Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Have you ever looked at a situation you’re facing in utter disbelief and thought, "How will I ever get over this?" Lysa TerKeurst understands. After years of heartbreak and emotional trauma, she realized it’s not about just getting over hard circumstances but learning how to work through what she has walked through. Now, she wants to help you do the same. That’s why Lysa teamed up with her personal, licensed professional counselor, Jim Cress, alongside the Director of Theological Research at Proverbs 31 Ministries, Dr. Joel Muddamalle, to bring you "Therapy & Theology." While Lysa, Jim and Joel do tackle some really hard topics, you’ll soon find they're just three friends having a great conversation and learning from each other along the way.
SHAE HILL:
Welcome back to Therapy and Theology, where we help you work through what you walk through. I'm your host Shae Hill, and today's episode is so special. As we help you fight for your family this season we especially want to help you fight for the people you love most in prayer. So today's episode will help you do just that. As Lysa, Jim and Joel provide a framework for how to pray for your family, and they'll even include some specific scriptural prayers.
SHAE:
As you fight for your family this season, maybe you're inspired to ask a question that sounds something like this. How do I really help the young people in my life who are struggling both mentally and emotionally? If that's you, whether you are a parent,a grandparent or someone who just feels called to help, we're here to help you.
SHAE:
That's why I wanna tell you about the Youth Mental Health Coach program from the American Association of Christian Counselors and Light University. It is a biblically based, clinically excellent training that equips you with practical real world tools to support youth and their families. You'll learn how to recognize 15 of the most common mental health challenges facing young people today, including anxiety, depression, digital addiction, and emotional regulation. You'll also learn how to respond with care, when to step in and when to refer to a professional.
SHAE:
Right now, you can receive a full tuition scholarship and get started when you pay a one-time $54 technology fee. Friend, this is the training that will give you the confidence to make a real difference. Learn more, and apply at mentalhealthcoach.org. Or you can visit the link in our show notes.
SHAE:
And before we jump in, here are just a few reminders. We are launching a brand new podcast exclusive segment in 2026 called Listener Mail brought to you by Compassion International. These segments will include a question pulled from one of our listeners just like you, and an answer from either Lysa, Jim or Dr. Joel. Tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and make sure you stay listening all the way through the end so you don't miss this special segment of each episode.
SHAE:
And lastly, we want to know how therapy and theology is helping you work through what you're walking through. So leave us a review or a comment on YouTube and tell us all about it.
SHAE:
Okay, now onto today's conversation.
LYSA TERKEURST:
Hi, welcome back to Therapy and Theology. Of course, I'm here with the amazing Jim Cress and Dr. Joel Muddamalle, and I am so excited about today because we've been talking this whole season about fighting for your family, and we can give you all kinds of tips and strategies and biblical wisdom and solid therapy, you know, to help ease the ache of tensions inside the family or hardships inside the family.
LYSA:
And we can encourage you all day long to fight for your family. But the reality is sometimes things are still just gonna be hard inside of a family dynamic, and so I don't think that today's topic needs to be a last resort. I think it needs to be a first priority: fight for our family on our knees.
LYSA:
You know, I'm really, um passionate and have become even more passionate lately about when we pray the word of God, we pray the will of God.
JIM CRESS:
Amen.
LYSA:
And so I have taken time in a new book that I've written called Come Close to Jesus. I've taken time to go through scriptures and connect those scriptures to become scriptural prayers that I can do just what we're talking about today, fight for my family on my knees.
LYSA:
So the order of the show is gonna be a little different today. I'm gonna start by reading some of these scriptural prayers, and I've picked three out of this book that I think, uh, you would really benefit from that I know have really encouraged me and made me feel like my prayers are powerful and effective, because again, when we pray the word of God, we pray the will of God.
DR. JOEL MUDDAMALLE:
Yeah.
LYSA:
So here's one where I've combined these scriptures to pray for our husband. “Lord, today, I pray for my husband. As Romans 12:12-13 instructs us help him be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and fateful in prayer. Give him a kind spirit and a tender heart that loves me and our family. I pray that he will always hold our marriage in honor according to Hebrews 13:4, and that you will turn his heart to our children. Remind him Lord to guard his heart above all else so that everything that flows from it is pure good and honoring to you and our family.”
LYSA:
And I continue on using really important scriptures: Romans 12:12-13, Ephesians 5:25, Hebrews 13:4, Malachi 4:6, Proverbs 4:23, and the list goes on. It's not a tremendously long prayer, but it is incredibly powerful.
JOEL:
Yeah.
LYSA:
And then here's another one that I really appreciate, and this one is praying for. Thanking the Lord for the gift of our children. “Abba Father, thank you for the gift of my children. I know they are a reward from you. Thank you for choosing me to be their earthly mother. I often feel so inadequate, but You Lord are more than enough. You are able to give me all that I need at all times. I pray they would see the great love you have for them and know they are special because they are your treasure created in your image to do good works.”
