Feeling Dead on the Inside

Ever have that dead on the inside feeling? Check out and consider When You Feel Dead On the Inside: 10 Questions Every Struggling Christian Should Answer by Jedediah Coppenger

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. In fact, it was something I’d been told quite a bit as a pastor. “I feel dead on the inside.” It’s voiced by new Christians and seasoned Christians alike. I’ve said it a surprising amount of times. You don’t see it coming typically. It seems to just happen. The energy-intellectual, emotional, spiritual, or physical-isn’t there like it used to be.

So what do you do when you feel dead on the inside? What do you say to your loved ones when they feel this way? I’ve found that people who reflect on the following 10 diagnostic questions find the life and energy they’ve been missing more quickly and deeply than those that don’t. The way you answer these questions will determine what steps you need to take next.

How Life-Giving Is Your Devotional Life? Every Christian goes through seasons where their devotional life is incredibly life-giving and seasons where it’s a bit dry. In a dry season, you open the Bible or start to pray, but nothing seems to happen. You don’t leave more encouraged and aware of God’s gracious purposes for you and presence with you today. You don’t walk away with a humble confidence as you face your problem filled day. Unfortunately, you feel just like you did before—weary. When a dry devotional life becomes the norm, burnout is typically not far ahead.

How Often Are You Asking God For Help? Every Christian knows that they should pray, but most don’t. As they find themselves feeling more and more discouraged, rarely do they ask God for help more and more. It’s weird that when many people feel their greatest need for help, when they feel their weakest, they don’t ask for help. Is any of this true of you? If you aren’t asking for help from God, then you’re not accessing all of the resources available to you. If you aren’t accessing the divine resources available to you, then you’re looking for divine help from people and places that aren’t able to provide it—including yourself. Be on the lookout for a lack of prayerfulness as you diagnose your struggle.

How Much “New” Are You Facing? It always takes more energy to start something new than it does to do what you’ve always done. It could be a new job, a new project, a new schedule, new city, new relationship, or anything else that takes you out of your comfort zone. Too much “new” at one time raises your chances for burnout.

The Lies of Anxiety

Feeling anxious? Check out - 8 Arguments For Why You Should Be Anxious Today and How the Bible Responds by Justin Taylor

An important lesson of the Christian life is that the heart of the battle is a fight not between abstract commands (do this! don’t do that!) but rather arguments. Unbelief does not just offer dictates; it offers reasons why we don’t need to trust the Lord. And to counter that, gospel-flavored belief argues with our unbelief. In other words, it provides reasons for why trusting the Lord is always the good and wise things to do.

Here are some notes on how this might work with the temptation to fret and worry and be anxious and unsettled, rather than acting in joyful, confident, restful faith. I’ve included the argument of unbelief, a Scripture passage, and some observations on how the argument works.

1. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE GOD IS TOO FAR AWAY TO HEAR MY NEEDS.

Philippians 4:5-6: ”The Lord is at hand; [therefore] do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

• The truth: “The Lord is at hand”
• What is prohibited as a result: “do not be anxious about anything”
• The alternative that is prescribed as a result: “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God [i.e., the Lord who is near to hear and to help].”

2. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE GOD DOES NOT CARE FOR ME AND I NEED TO GET MYSELF OUT OF THIS HUMILIATING STAGE OF LIFE.

1 Peter 5:6-7: Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

• The truth: God cares for me.
• The command: I am to humble myself.
• How? By casting all of my anxieties on him.
• A corollary: Carrying rather than casting my anxieties is an expression of pride.

3. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE IF MY PROBLEMS AREN’T SOLVED I COULD DIE.

Matthew 6:25: “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

• You still have eternal life even if you have no food
• You will still have a resurrection body even if you are physically deprived.
• Even if your struggle ends in death you will not have lost the most important things; therefore, don’t spend your time being anxious about lesser things.

4. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE I HAVE NO PRACTICAL EVIDENCE IN THE WORLD THAT GOD VALUES ME OR WILL TAKE CARE OF ME. 

