The Power of Prayer: Your Greatest Tool Against Anxiety: Reclaim Your Life Series Part 4

Hey, hey, beautiful friends, and welcome back to faith fueled woman.

This is your host, Kristen.

Today is part four of the series reclaim your life.

We're going to talk about letting go of negative thinking or thoughts, and how do we let go of anxiety and worry and replace it with God's truth?

It's a really good episode.

I think you're going to get a lot of welcome to faith Fueled Woman, a podcast designed for christian women eager to deepen their faith and shine God's light in every aspect of their lives.

Each week, we will delve into practical strategies, inspiring stories and biblical wisdom to equip you with the tools you need to navigate life's challenges and grow deeper in your faith.

From finding calm in the chaos, forming deep christian friendships, to everyday ways to connect with God will cover it all.

Hi, I'm your host, Kristen.

I'm an encourager, a faith led entrepreneur, a mom, and a wife.

Let's be encouraged in our everyday lives as we let our faith guide us, fuel us, and fill us with God's incredible peace, wisdom and joy in our lives.

Let's be honest, friends.

We live in a time when it's there's so much chaos surrounding us.

There are wars, there's the brink of war.

There has been natural disasters in the country, and we're talking hundred year type natural disasters.

There is a huge election coming up.

There's so many issues, prices, inflation.

Everything's beyond what we've experienced for some of us in our whole lifetimes.

So of course, some of us are feeling anxious.

We're feeling concerned.

We're worried maybe about certain things.

And on top of that, it's hard to think positive or to come from a positive mindset when so much is going on.

Maybe in our own homes, but definitely around us.

And so let's dig in today about how do we overcome this?

And what's the difference between being prepared and not being stuck in a state of worry and being anxious about the future?

All right, as we jump into today's episode, I did want to remind you, if you haven't already grabbed my joyful living devotional workbook, go grab that now.

It's a free download.

It's 15 days of devotionals and scripture with questions and reflections.

I think you're going to love it.

And it talks.

Part of the devotional talks about letting go of negative thinking and worry.

So go grab that.

I think you're going to love it.

And that'll also then put you on my email newsletter so that I can share encouragement and things of faith and just things that I think will help you in your week, each week.

Okay.

I want to start off with telling you what two Timothy 17, in essence says.

And it says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Right.

And so he does not want us to live in a state of fear.

He doesn't want us to live being anxious and worrying.

Right.

Worrying, wringing our hands all the time because he says he's got us.

Okay, so let's dive into how do we let go of this worry?

How do we let go of negative thinking, and how do we replace it with wonder and worship?

All.

Okay, so here we go.

So the first thing that I want to share with you is that, one, I think there are several things we could do to try to release some of this worry and anxiety.

And we're going to talk about some of those things in a little bit.

Then I also just want to share with you some ideas, some research, and then some scripture in quotes.

So here we go.

So the first thing that I found really interesting is there was a study done, let's see, by the Institute of Biblical Research, and I heard it shared by pastor Josh Howerton.

And he had said he gave reference to Mark Driscoll, who he saw Sherrod, but it basically looked at, it was the largest study on reading your Bible.

And it said this, when we read our Bible one time a week, there's almost no effect in our lives.

And if we read it two to three times a week, it's almost negligible.

There's not much change in our lives.

But when we get to reading the Bible four times or more a week, big change starts happening in our lives.

And so what they found is that 228% of us are more likely to share our faith with other people if we are in the word four times or more a week.

You know, daily is amazing.

If so, that we also, we are 400 some percent more likely to memorize scripture the more we're in the word.

One of the biggest takeaways from me was you're 30% less likely to struggle with loneliness, depression and anxiety.

Ding, ding, ding.

Right?

So if we get in the word, if we are regularly in our Bible, if we're regularly praying, there's real benefit in our lives.

And I love how he, Josh Howerton, kind of put it, but to paraphrase him, he basically said, when the word fills our week more than the world, your life will change.