LYSA:
And again, I continue on with many more scriptures.
JIM:
Mm-hmm.
LYSA:
And then here's a last one that I'll just give you a little glimpse of this prayer and it's praying for our adult children. “Dear Lord, I release my adult children to you knowing that you are able to guard what you, what you entrusted to me. I pray they will hold tightly to your love and the sound teachings of Jesus. Release them from the generational effects of my and my families sins so they can rejoice in their inheritance and have everlasting joy. I pray that you would reveal yourself to them even when they are not seeking you, and help them to grow and mature in their faith. Strengthen them and protect them from the evil one. Help them to guard their hearts so they can flee from all sexual immorality. Lead them to a spouse who loves you and will be a suitable helpmate to them. Surround them with like-minded friends who desire oneness with you, Lord, so they can encourage one another in their faith." And it continues on.
JIM:
Beautiful.
LYSA:
So these are beautiful, are examples of scriptural prayers that I've taken time to put all in this one book, uh,Come Close To Jesus. And it's not that these are formulaic, these are a starting point.
JOEL:
Yeah.
LYSA:
And I think it is a beautiful thing. Sometimes when we sit down, we don't know what to pray.
JOEL:
Yeah.
LYSA:
Or we've prayed the same prayers over and over and over, and we just wonder. Are my prayers even doing anything?
JIM:
Mm-hmm.
LYSA:
Like is it, is it even creating any kind of good?
JOEL:
Yeah.
LYSA:
And so I love shifting away from prayers, so focused on all the problems
JIM:
Right.
LYSA:
To more focused sometimes on God's word, and what he has already.
JIM:
Amen.
LYSA:
Commanded us to teach and think about and park our minds on.
JOEL:
Yeah. I love that. Lysa. Um, as you were reading each of those, I have this picture in my mind of my grandparents and my mom. Um, my grandparents are missionaries in India. They've been there for over 60 years doing, uh, missions work. And, um, I lived in the Chicagoland area and so not easy to get to Chicago, to India, and I didn't have the, like the, I think of you, Jimbo. I ran into a flight once, uh, where I was coming on and there you are with your grandkids, you know?
JIM:
Yeah. I remember.
JOEL:
On a flight to Houston and I just loved that. And I didn't have that growing up of just going down the street to, you know, my grandparents' house. We’d call them Mama and Thatha. But you know, the thing that, um, I did have that, if there's anything I know for a fact that I'm sitting here today with the two of you because of the faithful prayers of so many people, but my grandparents and my mom particularly, um, when I was born, I'm the first grandson out of, um, I think it's 27 grandkids now, and then four great grandchildren. But my grandparents used to wake up at about 7:00 AM to just pray for their kids and then me, and then as each grandchild would come they would have to wake up early and earlier. And we were in India just a couple months ago and my grandparents were up at four in the morning.
LYSA:
Mm.
JIM:
Wow.
JOEL:
Praying for all of their grandkids and all of their great-grandchildren. Um, and I just think what an incredible resource, at least to give, uh, people words, to pray the will of God, because it does feel daunting.
JOEL:
I have a early memory of a situation that happened in my family where, uh, my mom, uh, I would catch my mom on her knees praying, uh, and she would invite us often to pray for the situation that was going on. And I remember starting off always on my knees with her, my siblings, and we'd pray and got to the point where things weren't changing.
JOEL:
In fact, things were getting worse.
JIM:
Wow. Yeah.
JOEL:
And I remember I had this moment where I was like, forget this. I'm not doing this anymore. Like, this is so useless, you know?
JIM:
Futile..
JOEL:
Yeah.
JIM:
Why bother?
JOEL:
And my mom just persisted in prayer.
JIM:
Wow.
JOEL:
And, um, it taught me something years and years later. And sadly, that thing never changed. We still carried the, the real deep pain and heartache of that moment. But, you know, what did change? It changed me. It changed my mom.
JIM:
Amen.
JOEL:
It changed our family. It caused deeper dependence in God. And um, I think sometimes what ends up happening from a theological standpoint is our approach to prayer almost feels like prayer has to be A plus B, and I can get God to do C.
JIM:
It's recipe praying.
JOEL:
It's recipe.
JIM:
Better pop out the cake.
JOEL:
I don't think anybody would say like incantations.
JIM:
Yeah.
JOEL:
But that's kind of what we functionally think about it. But that's not what prayer is. In fact, I wanna go all the way back to the Garden of Eden and there's this little detail about God that I think is so fascinating that says in Genesis chapter three that it was routine for Yahweh to do what with Adam and Eve?
LYSA:
Walk with him.