Matthew 6:26, 28-30: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? . . . And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

• God values the birds and the grass, which he richly provides for and adorns.
• God values me much more than the birds and the grass.
• Therefore, as an argument from the lesser to the greater, obviously he will be even more invested in providing for all of my needs.

5. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH IT HELPS MY LIFE.

Matthew 6:27: ”Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” [Answer: no one.]

• The truth: Anxiety can’t add a single hour to my life.
• Presupposition: I shouldn’t spend my time on pointless activities that have no benefits.
• Result: I shouldn’t be anxious.

6. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE IS GOING TO LOOK OUT FOR MY NEEDS.

Matthew 6:31, 33: “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For . . . your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

• The truth: God knows I have needs for food, drink, clothing
• The implication: When God knows a need and he loves the needy he is glad to be the supplier of the need.
• The result: My focus can be on God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, knowing that my needs will be taken care of.

7. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT; AFTER ALL, EVERYONE DOES IT AND IT SEEMS TO WORK FOR THEM.

Matthew 6:31-32: “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things. . . .”

• The truth: Unbelievers are anxious about how their needs are going to be met.
• Presupposition: Christians are not to act like unbelievers.
• Result: We should not be anxious like the world is anxious.

8. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE SO MANY TROUBLES ARE COMING TO ME IN THE FUTURE IF I DON’T WORRY ABOUT THEM NOW.

Matthew 6:34: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

• Tomorrow is going to do just fine without your help, but thanks anyway.

Be Still and Know...

Be Still by Pete Wilson:

One of my favorite verses to go to when I’m being overtaken by worry is Psalm 46:1, 10-11

God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. 10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. 11 The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. 

I think it is easy, especially as we get older, to interpret “be still” as being lazy and lethargic, like we’re just supposed to sit there while the world spins out of control around us. However, the word “still” in Hebrew actually means to cease striving. We are constantly striving to control things that we were never designed to control, so all we need to do is be still and lean into the only one who ever had any control in the first place.

Cease striving today. Not because you know that things will all work out, but because you know the God who will work it out.

The Warp of Worry

How Worry Warps Your View Of God: Paul's Format For Getting It Right - by Thomas Christianson at Relevant 

A couple weeks ago, I started having trouble sleeping. This wasn't normal for me. But lately, there have been a lot of stresses weighing on me. I just lay there with pieces of uncertainty or unfinished business glowing on the checklist of my mind.

Potential conversations keep playing and rewinding over and over again in my mind while I plan how to deal with existing problems. Then, of course, I have to try to figure out what unforeseen problems are coming my way.

Somewhere in there, I remember Jesus saying not to worry about tomorrow.
But wasn’t Jesus worried in the Garden of Gethsemane when He literally sweat blood and asked the Father to remove the cup of suffering that Jesus was about to have to drink?

So how is this whole “don’t worry” thing supposed to look in my life? What’s the line between “not worrying” and being naive and unprepared?

Trusting in God’s Strength

In Philippians 4, Paul says he has learned the secret of living whether he has plenty or is in need, and that secret was that he could do all things because of the strength God gives.
If my issues and problems are bigger than God in my own eyes, they will have a bigger influence in my life than God does.

To Paul, not worrying means we live in confidence of God’s strength.

Worry is the opposite: it is when we live without confidence in God’s strength.
If I were to vocalize my worry, it would probably sound like this, “When I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t have much control over the outcome, and I’m not comfortable with that arrangement.”

That’s a lot different from Paul’s approach, which didn’t depend on the situation, but in the unchanging nature and character of God.

Trust vs. Control

Trusting in God doesn’t mean we have to love the situations we find ourselves in. Jesus clearly didn’t love the day of agony and abandonment He faced. Paul wasn’t hoping to endure more shipwrecks and stonings.

I don’t want my car to break down, or for my daughter to have a hard time at school. But the question is whether those things loom larger in my mind than God’s goodness and His sovereignty (the fact that He is in control and that He cares about me).

Because if my issues and problems are bigger than God in my own eyes, they will have a bigger influence in my life than God does.

