I've been feeling overly cranky, tired, frustrated. My attitude has been that of contempt, I didn't want to go to Church, I don't want to participate in my ministries. My temper has flared at my family more than once this week. I've been over-all ugly and I cry at the drop of a hat. I've been feeling disconnected from God and fear and anxiety have been creeping back in to my life with a vengeance. Yesterday I had enough of this awful feeling and cried out to Jesus. I wanted to know what in the world was wrong with me and why I was feeling like this. I needed answers and help.
Spiritually Malnourished.
That's the answer I got, the answer I wasn't expecting. Maybe you're feeling like this today? Since I finally have my answer what are some ways to remedy that? Well I got those answers too.
1) Dive into The Word. 30 minutes in the afternoon for my quiet time is not enough. I need more. I'm creating a personal Bible Study about parenting that I'm going to be working on to add to my quiet times.
2) Personal Worship Time. Turn on some worship music and get lost in God's presence. I don't know how it happened or when it happened but somewhere, sometime I stopped listening to worship music, I stopped singing, I stopped worshiping.
3) More Church Time. I've been downstairs learning and training for the new position God wants me in that I haven't even been paying attention to the fact that I'm not getting fed the "meat" of The Word as much. This will be fixed as soon as possible. Milk is good but it can only sustain for a while before our Spirits start growling.
4) Prayer. Prayer is so powerful, just talking to God outside of prayer is needed. Acknowledging Him in everything, even the small things of our day can bring new perspective to a stressful situation.
I have been starving my Spirit and in response my attitude has been failing. We have to make sure we're getting fed spiritually on a continual basis or our lives will get out of control, God will seem further and further away and we will feel completley alone even though that's not the case at all. I'm so grateful for these answers, thank You Jesus.
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? Luke 15:4
Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life, those who come to me will never go hungry." John 6:35
4 comments:
Great post! We can't starve our spirits and still expect to have God's peace and joy. We must stay connected to Him. He is worth it!
We've all been there more than once Mandy, and it sounds like you have the right formula to fix it. :-) I wrote on this myself some time ago. (http://www.phatherphil.org/?p=950)
Great post!
Have a Blessed Day!
Man can't live by bread alone... We must feed our souls too... When we are spiritually malnourished, the devil can easily bully us... So we must not starve our soul! Thanks for this post!
I understand being spiritually malnourished...however, I am going to disagree with you on the 'milk' being preached downstairs! I have been doing children's church for a very long time, Mandy, and one thing I don't do is preach...milk. On occasion the message God gives me for the kids may seem a little less...um, meaty and I wonder why God would have be give the message that way. Then on Sunday...I see that we have a visitor or someone that hasn't been there in a while or I see that one of the kids is in 'need' of some milk. It's then that I understand why God had me do the message that way. I have learned over these last 30 years in ministry that if I can't 'hear from God' in a grown-up way from the messages I have in children's church, then I must be doing something wrong. There is not a week that goes by that I don't hear from God...directly and specifically...related to ME. The hours I spend preparing week after week...plus my own quiet time...I am not spiritually malnourished...I am WELL FED. It just takes time and getting used to 'getting' your meal in a different way than you did b.c.c. (before children's church). You'll get it...you'll figure it out. God doesn't call you to ministry to leave you hungering for more...He calls you to ministry to FEED you even more than before! Don't fret.
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