Partnering with God to Protect Your Peace of Mind

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Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

– Matthew 11:28-30

Anyone who follows me on social media will notice I’ve been nearly absent for the past few months. This has been purposeful. I’ve had so much going on in my family life that I felt the weight of everything causing major stress to set in. For me, anxiety flows from stress, and then discouragement creeps in, and from there my mental health continues to unravel. I knew I needed to address this, and I sensed the Lord inviting me to bring everything I’m doing and going through to Him so that together we could weed out anything I didn’t need to do in order to preserve my peace during this difficult season. We sorted through many things together, much of which I ultimately put on hold (including social media promotion). These were all things I thought I had to do or should be doing. But guess what? I made it just fine without them.

Things are starting to settle down now, so I’m praying about and evaluating what I should bring back and what I shouldn’t. I share all this to say that in every season we can proactively partner with the Lord to make choices that positively affect our mental health. Renewing our mind in Christ (Romans 12:2) daily is of course critical (see my song “Mind of Christ” for more on this topic), but we also have the ability (and I would even say the responsibility) to make proactive and intentional decisions that clear space for God’s peace to permeate our daily lives. Then, in that clearing, we can more clearly hear His voice guiding us, and we can dwell in His peace more consistently.

I’m the first to admit I’m not great at this. I love being busy and feeling productive. But there comes a tipping point where something has to give, and we have the opportunity to either proactively partner with the Lord to order our steps (Psalm 37:23) in a way that brings peace or to wait until we reach a breaking point and find ourselves in an anxiety spiral. Yes, He promises that we can always cast our anxieties on Him (1 Peter 5:7), but sometimes we can prevent some of these anxieties from ever reaching crisis level in the first place by asking Him to give input into our situations and schedules. When we lay our burdens at His feet He will sort them out, help us find proper balance, and then, we can find true rest.

Questions for Reflection:

1. Are you feeling stressed out a lot of the time? Maybe you’re in a season like I have described above. I encourage you to ask the Lord for guidance on how you can find balance that improves your peace so you can find true rest in Him.

2. What does it feel like to truly rest in the Lord? How do you put the anchor verse above (Matthew 11:28-30) into practice?