Rest assured, God IS doing a work in you

A friend was saying how recently she had been feeling vulnerable and less confident than normal. During prayer we realised that feeling like this can be a good reminder that we do rely on God for everything. Being weak we often forget this, especially when everything seems good. I have felt like this in the past, I remember feeling quite tearful every morning for a number of months, seemingly for no reason. What can we do when we feel like this?

Philipians 4:6-7 Lays out some steps for us and tells us what we can expect as a result! " 6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.7 Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."

1. We can tell our Father how we're feeling or the particular thing that is worrying us. So, let worry be a prompt to pray, promise yourself that every time that thought comes into your head you're going to pray - your new reminder to pray!
2. Thank Him, as well as the 'counting our blessings' kind of thanking we can also thank Him for the particular bad circumstance or way we are feeling. Now this might sound strange at first, because we know that God does not bring bad things to us. However, when we thank God for something, we sanctify it and bring it into line with God's good purposes for us.

Not only do get to experience God's peace, he also guards our hearts from further worry!

Something else we can know in these circumstances is that God is doing a work in us. In my younger days instead of choosing to submit I would rebel. Later I tried wallowing in it, still rebellion, I just thought I had a good excuse! So we do have a choice, we can submit to God, whatever our circumstances, and at these times we are particularly 'melted' as it were and God can really change us! It's doesn't feel good at the time, but, it's exciting to know that, unlike people who aren't Christians, we are growing more like Jesus, we're on an exciting journey! If we are growing more like Him we can expect to do more of the things that He did when He was on earth, and that's exciting too!

Something else I noticed during bad times was that after pouring my heart out to God I was ready to listen to some worship music (for me this was in the car on the way to work). Emma and I have said to each other recently that if you don't fill you're heart with the good that space often gets filled by something else that might not be so good

So

Let it all out to God
Thank Him
Worship
Submit and let Him change you

And don't forget you're on an exciting journey where God wants to use you more and more - let Him get you ready for that!