September 19, 2013 … When things get tough …

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2013 - Day 262

Devotional Song:    Go to this link -  Please meditate on the call of this purposeful and powerful song, It’s Going To Be Alright, sung by Sara Groves with some powerful God Tube images, … reminding us that when things get tough our belief and faith are the only things which bring us through the troubles.

Highlight meditation passage – Philippians 4: 6-7 [NLT]: … Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. 7 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. 
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Reference Passage #1: Isaiah 26: 3 [Yeah, … peace, that’s what I’m looking for.] … [NLT] …  
3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on You!

Reference Passage #2: Hebrews 11: 6 [No matter what; we must believe in Him.] … [NLT] …  
6 And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.

Reference Passage #3: Romans 8: 28 [It’s true; but do we believe it?] … [NLT] …
28 And we know that God causes everything to work together[a] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 

 Reference Passage #4: 1st Corinthians 10: 13 [He will bring us through! … Yes He will! … But do we believe it?] … [NLT] …  
13 The temptations [tests, trials, tribulations, or troubles] in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, He will show you a way out so that you can endure.

Reference Passage #5: 1st Peter 5: 7 [God wants us to come to Him; … but do we humble ourselves and take our trials to Him?] … [NLT] …  
7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.

My Journal for Today: If you’re reading here along with me, can I assume that you know that we’re going to face trials or troubles in our lives, some of which may be overwhelming? Today my Os Hillman devotional reminded me that, all too often, our reflexive, almost knee-jerk, reaction, even as Christians, is to go into worry mode … or maybe even into a pity-party.

Yeah, that was my M.O. when troubles came my way many years ago; but I had a mentor who helped me see that there was a better way to handle my mental turmoil in the face of life’s challenges. He taught me to take my feelings of anguish and anxiety to God, using God’s own words in prayer to give me the peace promised in Philippians 4: 6-7 to deal with my feelings. And he also taught me a fool-proof prescription for my self-activated worries; and that was to memorize and internalize certain Scriptures which I could bubble up out of my consciousness when I was anxious about something in my life.

This morning after I was led to use the Philippians 4 passage as my highlight passage in this blog, like a flood of faith from God, the other five passage which I copied above bubbled up from my memory bank. And these are some of the ones which I now go to in prayer, verbalizing them back to God, and committing myself to their truth, which belays my fears and reduces – if not eliminates – my anxiety.

So, if you’re reading here and you have some anxiety about something in your life, I would challenge you to take the time and faith-building energy to memorize, contextualize, and internalize at least three of the Scriptures above. Then, … when you’re confronted with some life-testing trial or tribulation, take these Scriptures to God in prayer.

My anxiety-reducing exercise is to pray first to God, the Father, thanking Him for the blessing of life and yes, even for the blessing of the trials in my life. Then I recite, openly and verbally several of the scriptures above. … Secondly, I pray to God, The Son, thanking Him for saving me to live for Him; and I recite the same scriptures a second time. … And then, finally, I pray to God, the Holy Spirit, thanking Him for being in me and with me in the face of my trials, … once again reciting those verses a third time.

And I challenge you to take my prescription for worry and my anxiety reducing exercise above to heart and use it the next time you’re worrying about something deeply. My friend, my experience has been that this technique will always work to effectively reduce your anxiety; and if you really do this and it doesn’t seem to reduce your anxiety, I want to know about it. Email me @ billb13@bellsouth.net and tell me of your trials and how you used my worry reducing prescription.

My Prayer for Today … Lord, thank You for a way to take away my worries when I use the technique You gave me years ago. And I praise You because it only works because of You. … Amen