Peace of Mind: Week 2

Welcome to Church at the Crossing. My name is Andrew, and if you

are new here, I'm so glad that you chose to be here today because

we're continuing a message series that's called Peace of Mind. And in this series,

we're looking at topics around mental health, topics like worry and depression and

burnout. Last week we talked about the myths that are out there about mental

health, and today we're talking about the negative thoughts that many of us struggle

with. And I want to be really clear this series, this message is

called peace of mind, not a peace of my mind. You've probably heard

that expression, I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind. And then

what usually comes after some kind of negative criticism, negative critique or complaint or

some kind of harsh negativity. Typically, almost always it's a negative thing when

someone says, I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind. Would you

agree that our culture, our world is becoming more and more negative, increasingly

more negative. There's more cynicism, there's more sarcasm, there's more skepticism.

It's just it just abounds. And this negativity can seep into our minds that

it can absorb into our own souls if we're not careful, I mean,

how do we see this in our daily lives? Well, let me let's

just think what spreads quicker on social media? Negative information or positive information?

Negative? And what about the news and the media. What stories get more

attention? Bad news or good news bad news? In fact, I learned

recently that there's a news and media expression that says, if it bleeds,

it leads. That means if it's ugly, if it's violent, if it's

bad news story, it gets more attention, it gets more views. Interestingly,

I learned that scientific research has discovered that our brains, the human brain,

is predisposed, pre condition to focus on negative things more than positive things.

In fact, the brain is drawn to negative experiences and it holds those

like the amygdala part of our brains. It's the part that processes emotions.

When scientists studied that part of the brain, they noticed that when the brain

was processing negative information, there was more brain activity in the amygdala than when

there was a positive experience. One neuroscientist named Rock Hanson writes, your brain

is like velcro for negative experiences, and it's like teflon for positive ones.

When you're told no or you get a disappointing email or frustrating text, you're

wired to forget all the good things and instead obsess over the negative things.

Let's just think about your own brain for a moment. Think about your own

mind. Let's imagine that you're at work or maybe in school, and you

take on volunteer for a new assignment, volunteer for some more responsibility. And

after the assignment or the project's over, three people make comments to you.

One says that was awesome way to go. Another one says, I'm so

impressed with what you did, and another one says great job. And then

a fourth person says, you know, I'm not that impressed. I think

you could have done better. Out of all those comments, which one is

going to stay stuck in your mind? Well, if you're like me,

it's that last one. It's that criticism. It's that fourth single comment,

even though there were other positive ones, That last one's gonna keep me awake

at night. That one's gonna steal my joy and steal my peace. Because

our brains, our minds are conditioned to focus on negativity more than positive.

Another term for negative thoughts is the term intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are disruptive,

distracting, and unwanted thoughts. There are the things we don't want to

think about. The things we haven't invited into our minds today. I brought

this shovel because I think about intrusive thoughts like a shovel that digs into our

thought process. It tunnels into our thought process and wrex our mental peace of

mind. During World War One, the longest and most deadly battle of the

war was the Battle of the Psalm, fought in France and the Battle of

the Psalm. Both sides were dug in their trenches, miles and miles of

trench work, and they were launching bombs and explosives, raiding over each other.

But nobody was winning, nobody was making any progress. There's this big

no man's land in between. It was just deadly and there was no ground

being taken until each side deployed their tunnel teams, and the tunnel teams tunneled

underground under the no man's land behind enemy lines, where they would detonate explosives

and sabotage behind enemy lines. I believe that intrusive thoughts will dig into our

mental pathway tunnel to our thoughts and detonate destruction. We read here in Romans

eight, verse six, for to set the mind on the flesh is death,

but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. The

scripture says that when we set our minds on Jesus, when we let God's

spirit direct us, then we have peace. But it warns us that when

our minds are on the flesh, that means our sinful desires, the sinful

nature of the world, the corrupt things of the world. When our minds

are on that, then it leads to death. It leads to destruction.