There’s nothing wrong with making plans and preparations, but if we ignore the nature of God (all powerful, all knowing, all present), how much good can our plans really do?
This doesn’t mean we should run to the opposite approach and just accept everything without question.

We serve a God who has invited us in to His plans of making all things new. He says we have a part to play in that process. Rather than accepting everything the way it is, we can push back against injustice and heartache in our world.

God is not a mean kid with a magnifying glass on an anthill. You are not foolish to trust Him.

But in the midst of all this, how do we incorporate trust in God’s strength into our everyday lives?

I think Paul lobs us a softball in Philippians 4:6-7 (the same chapter where he talks about having the secret to contentment):

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”

I like to boil this down to a pseudo-mathematical formula:
Pray + Thank = Peace.

Pray

This is not about telling God what you want Him to do. This is about remembering His nature and character.

Look at Jesus praying in Gethsemane. His prayer wasn’t about uncertainty. Jesus knew everything that was coming His way when he was praying in Gethsemane. His prayer was about asking God for strength.

Prayer may not result in God “fixing” your situation the way you would demand from a genie, but He promises that He will strengthen us as we seek His will both in and through our lives.

Thank

If you’re following Jesus, I’m guessing you have a story or two about instances where things seemed pretty hopeless, but in the end they worked out. Remind yourself of those stories.

God is not a mean kid with a magnifying glass on an anthill. You are not foolish to trust Him.

Instead of worrying about if or when or what hardships you’ll face, spend your time becoming the kind of person who responds in healthy ways to the challenges of this life.
In addition to loving you, God has invested a great deal into you—He’s not going to kick you to the curb.

Thank Him for what He’s done, and choose to exercise faith by thanking Him in advance for what He will do.

Peace

Usually, my worry is directly linked to my ability to comprehend the “master plan.” I say stuff like, “I’m willing to trust God, I just want to know what He’s up to.”
Jesus says that His peace goes beyond all understanding, so our ability to stop worrying isn't linked to our ability to figure stuff out.

In fact, our uncertainty about the future is a chance to trust God.
God is faithful to us even (especially?) when we don’t deserve it.

No Worries

From Radio Free Babylon
(Click on image to enlarge)

How To Fret

Do you worry? Do you fret? That's a little like asking "Do you breathe?" Since we all do it, here's a good piece by Jonathan Parnell at Desiring God- Three Facts For Your Fret:

We tend to fret.

It is a fact about creatures that we are derivative beings who can’t ultimately control the world around us. We have questions about whether we should do this or that, and about what might happen if we do this or that, which quickly turns into worries about how badly this or that might turn out. Before long, we’re in the storm of outright anxiety. It begins to bear down on us with hurricane-force winds — all the facts and would-be’s, the haywire of things gone sideways, and our incapacity to determine results. What are we supposed to do?

Remember God. That is what we are supposed to do. We remember that these worries are as ancient as our earliest forefathers, and that God has been in the business of answering them since the beginning, and better, that the way he answers them is not by ignoring the complexity, but by stepping into it. In short, we should know we’re not alone, that God hears, and that God works in the middle of our mess.

1. You’re Not Alone

The psalms are incomparable in making this point. Not only do they show us again and again that God cares, but they, in one sense, come alongside us to feel what we feel. We can forget sometimes that the psalmists were real people like us, and that their situations were as literal as anything we’d experience. We shouldn’t lose that in the poetry. When David says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4), we should remember that actual enemies were trying to kill him. Now, that’s a beautiful metaphor — the valley and the shadow and all that — but it works only because death was seriously all around him.

The psalms are real life, and that’s why they help us. Whatever circumstances we are going through, as different as they might be from the psalmist’s so many years ago, there are wonderful similarities. Psalm 37 stands out.

The psalm opens: “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!” (Psalm 37:1). Again, “Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil” (Psalm 37:8). The point is that we don’t worry. Granted, there are various reasons for why any of God’s people might worry over the course of centuries, but the command not to worry and the basis of not worrying are the same. Whatever worries we have, we are not alone. Our brothers and sisters have been there.