So the first way that we combat worry and anxious thoughts and negativity is by getting in the word regularly, making time for God.

And I get it.

This might be an obvious no brainer, but the fact that this study showed that the more days a week, the more regularly we get in the word, the more regularly we pray, the bigger the impact.

Right.

The positive impact it has on our life.

That's huge.

And so, look, I definitely have my times, my seasons, my weeks or months where I skip days.

You know, I don't get in time to read scripture, or I don't read a devotional, or I don't write in my prayer journal.

So I've been there and done that.

But I do know that the times I make the habit priority in my life, I can tell a difference in my disposition.

I can tell a difference in my day.

And so, if you've never tested this, try it out now, for some of you, you already may be a very consistent person that prays every day.

You may be very consistent with getting in the word every day.

So that's amazing.

You're doing great.

But let's be honest, for the rest of us, sometimes life gets busy, and we let the busyness take the front seat over our time to pray and read God's word.

All right, I want to share another study with you that's pretty exceptional as well.

And it's basically what they did is they studied two groups of people that were either meditating or praying.

So they split them up.

They were tibetan Buddhists, and then there was christians that were praying.

Okay, so the groups had consistently been doing this for the people they picked.

So what?

That averages is about 45 minutes a day of praying or meditating.

But what's amazing is when they looked at the brain waves, so they put the sensors on people's brains, they looked at what type of brainwaves people were producing, whether they were meditating or praying.

And what they found was, first of all, doing either is beneficial.

Okay, but the people that prayed to God versus just meditating, right?

Trying to be in silence or that sort of thing.

I'm just looking for the data here.

What they found was that the people that prayed, they were praying, not just meditating, is that they had a huge increase in certain types of brainwaves on the eegs.

So here's what they found out.

Let me see.

In the christian cohort, individuals who were praying to God, their eegs picked up a significant increase in gamma and alpha one brainwaves versus their resting state, and even an increase in gamma to theta waves, whereas the Tibetan Buddhists meditators did not show any significant increase in the gamma or the gamma to theta.

What's this mean?

Well, basically having more gamma and then theta waves.

I'm sorry, alpha waves, it does two things.

One, it puts us in a more.

Sorry, let me find it here.

Oops, I'm missing it.

It puts us in a more focused, aware, and cognitive state with the gamma waves.

And the alpha waves actually bring about more peace, calmness, and relaxation when they're combined.

So what it showed is basically, there's a huge benefit to actually praying to.

I mean, in our brain waves, they see the impact, and that's huge.

So if you wanted some data or some science to back that up, these are two studies that showed there's a real benefit beyond you just believing or praying in God.

It's us taking action, which is getting in his word, and then praying daily.

Huge.

I've also seen other studies.

Doctor Joe Dispenza has worked with people on people praying and also meditating and trying to heal people.

Right.

So they take a group of people and then they show what happens, and they've shown huge changes in that group than who they're praying for.

And I've even seen that doing this can actually change even your gut.

Like the bacteria in your gut changes when you regularly have these practices.

So it literally does change our physical body, our mental state.

I even saw, or I'm sorry, I've read before that our epigenetics, which basically just means that our thoughts or our environment turn on and off our cells, right?

Our body cells.

And so it means it can turn on and off conditions or disease.

So what we think actually impacts not just our thoughts, but it impacts every cell in our body.

The environment we put ourselves in impacts our physical health as well as our mental health.

So this is powerful stuff.

And I think it's so much more powerful than we give it credit for, because we live in a world where there's so many things that want to tout science.

But in the last many years, there's been a bigger push to try to look at the intersection of science and religion, which is amazing.

And I've done an episode about that, actually talking about this.

I'll link to it in the show notes, but it was really powerful episode.

All right, so let's move on.

Okay, so I saw this, and it did not reference the pastor, but he was talking about so many of us feel like we're, you know, we're being attacked, right, by Satan or the devil or by darkness.

We just feel that spiritual warfare.

And of course we're going to, because we live in a spiritual world, right?

Like there is good and evil.