We experience death in our self esteem when we have these intrusive thoughts of self

hate or self loathing or self harm. There's a destruction in our relationships with

others because there's these intrusive thoughts that say nobody understands, nobody gets you,

you can't trust people, you can't have a strong, healthy relationship, and

our relationship with God gets under attack and can be corrupted when of thoughts tell

you things like God's angry with you, He's gonna punish you, or God's

given you too many second chance as he's done, he's given up. You've

used them all up. When we have those kind of thoughts, it destroys

our relationship with God. The mindset on the flesh is death. But if

we set our minds on the thing of God, on the Spirit of God

in its life, and there's peace of mind. So today we're gonna learn

how we can receive more peace of mind through the power of God. And

we're going to concentrate our attention in the Bible, in the Book of Philippians.

Last week we looked at Philippians chapter four, verses four through seven,

and today we're gonna pick up right there. We're gonna look at Philippians four,

starting in verses eight and nine. So invite you to read this with

me. It says, finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true,

whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,

whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy. Think about such

things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in

me, put it into practice, and the God of Peace will be with

you. The God of Peace will be with you. When your mind is

surrendered to Jesus, the Peace of God is with you. And then when

you feel depressed, when you feel worried, when you feel anxious, the

God of Peace is with you. When you're fighting off negative, intrusive thoughts.

When you're fighting off self contempt and shame, the Peace of God is

with you. This scripture tells us that we have to be intentional about what

we think about. This passage tells us that you get to choose. You

get to decide what thoughts are going to stay in your mind and what thoughts

you're gonna let go. Intrusive and negative thoughts will keep us stuck in a

destructive pattern. Or one way to think about it is that intrusive, negative

thoughts keep us stuck in a mental rut. We get stuck in a rut,

like we're spinning our wheels and we can't go anywhere. We're stuck.

You ever been stuck in a rut before? I've seen a lot of ruts

on dirt roads, mountain roads where the water might wash it out or the

mud. It creates these ruts, and when you get into that rut,

you are stuck. You might be able to go a little bit, but

you're not going to get out of the rut or your wheels and your tires

might be spinning. You're stuck in a rut. Have you ever been stuck

in a mental rut? Have you ever been stuck in a negative place where

you keep having thought after thought after a thought that's just negative and negative and

critical and harsh. I call these ruts of ruin. These ruts of ruin

get into our mind and corrupt our thought process. One time I was driving

through the snow in a snowstorm, and I was driving up a steep hill

and my two wheel drive car got stuck in a rut and stuck in the

snow, and my tires were spinning, and I wasn't going anywhere now.

The passengers sitting next to me was my friend, Pastor James, and I'm

sure he might have been ranging under his breath, and or he might have

had some negative thoughts about my driving skills while we were stuck. And then

all of a sudden, an eighteen wheeler came flying up the hill. The

semitruck had no problem cruising through the snow. And then James said, We've

got two choices. We can leave the car and walk home, or we

can maneuver over and get into the tracks of that semi truck and follow those

tracks out of the snow, and so we turned the car over and we

got it into the tracks. And once we got into the tracks, we

were out of that rut. We had traction and it pulled us right out

of the snow. Some of us get stuck in mental ruts where we were

just spinning over and over. Intrusive negative thoughts create mental ruts in your mind.

These ruts of ruin are are destructive, and they hurt your faith,

they hurt your development. Think of it this way. It goes over.

Like if you have this rut of ruin in your mind that you're unworthy,

you're not good enough, what happens when you have a breakup or a divorce,

or there's some rejection in your life. You go back to that rut

and you get stuck thinking I'm unlovable, I'm unwanted, I can't have that,

I'm not marriage material. Or if you've got this rut that says everybody's

out to get you, then you get stuck in this victim mentality. So

when you lose your job or or you get cut from the team, or

where you're you're told you're not qualified, you revert back into that rut,

and that rut says, well, everybody's out to get me. I can't

trust anybody. You gotta look out for myself. I'm a victim and I'm

not gonna let anybody make me their victim. It's it's a mental rut,

a rut of ruin. These ruts reinforced lies about who you are, and

they steal your peace of mind. I want to share a little bit about

a mental rut in my life. I mentioned last week that one of my

insecurities in my life is the idea that I'm not good enough, and so

mentally that produces intrusive thoughts like I need to try harder, I need to

be perfect, I need to prove myself. And so one day I was

at the airport and I was getting ready to travel, and I was about

to go in line for the security checkpoint when I remembered that in my carry

on was a tool with a sharp blade on it that they're not going to

let you through security within the airport. And so I felt embarrassed because I

had to get out in line and I didn't want to get caught, and

I didn't know what to do with it. But I found the help desk

and they were able to package it and I could ship it back to my

own address. Well, I was just really frustrated and now I'm running late,

and on the way back to the security line, I turned to Lauren,

my wife, and I say, I'm really upset with myself because I

don't make mistakes like that. Now, this is really vulnerable to share.

