speak between each one
Ask the Holy Spirit to show you something fresh and new hidden in the text
Prayers prayed after a meditation time will be more focused and have greater clarity. This exercise will increase confidence in prayer. My heart is instructed by the truths found in scripture.
How about you? Do you meditate on scripture before you pray? What passages of scripture do you use? I would love to hear about your experiences.
During Lent 2022, I’m writing about one spiritual discipline each week. What kinds of spiritual disciplines are you taking on this season?
During the season of Lent, there can be many calls to use fasting as a spiritual discipline.
no red meat on fridays
stay off social media
pick one thing you really love and give it up for the season
In most Christian circles you will rarely hear fasting mentioned, and few will have read anything about it. And yet it’s mentioned in Scripture more times than even something as important as baptism (about seventy-seven times for fasting to seventy-five for baptism).
Donald S. Whitney “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life”
I was afraid to fast.
I grew up in a home where disordered eating played as a background playlist on loop. To this day, my mother will evaluate my food intake. Anxiety, an honored guest, typically joins my mother and me for every meal we share. Am I eating enough? Have I ordered something that meets her approval? If we go out to a restaurant, I can expect her to suggest I help her eat the food on her plate because surely it is too much for her. I must help finish what she can’t see wasting.
Second, only to my mother’s food anxiety, comes my mother’s health anxiety. Let’s just say, I may have been raised with the idea that my body lacked certain abilities to deal with everyday stresses. My blood sugar was far too unstable. My coordination and physical strength were things I simply couldn’t expect to have. I could easily get hurt doing normal things. So, skipping a meal or two was far too risky. Ironically, it was during a time when I was preparing for surgery that I discovered I could miss a meal or two or three without passing out or experiencing some other dire consequences.
To be clear fasting is not only about giving up food. God may call His followers to give up any number of things. In this piece, I will be focusing on fasting from food, but there are many other ways to fast.
For years, fasting food, as a spiritual discipline, was not available to me. Recently, God made it clear that He wanted me to learn to trust Him in this area. He gently called me out of a toxic dependence on avoiding fasting out of fear.
Unhooking toxic disordered eating patterns from the invitation to fast from food challenged me to even greater dependence upon God. Asking the Holy Spirit to examine my heart and check my motivations became essential. I am continuing to disconnect fasting from becoming a weight-loss tool for me. The struggle is indeed real for many believers caught up in diet culture as I was for decades.
“Fasting from any nourishment, activity, involvement or pursuit—for any season—sets the stage for God to appear. Fasting is not a tool to pry wisdom out of God’s hands or to force needed insight about a decision. Fasting is not a tool for gaining discipline or developing piety (whatever that might be). Instead, fasting is the bulimic act of ridding ourselves of our fullness to attune our senses to the mysteries that swirl in and around us.”
Dan B. Allender, PHD
As Dr. Dan Allender explains, what I gained from fasting was an opportunity to attune my heart to God’s heart.
Saul, David’s mortal enemy, pursued him for decades. In Psalm 35, David cries out to God for help and support.
1 Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me.
2 Take up shield and armor; arise and come to my aid.
3 Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue me. Say to me, “I am your salvation.”
4 May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame; may those who plot my ruin
be turned back in dismay.
5 May they be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them away;
6 may their path be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them.
7 Since they hid their net for me without cause and without cause dug a pit for me,
8 may ruin overtake them by surprise—may the net they hid entangle them, may they fall into the pit, to their ruin.
9 Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord and delight in his salvation.
10 My whole being will exclaim, “Who is like you, Lord? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.”
Psalm 35:1-10 NIV
David found himself fully relying on God’s ability to rescue him. His desperation draws him closer and closer to God.
11 Ruthless witnesses come forward; they question me on things I know nothing about.
12 They repay me evil for good and leave me like one bereaved.
13 Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. When my prayers returned to me unanswered,
14 I went about mourning as though for my friend or brother. I bowed my head in grief as though weeping for my mother.
15 But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee; assailants gathered against me without my knowledge. They slandered me without ceasing.
16 Like the ungodly they maliciously mocked; they gnashed their teeth at me.
Psalm 35:11-16 NIV
In verse 13, David talks about how fasting brings about humility and causes a heart shift. Fasting attunes hearts to what God cares about. The enemies remain, and David continues his lament and mourning. However, David feels his heart shift from anger to empathy. He begins to mourn and weep for his enemies. Only God could bring such a change.
While David’s attitude toward his enemies shifts in profound way, his enemies continue along the same path of vengeance. They mock and slander him when he stumbles.
17 How long, Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their ravages, my precious life from these lions.
18 I will give you thanks in the great assembly; among the throngs I will praise you.
19 Do not let those gloat over me who are my enemies without cause; do not let those who hate me without reason maliciously wink the eye.
20 They do not speak peaceably, but devise false accusations against those who live quietly in the land.
21 They sneer at me and say, “Aha! Aha! With our own eyes we have seen it.”
Psalm 35:17-21 NIV
David’s enemies are relentless in their bad behavior. Somewhere between these verses, David chooses a different response from what surrounds him. He promises to praise God. Even after he declares this he continues to be surrounded by false accusations and sneering. His promise to praise reveals a spark of hope being fanned into a flame of passion.
22 LORD, you have seen this; do not be silent. Do not be far from me, Lord.
23 Awake, and rise to my defense! Contend for me, my God and Lord.
24 Vindicate me in your righteousness, LORD my God; do not let them gloat over me.
25 Do not let them think, “Aha, just what we wanted!” or say, “We have swallowed him up.”
26 May all who gloat over my distress be put to shame and confusion; may all who exalt themselves over me be clothed with shame and disgrace.
27 May those who delight in my vindication shout for joy and gladness; may they always say, “The LORD be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant.”
28 My tongue will proclaim your righteousness, your praises all day long.
Psalm 35:22-28 NIV
David praises God amid pain and offers these praises all day long. In Psalm 35 David moves from lamenting his hopeless situation to proclaiming God’s righteousness and praising Him all day.
Choosing to fast can powerfully propel me into a closeness with God’s heart and His desires for me. In this position of dependence, I become more attuned to what God delights in despite my circumstances. The Lord begins to allow me to catch a glimpse of some of the mysteries that swirl inside. My empathy grows for others and bonds me even more closely with God and His heart for all He created. Fasting is both a tool and a gift from my heavenly father. He knows exactly what I need.
What experience do you have with fasting food as a spiritual tool? What questions do you have about fasting? Have you chosen to fast from something this Lent?
Anthea Kotlan 