Small Shifts (5)

Jesus had been teaching about the the kingdom of heaven before this text.

the disciples claimed to have understood the message. But its possible to understand who God is and what God is able to do and still doubt based on your circumstances.

The shift away from God will always make your problem appear bigger than God.

There isn’t anything wrong with our focus being off God from time to time because its impossible to keep our attention on God 100% of the time anyway. The problem is when we never learn to shift our attention back to God.

The same is true as it relates to our stress and fear response. When we experience stress on the job and never deal with it we develop a pattern within our mind and body that associates the job with stress. So every time you think about work your body experiences stress because the first time you felt stressed you didn’t deal with it.

when we ignore, suppress, or deny ourselves the opportunity to resolve or process out times when we experience stress or fear the body simply stores that response and keeps reproducing that response in the same situation or like situations until its processed out.

The problem is most of us don’t know how to process these emotional response, let alone resolve them. find next fearful experience peter goes through to show how he didn’t experience fear or how he dealt with it next time.

Peter shows us in the text what to do. When Peter felt afraid he cried out to Jesus for help. One he expressed how he felt in the moment without judgement. two he looked to his source for help.

when we go through life and encounter stress and fear how are we expressing how we feel? How are we dealing with those situations? Do we look to God? Are we trusting in God? Do we know what that looks like in the moment?

The truth is how we respond now to stress and fear is how we’ve always responded. Its become a pattern behavior we are now unconscious of. Its like brushing our teeth. once we learned how to do it we do it without even thinking about it. like driving a car. Ever drove to work and forgot parts of the journey?

We can look at these moments of doing without thinking like being on auto pilot. Or operating like a robot. The problem with this is that in these moments we sometimes aren’t thinking of God. So when we create these patterned ways of being we are doing so with our attention off God.

Learning to make small shifts in the right direction may sound silly or even too simple to work. But thats the beauty in it. anyone can do it and begin to create new patterns that include God and develop new practices to resolve or process out stress and fear with God.

Anyone interested in learning how to do what peter did in the face of fear, to process out the fear with God?

Wonderful, here is a tip. Next time you brush your teeth or drive to work, or do anything you normally do without thinking. talk the process out loud to yourself. grab my toothbrush, unscrew cap off toothpaste...whatever your process is say out loud so you can feel the difference in your body from going from autopilot to conscientious and alert.

The only way we can break these habits is by becoming aware of them and taking ourselves off autopilot to become presence with God in the moment.

If we can do this with brushing our teeth we can do this with normal everyday stressful situations and in times when we feel fear.

This practice of being present with God in the moment will allow us to experience God’s help, hear God’s direction, and live in God’s love for us. Peter knew who his help was and was able to receive that help because he was present to God/Jesus in the moment of feeling fear.

We have to learn that we can trust God in the unknown, in times of stress, and when we experience fear. We need to learn to be present with God so we can receive from God.

let’s practice this week of becoming conscientious, alert, and present in routine activities. Once we feel that alertness invite God in your space. Simply acknowledge God in your unique way. Tell God how you feel, what you’re thinking. Just open a conversation with God while you are present.

the next time you come to that routine you will notice a new pattern has formed. You may begin to experience God more in that routine. You may experience a feeling of joy just from simply attuning your attention to God when you were normally unaware of God.

Once you’ve had this experience move on to other routines you want to bring God into. Practice with this for a few days breaking routines with awareness to God.