But that comment revealed something about a rut, a mental rut in my mind.

See, I don't make mistakes like that is really code for I should

be perfect or else I'm not good enough. And now psychologists will say this

type of thinking is a negative thought pattern called should or must thinking. It's

when somebody gets in their mind like I did I should do this, or

I should not be that, I must always do this, or I must

never do that. It's a negative thought process. It's a rut. Now

you may have something completely different in your thought process than mine. You may

have a mental rut of jumping to conclusions, like you're always jumping to a

negative assumption when something bad happens, or when you get you read that that

subject of an email, or you see that person's name come up on the

screen of your phone, you don't have any other facts, but you're jumping

to a negative assumption, negative conclusion or somebody else. That might be a

catastrophe mental process where you get bad news from somebody and now it's the end

of the world and your very existence is threat because you've got some bad news

or something didn't go the way you expect. That's catastrophe thinking. Whatever it

is, we have these ruts that dig into our mind. But today I

want to tell you there is hope and there is peace because of Jesus.

Jesus makes it possible for us to get out of those ruts, to get

back on the right road, the correct road, the victory road, and

follow Jesus. We read in Romans twelve two, do not be conformed to

this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The Gospel

of Jesus is the transformation power that we need to get out of those ruts

and get on the right path and following God and allowing the right thoughts into

our mind. Because when Jesus died on the cross, he paid the price

for the forgiveness of our sins and for our transformation. When Jesus rose from

the dead, he rose in victory. He rose with power to transform.

He rose in power to transform all that negative thoughts that you've been having over

and over. He has the transformation power for all the negative things you've been

told by your family of origin, by relative, by the things that you

think, beating yourself up, getting down on yourself, hurting yourself, harming

or stuff. He has the transformation power to set you free. And as

I was thinking of praying today, I had this mental picture in my mind

that like many of us have these these potholes or these ruts in our hearts,

in our minds where trauma detonated an explosion, or abuse or neglect detonated

an explosion, or being betrayed, or some sin or addiction issues like this

big pothole in our lives. And I just see Jesus. I see Jesus

with a shovel, and he's pouring like concrete into those into those holes.

He's bringing healing where there was loss. He's bringing redemption where things were stolen.

He's bringing transformation where sin had its grip on you. So do not

tell me that you're stuck in a rut, because Jesus has made a way

out for you, there's victory in Jesus. And so how do we how

do we navigate these ruts? How how do we get out of these ruts?

Well, I want to say today then instead of staying stuck in a

rut, we need God's help to form trenches of truth, trenches of truth.

Now, what's the difference between a rut and a trench. Well,

a rut typically happens accidentally, is when water just finds the easiest path and

roads the dirt or the soil. But a trench is formed intentionally. It's

made on purpose to do a job. Many years ago, I was down

in Nicaragua working with a Christian organization that was bringing fresh water to communities that

didn't have running water, and we were using tools like this to dig trenches.

We were digging these trenches and we would lay PVC pipe into the trench

that would bring water into all the homes in the community. And all of

this we were doing by hand. And let me tell you, it was

hot and it was sweaty. I mean it was so sweaty, like at

that time of year. It's like when you walk outside and it feels like

there's a wet towel on your face just so sweaty. When we would in

the morning, we'd make our sack lunches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,

and by the time we broke for lunch, we were slurping up this melted

goo of our sandwiches. But we were digging these trenches for a purpose.

We wanted to bring good things to the right places. A trench of truth

helps your mind receive peace from God, truth from God. And so today

I want to share the ABC's of forming trenches of truth in your mind.

The ABC's are assess, bypass, and cultivate, and we're gonna talk about

each one of these one at a time. Let's return to our text.

Here in verse eight, the text says, finally, brothers and sisters,

whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy,

think about such things. So it says here, whatever it is true,

we need the truth of God, a trench of truth in our mind,

And it says think about these things. Think. It's a verb,

it's active, it's work that we put in what we're thinking about, what

we're giving our attention to the word think here in Greek is a word that

also means to ponder, or to value, or to paraphrase, to assess.