And so he explains that the devil's tactical.

If you feel attacked, ask God, what is my generational assignment?

In other words, what are we here to be doing?

Why are we here?

Because we all have purpose of some sort.

And that pastor kept going on to explain that often the devil is an ancient spirit, right?

He was around longer than all of us.

And he explains that he's going to look for the people that are going to have the biggest impact on their generation or the next generations.

He's going to try to attack us.

Those of us that have that call, I mean, we all have a call.

There may be some of us that are going to have a bigger impact.

And I don't mean that means by the most people, it can be by anything.

And we're going to feel it.

Because if he can get a hold, right, of just some key people in each generation, he changes us from being able to get God's promises now, right, or in the next generation.

And so this is not surprising that some of us feel that weight.

All right.

I loved this quote.

It's an unknown author, but it says, ships don't sink because of the water around them.

Chips sink because the water, because of the water that gets in them.

Don't let what's happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.

Okay?

So once again, there's a lot going on in the world, right?

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, we don't want that to put us in a state of constant worry, constant anxiety.

And look, I I'm going to admit, since COVID off and on, I've definitely had some of that anxiousness and some of that worry.

And it's not because of the COVID virus.

It's just because of the state of the world, how things have been going.

But I have to check myself, right?

I have to capture the thought and I have to kind of make an assessment about it.

And so I'm going to share with you in a few minutes some tools and some really easy things you can do to try to capture those thoughts and to try to course correct, if you will.

And so we'll get to that in a minute.

But the next thing I want to share with you, this scripture, which we most all heard this, but it's an important one, and it's Philippians four, six, seven.

And it says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your request to God.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds.

Christ Jesus.

So throughout the Bible, so many times God tells us, don't be anxious.

Don't fear.

You know, do not be afraid, do not worry.

So, I mean, these are themes in the Bible, because God knows, as humans, we.

This is part of our nature, right?

But he's saying, I am here.

I am with you, I'm walking with you.

You do not need to worry.

You do not need to be fearful, and you do not need to be, well, afraid or anxious.

So we have to remember that.

And I think it's important.

Pin some of those scriptures up on your wall or put them on your phone, you know, or whatever it is, but make sure you keep reminding yourself of these things, of those scriptures.

Okay?

And, you know, here's another scripture that I wanted to share with you.

It's give all your worries and cares to God for he cares about you.

That's one.

Peter, five through seven.

So God continues to say this to us, and we have to ask ourselves, are we stuck in a state of worry instead of worship?

In other words, can we replace that worry with worship?

And so let's dig into some things that we can do in our lives to try to let go of some of this negative thinking or those worrisome thoughts.

All right, so here's a couple steps that you can take or questions you can ask yourself.

Well, the first things you can do is pray daily, and we talked about some of the data on that and why it's so important.

Also, pray throughout your day, especially if you find yourself really anxious or stressed out, overwhelmed or worried about a certain situation or something happening in your life.

Take a minute and pause.

Take a deep breath, and just say a quick little prayer.

You know, ask God to help you in this moment or to give you a sense of calm.

So that's the first thing that we can do to take back some power in kind of being in a state of anxiousness.

All right, the next thing is we can write down daily, what are we thankful for and grateful for.

Write down your prayers and then write down your worries and ask God to take them from you and to show you what he wants you to see.

You know, in other words, whatever's going on, whether it's the external things in the world or whether it's just things in your own life or in your job and things.

Is there something within all of that, the going on, the chaotic feeling, things that he wants you to know, he wants you to see?

It could be that he wants to reassure you.

It could be that there's something in it that he wants us to know.

It could be that he wants us to focus on something else and stop thinking about.

About that thing.

All right.

The next thing is you can ask yourself some questions.

Okay.

Anytime you have a negative thought or a worrisome thought or anxious thought, you can first say, write down these questions.

Is this thought, is it true?

Is it helpful?

And is it useful?

And what does scripture say about this?

So whatever it is that's kind of you're stuck thinking about, is it true?

