Transcript:
Hello, welcome to Walking in Step with God. I’m Steve McDonald. We are turning the page in our ‘Invitation’ series to uncover a gift we all need—the ability to ‘Discover Inner Calm.’
How are you doing and feeling today? Are you feeling optimistic, encouraged, or hopeful? Maybe you’re feeling anxious, worried, or depressed. There is a wide range of emotions ‌between those extremes, but there’s one thing that is always helpful: calm.
Even amid joy, enthusiasm, and excitement, it is still good to have moments of calm and peace to reflect and consider. There’s also great value in calm when we’re in the midst of struggles that can bring frustration, concern, worry, and fear. When we find calm, we can make space to give our hearts and minds a break from the stressors and focus on healing.
When it comes to our faith, it is so important to know how to find inner calm in our lives. Within this calm, we can find peace, and peace is where we can find God.
God can help to keep peace in our hearts and minds. In peace, we can experience calm in a way that we could not do on our own. By leaning on our faith and putting our trust in God, we can find calm and peace amidst even the most difficult circumstances—even if it seems like the sky is falling. God has the ability to comfort us with His presence and help us find that stillness.
God can also help us find calm if we are not overwhelmed with worry, but simply overwhelmed with life. Whether it is a chaotic career, the busyness of work, or managing a busy home, God can help you find peace and inner calm.
Today, we are going to explore ways to discover inner calm. Let’s discuss how to leverage our faith to find calm amidst any circumstance in life and embrace the peace that can only come from God.
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Welcome back. Let’s continue in our discussion of ways to discover inner calm.
Prayer
One of the most important things we can do to discover inner calm is to understand the importance of prayer.
Why do I mention prayer first? Because I’ve learned over the years that when I prioritize God, I am expressing to Him that -He- is first. When I prioritize God, I’m making clear that even in the midst of amazing joy, excitement, and exuberance, He is first. I’m letting Him know that amid sorrow, loss, pain, frustration, angst, and stressors, He is first.
I believe that when we put God first, it shows a posture to Him that we depend on Him to help us navigate through life. It demonstrates to God that whether or not things are okay, we still want Him to be involved.
Just like any relationship, I believe you get more out of a relationship with God when you invest in it, and putting God first in your life is part of that. One of the most powerful ways to put Him first is prayer. Speak to God when you are excited and joyful. Speak to God when you are feeling sad and lost. Keep Him top of mind, keep Him close, and keep Him near your heart. Inevitably, you will discover a calm that can only come from the peace found in the presence of God. In His presence, we have access to a level of calm that can truly bring comfort to our hearts and minds.
Last week, I fumbled while taking some leftovers out of the refrigerator, and it spilled a thick, lumpy gravy all over the refrigerator door, counters, and floor. Despite the impromptu cleanup that I had just created for myself, I was completely calm. Once upon a time, that incident would have been met with several choice words of profanity yelled out in frustration. Instead, I was in complete calm. I believe this is because I am in constant contact with God in prayer, and as a result there is a persisting stillness and inner calm that dwells within me.
Remember, you don’t need to wait for an extreme situation to pray. I encourage you to stay in constant contact with God throughout your day and embrace the inner calm that comes from the peace that only He can provide.
Make Time for Self-Care
What are some activities that help you to reset and regroup? What are the activities that you would consider self-care?
For some, this may be a long hot bath. For others, it may be a stroll or a run around the neighborhood. Yet others may define self-care as being snuggled up on the sofa with a good podcast or listening to music. Whatever self-care looks like for you, it is in these moments that we can discover inner calm.
It’s wonderful when we can find self-care activities that only require that we make the time.
Here is an example of what self-care looks like for me. Believe it or not, I love playing video games. To be exact, I love playing city builder video games. In these games, you have full control of constructing and planning an entire city. Street by street, building by building, you can construct large or small cities on a blank canvas of a map. For me, this is one of the best forms of self-care I can think of. I can relax doing this for hours on end and think about absolutely nothing else but just plopping down one building at a time.
Maybe you have a hobby that you consider self-care because it gives you the same sort of relaxation and helps you discover inner calm. Whatever your self-care activity may be, make sure it’s a regular part of your life. I block out time on my calendar every week to stop and play video games because I know it helps me discover my inner calm regardless of what’s happening in my life, especially after a long, hard day at work.
Make self-care a priority and embrace the inner calm it brings. If you don’t know of an activity that would bring you calm and relaxation, don’t worry! Ask God to lead you to the activities you can pursue in life that will bring you inner calm.
Trust God
So far today, we’ve talked about prayer and the importance of making time for self-care. The last thing I’d like to touch on today is truly the most important thing to discovering and keeping inner calm: trusting God.
This is the reason I encourage you to be in constant and unceasing prayer—in constant conversation with the One who knows you best. When we can find it in our hearts and minds to trust God, that alone is enough to put our minds at ease. As I‌ touched on earlier, trusting God applies to anything and everything.
We should trust God in the midst of difficult circumstances where we are experiencing suffering and loss. During these times, we should look to Him to provide instruction and direction for navigating through challenges and to provide comfort when we experience consequences of things we cannot control.
In the same manner, we can trust God when things are going great—when you have the promotion you’ve always wanted, money saved in the bank, or extra income to afford things you’ve always desired. In these times, especially, I challenge you to -still- place your trust in God. We can trust God to show us how to use our resources to serve Him.
You may have heard the term “more money, more problems.” We see this splattered across the headlines on our tv, mobile phones, and social media every day. When we place our trust in God, we can discover inner calm because, whatever our circumstances may be, we can surrender our lives to Him. We can allow Him to steer us and keep us on track with His perfected plan for our lives.
I believe that when we decide to follow God’s plan; it creates the perfect environment to have inner calm because we need only look to Him to learn of the path we should follow.
Wrap Up
In today’s message, we talked about ways to discover inner calm. We discussed the importance of prayer—staying in constant contact with the one who created us and knows us best. When we remain in prayer, we discover inner calm by staying in contact with God, allowing Him to help us find peace regardless of what we’re going through. We should not only pray to God when we need something; I encourage us to stay in constant contact with Him throughout our day, every day, in conversation just as we would with someone we love. In doing so, I believe we stand to experience His presence in powerful new ways as we seek to keep Him at the forefront of our minds.
We also talked about making time for self-care. All of us have different interests and hobbies, and in these activities, we can find opportunities for renewal. Whether it’s a simple stroll around the block or spending hours on a favorite hobby, self-care is important because it calms the mind and body. One of the most important aspects of self-care is practicing it on a regular basis. You may think you don’t have time, but you can make time—be it five minutes of a breathing exercise or an entire day working in the garden. Whatever makes you feel calm and peaceful, make time for it.
Lastly, we talked about the importance of trusting God. We can place our trust in God because He loves us and knows us best. He knows the ins and outs of how we are wired and has a perfect plan for each and every one of us. When we place our trust in God and keep our hearts and minds focused on seeking and following His plans, we can discover a new level of calm. Because we know that as we seek Him and His plan for us, He will ensure that we are equipped to experience the best possible path for our lives. We can find calm knowing that if we look to Him first, we are less likely to make decisions that are not part of His plan. And we can know that if we do fall off track, He will guide us back in a loving way, just as a father would with his child. Peace and calm are vital aspects of a healthy life.
Stay close to God and keep God first and find inner calm in every aspect of your life.
Are you interested in discovering more about the guidance offered in this message? Learn more in the companion article Going Deeper with the Word: Experience Boundless Love