You have to decide how valuable is a thought in your mind. And

I want to say, assess of thoughts, value, Assess the value of

those intrusive thoughts. Your brain only has so much information that it can contain,

so you have to decide where are you gonna let in and where you

gonna keep out. A few years ago, when I bought my home here

in Indianapolis, the mortgage company did an appraisal on the home. They wanted

to evaluate the worth of the home, and so they looked at the square

footage, They looked at the updates, they looked at the bedrooms, number

of bathrooms, and they also compared to other homes in the surrounding area to

the value of the home I was buying, to determine what it was worth.

You can do the same thing with your thoughts. When you have an

intrusive thought, a negative thought, evaluate it, hold it out there,

look at it. Is this adding value to my life? Is this helping

me? Is this draw me closer to Jesus? I think? Is that

scrolling on social media is adding value to you? Is that talk show or

that podcast helping you? Or is it raising the level of anxiety and worry.

Assess the value of thought. Sometimes when you assess the thoughts value,

you may decide that you just need to reject it completely. When I was

in Nicaragua and we were digging those trench lines, my team had pretty easy

soil. It was easy to move and dig, and we made pretty quick

work. But some teams ran into some big obstacles in they're digging. They

ran into things like big boulders or rocks they couldn't pull out. And remember

we were using only hand tools. We had no heavy machinery, backs,

no big equipment. It was just this and some pick axes. And so

if they ran into a big rock or a big tree root, I mean,

what would they do. What's likely they would just bypass the obstacle.

They would turn the trench and put an elbow in the PVC pipe and just

keep going. They were not gonna waste time with a worthless obstacle. Do

not waste your time on worthless intrusive thoughts. So you need to bypass a

thought with scripture bypassive thought with scripture. When Jesus was alone in the wilderness,

he was fastening, he was praying for forty days, and during that

time the devil came to Jesus with some intrusive thoughts. And first the devil

said, hey, Jesus, you gotta be really hungry after all this fasting.

If you're really the son of God, if you have all this power,

why don't you turn these stones into some bread. What did Jesus say

in Matthew four verse four, He said, it is written man shall not

live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of

God. Jesus bypassed the intrusive thought with scripture, with the word of God.

He didn't even contemplate or he didn't even assume the premise of what the

devil was saying. He just bypassed it. And you can bypass intrusive thoughts

with scripture. So when there's that thought, I don't make mistakes like this,

and that thought is full of shame and fear and insecurity, I can

overcome that bypass it with scripture. The scripture of sad Crinthians twelve that says,

my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in

weakness. When you have a thought that says you're a failure, you're a

mess up, you're a screw up, you can bypass that by remembering Second

Corinthians five. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. When you

have that fear, that crippling fear that says you don't have enough money,

you can bypass that fear with scripture. Philippians Force says, my God will

supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

You can bypass intrusive negative thoughts with scripture. I'd like to point out that

these first two ABC's assess and bypass. These first two are all about thinking.

It's all about our cognitive work in our thought process. But thinking is

only the first part. Thinking is not enough. There's another piece that we

need to look at it. Look closely at verse nine. Verse nine says,

whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me,

put it into what practice. Put it into practice, and the God

of Peace will be with you. This verse says, practice what you believe

and what you think and what you know practice it. Having the right information

is not enough for a trench of truth and not enough for healthy pathways.

Having knowledge about the Bible is not enough. Going to another Bible study or

another book discussion is not what we're talking about. At some point, we

have to practice what we know and believe. When I was in Nicaragua working

with that group, we did not just sit around the table and debate the

theology of clean water. We didn't put up a whiteboard and draw a strategy

or a plan for the pipe system. At some point we picked up some

tools and we got our hands dirty. We put into practice what we believed

in what we were doing. Practice takes what we know and puts it into

our bodies. You've likely heard that expression that says practice makes perfect, and

then there's its cousin perfect practice makes perfect. I want to share another expression

that comes from the military community, and the military community has this expression that

says, you do not rise to the occasion, you default to your training.

And what this means is military operators will say in a crisis, in

a tragedy, people don't just somehow magically rise to the occasion and become heroes.