Is it helpful?

And is it useful?

And answer those questions, and then what does scripture say about it?

And then there's some other questions.

Oops, I passed them.

That I also talk about that you can add to that if it's helpful to you.

Of course, now I can't find it.

Okay, let's see here.

Okay, here we go.

You can also ask things like this.

What thoughts do I have on repeat that are causing me stress or worry?

So what are the thoughts or stories that you're holding on to that you have on repeat about yourself, about others, about the situation or what's going on in the world that may not be true or accurate?

And like I said, is it helpful?

And then is it serving you?

Is that thought serving you in any way?

And then ask yourself, what else can I see here?

Or learn from this?

And then ask yourself if there's things that you have on repeat that you keep coming back to.

Are your words encouraging or discouraging?

Are your thoughts encouraging or discouraging?

Are your thoughts or words helpful or hurtful?

And then are your words speaking life into yourself and to the lives of others?

Or are they not?

Are they ones that are of fear?

And, you know, just.

They're not.

They're life draining.

And then.

So, anyway, so that's the next thing, is you need to start getting honest, and you need to start writing down these things, because that's how we start looking at how we're perceiving the world.

That's how we start looking at our thoughts to take them captive.

Because if we never take the time to slow down and actually realize that we keep thinking about this same issue or this way, the person's, you know, we're interacting with somebody or the way we think of ourselves, we have to remind ourself that it may not be true what we're thinking, right.

We're just spinning on those things.

And I wanted to share this quote with you from Lauren Fortenberry.

She says, and when her heart felt afraid, she reached for God.

He was the way to peace.

He was the way back to purpose.

I and the promise of his light chased away every darkness.

I think that's beautiful.

And it's such a good reminder that if we seek God, he is the light and he is going to chase away the darkness, away the worry, away the anxiety.

Okay, so what else can we do besides praying daily?

Praying throughout the day, writing down, you know, in a prayer journal or something, what it is that, well, first of all, we're thankful for.

Grateful for our prayer prayers, but then write down our worries, write down what's bothering us, and then assessing are our thoughts.

True, helpful, useful.

There's some other things that we can do.

We can share our worries with a trusted friend because someone that's wise counsel in our life, because sometimes what we need is we need a different perspective.

We need somebody to say, I absolutely get it.

I see why you're concerned.

And then maybe they're pray with us, but.

Or maybe they just share a different perspective with us.

Okay.

There's other things we can do, too, to try to calm our bodies down.

Because a lot of times what happens is we are staying in a state where our nervous system is just stressed out.

We have high cortisol levels, and that can cause us to feel more anxious, more stressed out, more worried, or just showing up with this tight, stressed body instead of being in the state of a calm and being present and feeling more peaceful as we go through our day, regardless of what's going on around us.

So we can learn techniques, both breathing techniques, and there's also physical techniques like holding your right below your wrists.

I've seen that online where it's.

It's calming.

There's others where you hug, hug yourself.

Like, you grab both upper arms or shoulders, and you hold that for five or 10 seconds.

But one of the best breathing exercises.

And I don't remember what it's called, but we'll just call it deep breathing.

But it's where you breathe in through your nose for like a long two count, then you hold it, I think, for another two or three counts.

And then you breathe out through your mouth really slow and long for about four counts.

But you do that, you know, five or ten times wherever you're at.

You can do it in your car, you can do it at your.

I, you know, office, at your desk, in the kitchen, while you're cooking dinner, whatever you want.

But each of those different techniques or things help us go from a state of our sympathetic nervous system.

And sympathetic is one that's our fight or flight, like keeping that high stress, that high cortisol.

So we're always ready for the fight, you know, what's going on in our lives or what's going on in the world, or we're ready to flee, to run.

But if we do some of these breathing techniques, these holding or physical body techniques, or even praying, just taking a couple minutes to get quiet, to get into nature, it can shift us from our sympathetic nervous system, which we don't want to stay in our sympathetic nervous system and switch us over to our parasympathetic nervous system.

