TAKE FIVE | Mini-Retreat - The God Who wants to Help Us

Dear Partner,

I loved the prayer in this week's Take 5. If we are all honest sometimes we feel this way despite reality being very different. So we need to take our thoughts captive, making them obedient to Christ as Paul directs us in 2 Corinthians 2:5. I have printed this prayer out to put by my monitor for when my feelings betray me. Maybe you will too?

I encourage you to Take 5 | Mini Retreat. Take a few moments to rest your soul and grow in your intimacy with Jesus. May you experience the deep restoration God describes in Psalm 23:1 “…he restores my soul.”

Living in God's Space,

Sean McFeely

The Oasis Ministry Ventures Team

When you feel troubled, how do you envision God’s countenance toward you? Do you imagine God as compassionate or distant, caring or uninterested, available or absent? I’ve found these lines from a Davidic psalm speaking to these places in my own soul lately:

He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
      from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
      but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
      he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Psalm 18:17-19 NIV

Here David shares his testimony of what God has done for him, and it brings to mind times when I have been rescued, supported, and released into a spacious place. I may not feel much like that today, but I have known that inward sense of support, release, and protection.

So, Jesus, I come to You this morning feeling constricted, oppressed, even abandoned. These are my feelings, which I recognize aren’t a strong indicator of reality. I need Your help to find my way to a spacious and supported place this morning. You are a God who wants, even longs, to help us. I need Your guidance to the life-giving, creative, fruitful place where I can faithfully do the work You have entrusted to me. This week, I have mostly felt paralyzed and distracted.

Like David, I’m up against a powerful enemy. Not an enemy brandishing physical weapons to do me bodily harm. No, these are weapons that wound my soul and heart. They are weapons of discouragement, fear, doubt, low confidence, anxiety, and deception. Rescue me from these attacks. Enable me to walk in a spacious, supported, free place like David describes in this psalm. Help me see You as the way. Help me find my way to You as the door into such a place. I can’t make this happen on my own. Amen.

Sometimes I feel like Thomas who, speaking on behalf of the Twelve, asks, “We don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:5). The “where” Jesus had been talking about was His Father’s house. That was where He was preparing to go. Jesus responds not by showing them a path to take. He does not give them something to do or somewhere to go. Jesus simply reminds them of His original invitation: “Come to Me.” He says, “I am the way. Don’t look for a place to go. Come to Me. Walk with Me. In this way you’ll find truth and life.”

For Reflection:

• When have you most recently felt troubled?

• How did you sense God’s presence with you in those moments?

• How might you imagine God as attentive, present, and caring for you in this moment?

Photo by Aamir Suhail on Unsplash