Know what they do is they default to their training, and if they've

been trained well, if they've been prepared well, then they can adapt and

they can overcome it, and they can come through that crisis. Your default

to your training, and your brain works the same way you default to what

you know. I'll explain how I've seen this in my life. Years ago,

I was on vacation and I wanted to try a snorkeling excursion, and

I've never done snorkeling before, and so I got in the boat and while

I was climbing into the boat, the sun was out, the sky was

clear, the water was calm, and we traveled out on the ocean for

a little bit. And when we stopped for the snorkel experience, the sun

had disappeared and the wind had picked up, and the waves started to get

a little bit more choppy. And when I got into the water with my

snorkel gear, the rain started to come down. This was not as enjoyable

as the brochure made it sound, and so I panicked a little bit.

My adrenaline was pumping and my heart was racing, and I was trying to

catch my breath and tread water. And now the rain and the waves are

coming into my snorkel, I'm spitting up water, and so I felt like

I was in this crisis, and in this crisis, I did the most

brave thing that I could do, and I doggy paddled back to the boat

and climbed back in. I wasn't even out there for five minutes, and

I've never been snorkeling since. I defaulted to my training, or my lack

of training. I wasn't prepared, I never took a class, I didn't

have any experience. I defaulted to what I knew was safe. Your mind

will default to what it thinks is safe when you face a tragedy, when

you face a crisis, even if you're just disappointed or your expectations aren't met,

your mind is going to default to what it thinks is safe, to

what it knows. And if that is a rut of ruin, if it's

a negative mental pathway, you're gonna get stuck in that. So we have

to retrain our mind. That's what I'm saying. Cultivate spiritual practices. Cultivate

spiritual practices. Cultivate is a gardening term or a term from farming, and

it has to do with preparing the soil for what you're gonna plant. If

you think about your mind as the soil, what are you planting in your

mind? What are you allowing to take root in your mind? When we

were digging those waterlines in Nicaragua, and we're preparing those trenches, before we

put the pipe into the trench, we would add some sand and some gravel,

which would help with drainage and also protect the pipes a little bit from

in truth of things like weeds or were roots that would compromise the integrity of

the pipes. Spiritual practices protect your mind from intrusive thoughts and intrusive things.

Cultivate spiritual practices. Since the beginning of Christianity, believers have cultivated spiritual practices,

they've embodied spiritual practices, and for centuries, Christians have identified practices in

two categories, personal practices and community practices. Personal practices are just what they

sound like. They're They're what you and I do personally. It's prayer,

it's reading and meditating on the Bible. It's times of solitude or times of

fasting. It's what we do personally. And here's the thing about practices.

Practices are more than just what we think or do with our mind. Practices

have to do with our body. That's why we embody them. It's it's

using our hands, using our attention and our time. And then community practices,

our community practices that we do together, because you're not an isolated follower

of Jesus. We're in community together. What we're doing right now this moment

is a community practice. We are gathering together to worship. In just a

few minutes, we're going to celebrate baptism together when a few people are going

to be baptized today. That is a community practice, the Lord's Supper communion.

That is a practice that we do together. Practices protect your pathways and

create new pathways. I'll share how I've seen this in my life. There

are several practices that I observed, and three of my personal practices are daily

prayer and Bible reading time. A second one is I meet with a Christian

counselor regularly, and then a third one is I have wise godly mentors in

my life that I learn from. These are just three of my regular practices

that I've been embodying for the last several years. One time I experienced a

terribly painful crisis just just a brutal crisis, and I won't share all the

details because it is very personal. But this crisis just shook me to my

core. And this wasn't just surface level. I was deeply hurt and deeply

wounded by somebody that I trusted, and I felt betrayed and I felt paralyzed

emotionally. I felt like second guessing a lot of my decisions and my negative

mental pathway that those ruts of ruin would have dragged me to a harmful place

of like I'm not good enough, I need to try harder, I failed,

I can't recover, or I can't trust anybody again, or whatever.

But my mind didn't go there because I had my spiritual practices. So first

I went to the Lord in my daily prayer and reading time and just shared

with him what was going on and expressed my feelings of hurt and betrayal.

