Heart Check

“Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.”
Isaiah 40:10

Can I be real with you? These past few years have been hard – very hard. Unmanageable workloads, spiritual battles, personal emergencies, broken relationships, a global pandemic, and the list could go on. All these things, combined and compounded over time have caused me to feel anxious, afraid, depressed, angry and at times like I desperately wanted to give up.

I woke up one morning recently, and all of this seemed to catch up with me. I was afraid to face another day and I wanted to run away from everything. I sat down with a coffee to have my morning quiet time and looked at the stack of Christian books in front of me that I had been
reading. I was exhausted and nothing appealed to me to read, nor did I have the energy to pick one up and start. So, I just sat. I closed my eyes, held my coffee, and chose to think about God.

The Holy Spirit brought to my mind the story of the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19. I picked up my Bible, found the story and read it. The chapter starts with Elijah being afraid and running for his life. He went on a day’s journey into the wilderness, came to a bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said, “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he laid down under the bush and fell asleep. Have you ever felt like that? I certainly have.

Then, the Bible says that an angel came to him, touched him, and said to get up and eat. Elijah looked around and by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and went back to sleep. The angel woke him again, told him to eat some more because the journey ahead was too much for Elijah. He was strengthened by that food, and then travelled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. He went into a cave and spent the night.

I had been so focused on my spiritual and mental health that I had forgotten about my physical health. God was showing me how He cared for His prophet Elijah and that He cared about me too. I was surprised that God didn’t condemn me for the way I was feeling or tell me to cheer up and try harder. He wasn’t disappointed in me for not being the all powerful-enduring-perfect-Christian that I expected myself to be. He was loving and compassionate toward me! I was even more surprised that the godliest thing I could do that day was to take a nap.

And I did.

You know what happened when I woke up from my  nap? I felt better. My mind was clearer, I had more energy, and I could fight with truth against my fears about the day ahead. Like how Elijah could then endure the forty days and forty nights ahead of him after food and rest, I faced the day ahead of me after my nap and I made it through.

There is an acronym we use in Celebrate Recovery called H.E.A.R.T., which stands for Hurting, Exhausted, Angry, Resentful, and Tense. This is a valuable tool because it can help us evaluate our actions and reactions and bring them to God in prayer – asking for His guidance.

Psalm 139:23 says, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts”. God was with Elijah by the bush and knew his heart – He knew Elijah was exhausted and hurting which caused him to ask for his life to be taken. In compassionate response, God provided for Elijah through sleep and the food the angel made. As a follower of Jesus, His Spirit is within us, and He knows our hearts too. We can ask Him to search us, to know our heart, and to help us overcome any obstacles (like exhaustion) with something as simple as resting our body (yes, a nap!).

God knows us best – He created us! He has compassion for us and knows we need rest and food to thrive – and we can trust Him to guide us in the best way to take care of ourselves. This life is hard, just as Jesus said it would be, we need to be prepared for the journey God has us on. Our spiritual health is always important and needs constant nourishment, but our physical needs do, too.  

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