Experiencing God to recover emotionally. Part 6 of a series

I was chatting with someone today. He gets frustrated with a trend for lamenting as expressing pain to God. In a one-way relationship.

His part of the church has discovered prayer as lament. Lament being expressing your painful emotions to God. However, in moving beyond prayer as petition; or prayer as praise, they have lost any sense of being with God. They express pain to God but allow no space to experience him.

His section of church did not understand being with God in our pain; of God attuning to us in our sadness or anger, or despair. Theologically, it has lost the sense of Immanuel: God-with-us, of God being our comforter, or Jesus being the Prince of peace, the peace which passes all understanding.

In contrast, the Christian hopes in God, who is our comforter. 2 Corinthians 1:3 praises “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is the Father who is full of mercy and all comfort.” This comfort can get real and close by experiencing God with us in our pain. This can happen in,

·        Immanuel Journalling (A prayerful way of writing);

·        personal prayer, the reading of Scripture, the preaching of the sermon, a prophetic word, etc.;

·        fellowship when we experience a Christian synchronising with us and being with us in our pain;

·        one-on-one ministry, such as in church prayer ministry, or Immanuel prayer, or HeartSync;

·        experiencing the Prince of peace being with me as I calm myself.

I have experienced God being with me in my time in each of these ways. For example, I went into church the other week. I was feeling pretty frazzled. I was in a hurry after finishing a sequence of meetings. I had a service to lead and walked to the back of church and chatted to Yasmin. I said to Yasmin that I wanted to take a 5 minute breather as I was feeling frazzled. She responded, “yes I can see that in your eyes.”

I went to a Wenlock chapel, spending five minutes in appreciation using my appreciation journal. As I completed the exercise, I felt myself calming down and coming to a sense of peace. A peace which I could feel in my chest. I also sensed God’s presence with me. With more time, I could have taken that into a deeper personal prayer time, but the time had come to begin the service. I began the short Wednesday service with a sense of God’s presence and peace, which had both calmed me and warmed me emotionally.

The more often we spend time with God in our pain or overwhelm, the more often we each will have simple stories to tell of God being with us, helping us to recover emotionally. If we would like him to go deeper, then we can receive prayer from those who have experienced God healing them deeply.

I wrote my gratitude journal so that I could be with God and recover emotionally from the effects of overwhelm. I could equally have told you stories of,

·        Immanuel journalling about how that helps me or how

·        Reading of Scripture helped me last week or

·        how I experienced God through hearing a sermon or

·        receiving Immanuel prayer where I receive personal ministry, which grows my capacity.

These things all help me experience God and build my resilience. I was wondering how you build in times to experience God, which helps you to recover emotionally from COVID-19?

·        Are there deep pains to bring to HeartSync or Immanuel prayer?

·        Are there things to be thought through with God through Immanuel Journaling?

·        Do you need to take some time to calm or in appreciation?

·        What routines have you built into your life to experience God?

Your future develops out of your routines. What are you sowing now to experiencing God for your personal healing so that in the future you will be a happier, more positive, more effective Christian?