Then second, I immediately contacted my counselor and asked for the next available women

because I knew I need to talk to somebody about this. I needed some

tools that a professional could help me navigate. And then third, I brought

in those wise mentors, those godly mentors, because they had an objective view,

they had a thirty thousand foot view, and they could see things that

I couldn't see in this situation because I was so close to the pain,

and they could help me learn from it, and I got through that healthy.

I didn't spiral into a negative run. Now, let me be clear,

I didn't just magically come up with these practices when I was in a

crisis. I didn't embodied and cultivated these practices for years so that when I

was in a crisis I could default to that training. I could default to

that preparation. And so today I want to invite you to try a new

practice for thirty days. And this isn't a challenge. I'm not saying I'm

gonna challenge you to do this because I'm not gonna check your report card or

ask for a progress update next week. I believe so strongly in spiritual practices

that I don't need to incentivize this. This is an invitation to try something

new, a spiritual practice. And I've heard the gospel of anti religion.

I've preached the gospel of anti religion. The anti religion gospel says, you

know good works don't save you. Religious obligations. Don't impress God. Your

religious duties is not how you get to heaven. And that's true. We

get to heaven. We're saved by grace. Spiritual practices are not religious obligations.

They're an invitation to walk closer with Jesus, to embody more of Christ

in your thinking, in your daily lives. So I invite you to try

and practice. If you want some ideas, in the Church of the Crossing

app on your phone, there's a hand out a PDF of spiritual practices.

There's also a paper copy at the grow desk in the lobby. And let

me be really, really, really really clear about spiritual practices. Don't bite

off more than you can chew. Start out small, please. If you

want to try fasting, please don't start with a thirty day fast. If

you've never fasted before, you might harm yourself and you might end up an

atheist at the end of that. Start out small. If you haven't read

much of the Bible, start with the Bible app and reading the Daily Verse

each day. That's a good practice to start. But start these spiritual practices

as we end. I want to go back to that insecurity that I've mentioned

before. Feeling like I'm not good enough. That intrusive thought has affected my

relationship with my heavenly Father, where I'll feel like I'm not living up to

him, or I'm letting him down, or he's disappointed with me, and

I need to impress him or make him happy. It's very harmful to my

relationship with the Father. Until I heard someone say something that I'll never forget.

They said, I do not want to think a thought about myself that

is not a thought about me in the mind of the Father. I don't

want to think a thought about me that the Father's not thinking about me.

If the Father's not thinking that, it's an intrusive thought, and I don't

even need to think about it. Earlier, I mentioned when Jesus was alone

in the wilderness and he was being tempted, he had those all those intrusive

thoughts. Do you know what Jesus experienced right before he went into that desert?

What happened to him the desert happened in Matthew chapter four? Do you

know what happened in Matthew chapter three? He heard the voice of the Father.

We read in Matthew three seventeen, behold a voice from heaven said,

this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. God the Father

declared his love for his son, and he declared that Jesus, his identity

is the Son of God. And so I want to say, if your

faith is in Jesus, you are secure as a child of God. You

are his daughter, you are his son. And no intrusive thought is gonna

steal your peace of mind, No intrusive thought is gonna steal your joy because

you're protected by the God of Peace, by your heavenly Father. Your heavenly

Father loves you no matter what negativity you keep thinking about. He loves you

no matter what self hate or self loathing you have, no matter what shame

or fear or depression is in your life, he loves you. You are

his child. You've been redeemed, You've been rescued, and he says to

you, you are my child, and I am pleased with you. He

loves you, and he's gonna protect your mind. It's gonna give you peace

of mind. So as we end to Dad, I'd like for us to

pray together, and I'd like for us to receive more of God's peace today.

Would you pray with me. Father, God, thank you that your

grace covers us. God, I want to pray right now for like a

spiritual helmet over all of our minds, that your grace would cover our minds

and our thought processes. God. For the one here who is just living

with shame or just beating themselves up. God you bring peace. God,

for the one who is just stuck with some fear, like they're spinning their

tires with fear and anxiety. God, would you bring peace? God.

I also feel led to pray for anyone who feels a little bit cynical,

cynical about faith, cynical about their jobs, cynical about things going on in

their family life. God, would you dissolve that cynicism, that negativity with

more of your peace and increased joy. God, we thank you for your

grace. We thank you for the freedom and the healing that we have because

of Jesus. And it's in his name we pray Amen.