Faith Works 9-18-21

Faith Works 9-18-21

Jeff Gill

Mind, body, and spirit working together

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Anybody feeling stressed out there?

Hahahahaha. I'm a funny guy.

Yeah, stress and anxiety are the watchwords of 2021. I could get all up in your face with the Granville cholera outbreak of 1834, or typhoid in Newark around 1900, or the ongoing tuberculosis plague that pressed Licking County so strongly as to build its own sanitarium in the 1930s, up on Price Road and now the offices of the county health department. 

76 years ago, people were waiting for loved ones, mostly young men but not a few young women included, to return from World War II; those watchful families still were haunted in 1945, and were their whole lives, by the memory of bank failures and national unemployment and CCC camps during the Great Depression.

Stress is, according to the biologists, a characteristic of life. Some stress helps organisms grow, and even to get stronger; in the lab, there have been experiments on plants and simple animals that show a completely stress-free environment produces a weaker, more vulnerable mature form.

Or as Nietzsche famously said, "that which does not kill me makes me stronger." As a Christian preacher, he's not really a guy I want to quote, but it's certainly a well-known expression of the principle. That's not even remotely Biblical, but neither is "God will never give us more than we can handle." In fact, many of us pray often "deliver us from evil" (or "save us from the time of trial") because Jesus knew we'd be tested. He even told us to take up our cross and follow his example, and we know where that goes even if that's not where the story ends.

In the time between promise and fulfillment, between already and not-yet, we are called to find our path of peace in a world filled with division. To seek holiness while sin still prevails for a season, to minister healing amidst brokenness. This can be . . . stressful.

But we've been given tools and resources to work through all this stress, whether it was medieval plague or historic conflict or contemporary media overload. I closed last week with a non-sarcastic reminder to check out Matthew, chapter 5. You could keep reading, too. The Sermon on the Mount has quite a bit to speak to our stress, and helping us reframe and even overcome it.

Jesus also takes naps in the Gospels (look it up, I'm not kidding), and went on retreat. He unplugged from Galilee sometimes, and got away from everyone even when no one could have been filming him with their phone. He shut off his devices and went up in the hills, or out on the lake, and chilled. Again, look it up if you think I'm pulling your leg.

If your prayer life is struggling in the wake of the last two years, that's perfectly normal, but it's also something you can do more about than I think we realize. First, make sure you put some prayer time on your schedule, in your habits, into your digital calendar. And when it reminds you it's time, shut it off to spend that time. God can shout, but do you really want to make God do that? Let the Holy One whisper, and find a quiet place, your own upper room wherever.

If your spirit is in turmoil, and that's blocking you in your divine communication, perhaps that's simply God speaking to say "deal with that first, I'll be here when you're done." Somebody or something that you can cope with, which is do-able and finishable? Completion is, I firmly believe, a spiritual discipline of sorts if not exactly a prayer. Finish what needs finishing, then your thanks will rise up naturally as you sit or kneel to pray.

And if your body needs care, care for it. We are told in the Bible we are to expect redemption and resurrection as complete persons. We're not just disembodied spirits awaiting release. The body in a mysterious way is a part of creation which God has plans for. In the interim, that means we need to care for the temple into which our soul is housed, and that maintenance work is indeed a form of prayer. If you can pray while walking, I think you can pray exercising, too. Push ups and planks included.

Prayer in mind, body, and spirit, brings peace. This is a true statement on which you can rely. Seek peace. Find shalom. God wants that for you.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher around central Ohio; he's around 60/40 at peace and working on it. Tell him how you find shalom at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.