And that's where our body can start calming down.

It digests food better, it allows us to restore, and it starts bringing down those stress hormones, it starts bringing down our cortisol level.

So we don't want to stay in that high state, go, go, go.

Every second where our body's stuck in fight or flight, because it increases the stress in our physical body, it increases our mental rushing and worry.

And so there's these little things we can do.

So that's the other things that we can do that I think can make a big difference if you're somebody that's feeling stuck in the worrying or anxiousness or negative thoughts.

Okay, so I want to share this next scripture with you.

It's Isaiah 41 ten.

It says, so do not fear, for I am with you.

Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you.

I will uphold you with my righteous hand.

So, once again, this is another scripture that's a God is telling us, again, do not worry or do not fear, right.

That he is going to strengthen us, and he's going to help us through whatever is we're going through.

And one question I saw recently online that I thought was was great, and I wrote it down, was, are we a God pleaser or a people pleaser?

And by that, it's really saying, like, are we looking to please God in our lives, right?

In our actions, or are we still looking to please the world?

And so I think that's a good thing to think about.

And I think many of us are people pleasers in many ways, or we're trying to align our lives with culture, what culture, society tells us.

But we have to keep coming back to what does God say is pleasing?

What does God want to see us do.

How does God want to see us live?

And we are surely imperfect people.

And I'm not saying we're going to get it all right, all the time.

But that is the goal, right?

That's what we want to be working towards.

All right.

So I also wanted to share with you another thing you can do, another step you can take to try to be more calm, to live in a more calm state, is listen to music that relaxes you.

You know, it doesn't have to be worth worship or prayer or christian music.

Of course, I do like some of that.

I don't like all of it.

And I definitely like the older stuff.

Like, I don't like hymn music, if you will, or that kind of thing.

But I do like contemporary christian music, especially certain authors.

But I also love listening to, what do you call it?

Reggae.

And just really easy to listen to music.

It's calming to me, but it's also uplifting.

So turn on the music, you know, and then also sometimes just listening to a great podcast, especially if it's a sermon, you know, or a pastor talking, I get so much out of that, and it puts.

It lets me focus on that and what they're teaching me instead of getting stuck on thoughts about, you know, something happening in the world or something happening in my day.

And so I just want to share that.

That's another technique you can use to try to pull yourself back to the present and not getting stuck in that state of anxiousness or worry.

All right, so there is a song that I wanted to share just a little bit of the lyrics with you, but this is kind of the example.

There are songs that speak to what many of us might be walking through when we're having these negative or anxious or worrisome thoughts.

And it is the song I will carry you by Ellie Holcomb.

And it says, part of the song says, all that anxiety that rules your mind.

I will be your shield.

When you don't feel like you've got strength enough to fight.

I'll stand by your side.

I will carry you through your darkest night.

When your hope runs dry, I will carry you.

You are not the sum of your mistakes.

You do not have to hide the parts of you that ache.

And so obviously, she's talking about Brad being there with us, him carrying us, him walking alongside of us.

And so I also have, you know, lots of playlists on my phone, but one of my playlists is faith.

And so I have songs on there that I listen to different ones in different times, you know, or that I want to get kind of pumped up, or I just want to do a little bit of worship.

So find things like that that also help you just be reminded, right, that God's there because there's times where we don't, we're not going to pray or whatever, possibly, but sometimes putting on that worship music or putting on other songs that just let you be so thankful for great music, you know, and.

And good lyrics.

And so that's another thing.

All right, so before we start wrapping up, I.

I also just wanted to share this with you.

That we need to listen to God.

We need to listen to our intuition.

And what I mean by that is sometimes we get so worked up, we don't have enough space in our day, we don't have enough quiet, we don't have enough solitude.

And this speak for minutes a day.

I'm not talking about, you have the whole day just to spend quietly in solitude.

But we need to start trying to listen that little inner voice that those promptings from God.

And I say that because I've shared this at some point on the podcast before, but when one of my children was, I could tell something was wrong.

