Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life (Philippians 4:6-7).
When I pause to consider the course of my life, I conclude that it was divinely orchestrated to bring me to a place of wholeness. Denying, rejecting, judging, or hiding from any aspect of your total being creates pain and results in a lack of wholeness. You cannot adjust what you are not prepared to address.
You are the sum total of all your experiences—good and bad. Wholeness represents a total integration of every facet of your life’s experiences. It is the only way to live with congruency, interconnectedness, and completeness.
You can only be complete if your heart is not divided between blame and acceptance. Wholeness requires you to accept responsibility for what you choose to let inhabit your heart.
The one quality that authentic people have is their willingness to take responsibility for their life. When you allow faith and forgiveness to liberate and heal your soul, you will be well on your way to living on the summit of wholeness.
Allow God’s Spirit to bring healing to your heart, wholeness to your soul, and that degree of completion we all long for. Paul told the Colossians, “You are complete in Him” (Col. 2:10 NKJV).
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. —Oscar Wilde
ACTION STEPS
| Identify your most pressing concerns. What causes you to lie awake at night and worry? What distracts you and causes you to furrow your brow throughout the day? Who or what have you allowed to steal your peace? |
| Make a commitment to yourself to never wish things did not happen. Accept, learn, and grow from every experience. |
| Take responsibility by shaping every irritation, offense, anxiety, or doubt into a prayer. Write down what you notice happens as a result. Who are you able to forgive? How will this affect your network of relationships? |
May God Himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23).