2. God Hears You

A psalmist is writing about fret, which means it’s happened before. But also, and more specifically, the psalmist is exhorting God’s people about fret, which means God knows what’s going on. God isn’t a stranger to this. He has heard his people then, and he hears us now.

The psalms as a whole make this wonderfully clear. It is even thematic, as I think we can see in the first few psalms. What begins to stand out when we read the first handful together is that David has this unremitting confidence in God’s nearness — that God listens to him and cares. “I cried aloud the the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he answered me from his holy hill” (Psalm 3:4); “The Lᴏʀᴅ has set apart the godly for himself; the Lᴏʀᴅ hears when I call to him” (Psalm 4:1, 3); “O Lᴏʀᴅ, in the morning you hear my voice” (Psalm 5:3); “The Lᴏʀᴅ has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lᴏʀᴅ has heard my plea; the Lᴏʀᴅ accepts my prayer” (Psalm 6:8–9).

This is the great reminder that even in the thick of our fret, we never find God “indifferent or helpless or caught by surprise.” And that even when it seems like no one else hears, that our friends have all deserted us, we can turn the page with David to Psalm 38:9, “O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you.” God hears, always.

The Place of Refuge for Every Worry

From @Steubenville on Twitter

No Sweat

I Stink At Prayer

I stink at prayer. Pete Wilson's words below clarify why.

Do you ever wonder why we’re  so inconsistent with prayer? While I won’t speak for you I’ll admit one of the main reasons I don’t pray more consistently is in a word: pride.

I love this quote from one of Matt Chandler’s messages. He said,

“Prayer, more than any other spiritual discipline, reveals what’s really in your heart and how much pride you operate in. Prayer, more than any other discipline, reveals what you really believe about you, what you really believe about God, and how much pride is in the tank of your soul.”

Why do I stink at prayer? Because I’m so good at pride!

I believe one of the greatest reasons so many of us struggle with prayer is because we live under a prideful illusion that we’re in control. And control is this addictive illusion that will permeate your consciousness over time and make you begin to believe you really don’t need to pursue God.

The greatest need many of us have is to recognize that we are not in control.... and that He is. Wilson also said "Worry isn’t the result of your problems. Worry is the result of you thinking you can control your problems." Truth there.

All the Grace You Need

“You have all the grace you need for now. You don’t have to worry about then. When then becomes now you’ll have all the grace you need.”

          - Paul David Tripp, Twitter Post

Hat Tip:  Of First Importance
 

Action Steps For The Anxious

Found these wise words at Peter Cockrell's blog, "Already Not Yet" (love the title!) quoting Paul Tripp's six Action Steps For Anxiety

Paul Tripp’s six action steps for anxiety:

Remind Yourself That God Is In Control: When you convince yourself that your world is out of control, you are on the verge of paralysis. Watch your self-talk. Are you saying to yourself: “God is in control of this circumstance, He is my Father, and He is ruling this for my benefit”?

Accept Confusion: Believing in God’s sovereignty doesn’t mean life will make sense. Believing in God’s sovereignty is needed because life doesn’t make sense. Your rest is not in figuring out your circumstances–your rest is in the God behind the circumstances.

Don’t Allow Emotions To Rule: As much as the emotions you experience will be right, good, and appropriate, don’t let them set the agenda. There is a temptation to do that, but allowing yourself to be pulled away by the emotions of the moment could cause you to regret your decisions later.

Distinguish Needs From Wants: Be very careful what you put in your catalog of “need.” The minute you tell yourself something is a need, you’re saying it is essential for life. Then you are going to determine that you can’t live without it. It’s easy to attach yourself and your sense of security to the gift rather than to the Giver.

Know Your Job Description: God promises to provide. Your job is to live the way God has called you to live. Instead of giving way to discouragement, look for ways you can contribute to God’s people at the moment.

Run To God, Not Away From Him: God’s promise to us is not first the relief of the suffering–His promise is to give us Himself. He will never turn a deaf ear to the natural cries of a person of faith when life doesn’t make sense. God hears and answers and works and comforts.

(HT: Tullian Tchividjian)