He wasn't at home at the time.

He was away at school.

I just had this feeling a certain day that I needed to share with him, that we just wanted him to be happy and healthy and that nothing else really mattered in that money didn't matter.

Right.

For school.

Nothing mattered, that we just wanted to know that he was doing okay.

And so.

But I felt this.

Pulled this call to call him that afternoon and to tell him these things.

And I wouldn't say that I felt like God just spoke to me like that, but it was just.

It was that little intuition, right?

But I do believe it was God.

And so I did tell him, well, it turned and he said he was okay, but it turns out.

And I kept checking in with him, he was going to come home for break a couple weeks later.

Well, he called one day and asked to come home, that he needed to come home today, like he was not doing so well, so he did.

But the point is, I think that was God's prompting to tell me something, wasn't quite where it should be, and that I needed to give him reassurance.

And so I said that one to say that we need to listen to our intuition and we need to make space in our schedules to have a couple minutes throughout the day, especially in the morning or maybe in the evening, to just listen.

What is God trying to tell us?

And then act on those things if they seem aligned and that it's something you need to do.

But then two, let me tell you, I've always prayed, but the amount of prayer I've done since COVID since that happened with one of my children, they were so many prayers.

There was so much worry, so much stress, worrying if your kids in different ways will be okay.

And my point is, we've all walked through things that we feel like they're going to wreck us.

But if we keep seeking God, if we keep praying, if we keep having specific prayers to get us through, to protect the people in our lives, to give us the wisdom or guidance.

Right?

So it's so important, but it makes all the difference.

I am certain that not just showing up through that, and I think anybody that's dealt with either themselves or people they love walking through depression or suicidal ideations or whatever it might be, I think we all know that it's not a quick, everything's better.

So I'm not saying that that's necessarily the case, but definitely better where it was a big improvement.

So I only share that just to say we're all going to walk through things that are scary, that are hard, that are anxious, just like in the world right now.

I mean, there are people in many states because of Hurricane Helen or Helene that have lost their homes.

They don't have power cell service.

North Carolina has gotten hit really bad, but I think Georgia, Tennessee, obviously, Florida, where it directly hit, and then even small pockets of Virginia, South Carolina as well, they're in serious crisis mode and, you know, helps trying to get to them.

But roads are washed out.

I mean, lots of things.

Infrastructure has been washed out.

They're going through the unimaginable, to be honest with you, and other people are going through losses of loved ones or walking through cancer or whatever it might be.

And so what I'm saying is this, now is the time to be praying, right?

To be good at it and to know that God's there for us, because there will be a time, if it's not happening for us right now, where we will be struggling.

We'll be walking through something and we're going to need God to get us through it, and we're going to need each other, I would say.

Because he does want us to be there for each other, right?

He wants us to love one, one another.

He wants us to help other people when we're able.

And so we also have to remember that the way back to being present, the way back to love and kindness and positivity.

The way back to not worrying is through connection, through serving others.

And so I think it's really important to remember that.

Okay.

And then the last thing.

Oh, here we go.

It's.

It was shared by simpleton, simply scripture.

And it's very simple, but it's absolutely true.

Prayer is not preparation for the battle.

Prayer is the battle, friends.

Prayer is our greatest weapon against evil.

It's our greatest weapon against anxiousness, against worry.

It's our greatest tool for healing.

It's our greatest tool for having a peaceful and calm, calm and joyful life.

And so let's not forget that.

Let's remember how important it is.

Okay?

I just wanted to remind you again, if you haven't already, head on over to kristenfitch.com and grab my joyful living devotional.

But it basically is how to let go of anxious anxiety and worry and how to step into more joy and peace in your life.

So it's a.

It's a 15 day devotional, but there's scripture, there's devotions, there's pages for reflection and questions to walk through, but there's two whole sections on letting go of worry and things like that, as well as other sections that I think will be really helpful.

So head on over there and go to my freebies page and you can grab that free devotional workbook.

Until next time, I hope you have a great thanks again for listening to the show.

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