JOEL:
Yeah. And when did he walk with them? In the cool of the evening breeze.
JIM:
You would appreciate that cool breeze.
JOEL:
Oh man, it was so hot in here earlier today. Yeah.
LYSA:
Joel has been complaining all day about how hot the recording studio is.
JOEL:
It is cool right now. I'm feeling Yahweh with us.
JIM:
Amen.
JOEL:
Um, I, I just always think about that detail, the cool of the evening breeze, because it was at the end of the day
LYSA:
Mm.
JOEL:
And Adam and Eve were tasked with work and vocation.
LYSA:
Mm.
JOEL:
And that Hebrew word for walk has no destination in mind.
JIM:
Oh, beautiful.
JOEL:
It was a leisurely walk.
LYSA:
Hmm.
JOEL:
And so for me, it kind of helps me thinking about what prayer is. Like what is prayer? Prayer is walking and talking with God. That was the original story of Eden. And then I find it fascinating because the byproduct of spiritual warfare that takes place in Eden, the serpent waits for Adam and Eve to be isolated from each other and isolated from God.
LYSA:
Hmm.
JIM:
Right?
JIM:
Sure.
JOEL:
And in the presence of that disconnection in isolation, the serpent comes in and gives this like, did God really say - we've talked about this already in a previous episode. And so, um, what ends up happening is conflict.
LYSA:
Mm-hmm.
JOEL:
And Adam and Eve in the disconnection with God, uh, they entertain a curious idea that creates all kinds of chaos for them. And so, why am I talking about this? Uh, one is we're talking about fighting for our family. And fighting for our family on our knees.
LYSA:
That's right.
JOEL:
The enemy absolutely hates us. Like, I just wanna say it, I wanna say it to you. Very clear. The enemy absolutely hates you. I wrote a, a new book called The Unseen Battle, and in it we talk about just spiritual warfare. And spiritual warfare is simply the process by which the enemy wants to destroy God's family.
LYSA & JIM:
Hmm.
JOEL:
Like how do we destroy, describe the story of God. I would describe it this way. This is a Jim-ism. It's a very simple statement, but far from simplistic.
LYSA:
Mm-hmm.
JOEL:
Mean the story of scripture is a story of a good God who's the cosmic king of heaven and earth who is determined to have his family back together.
JIM:
Mm
LYSA:
Wow.
JOEL:
So there's this enemy that wants to keep the family divided, um, from the nuclear family to the family of God, from humanity in general. And there's this passage in Daniel chapter 10 that I think is so fascinating because honestly, you guys, I'm such a prayer failure. I know you're like, Joel, you're a theologian, you study the Bible, you do all these things, write books. Yes. And I feel like an absolute prayer failure. Um, like I can do Greek and Hebrew, I can do commentaries, but you asked me to sit down and pray for 10 minutes. I feel like I'm lost. What, where do I start?
JIM:
Mm-hmm.
JOEL:
And then I read this passage in Daniel 10 as I was studying about spiritual warfare, and I was so stunned, um, Daniel's going through a bunch of stuff, but in Daniel chapter 10 in verse 12. He gets this incredible appearance of this angel, and this is what the angel says to Daniel. Don't be afraid Daniel. He said to me, for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your prayers were heard.
JIM:
Amen.
JOEL:
I have come because of your prayers.
LYSA:
Prayers
JOEL:
So in other words, if we want supernatural spiritual help, what Daniel 10 explicitly teaches us is the pathway to divine help is actually the path of prayer.
LYSA:
I love that, Joel. That is so, so powerful.
JIM:
That would preach, won't it?
LYSA:
It'll absolutely...
JIM:
That will teach.
LYSA:
Preach. Your story reminds me of a story in my life where, um, my early years were pretty chaotic.
JOEL:
Mm-hmm.
LYSA:
Because of my biological father, and eventually he abandoned us and there was a lot of turmoil. So there was one year where my mom, um, really, she was having to work three jobs and it was just a lot of pressure being a single mom and just working around the clock. So I went to go live with my great-grandfather and my two great aunts.
JOEL:
Mm-hmm.
LYSA:
And, uh, they lived up in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
JIM:
Yeah.
LYSA:
So shout out to you Aunt Jane, if you're listening. We just celebrated her 90th birthday.
JOEL:
Oh my gosh. That's awesome.
LYSA:
Um, but my great grandfather, every day when I would come home from school. It was the exact same pattern. I would make a sandwich and usually, okay, don't get grossed out, but this really is delicious. I would make a Miracle whip banana sandwich on white bread. Okay. It was amazing.
JIM:
Lots of people like that.
LYSA:
It was amazing.
JOEL:
I wanna know who likes in the comments, or, you gotta let me know!
JIM:
You’re in the south, man.
JOEL:
Because I doubt that Banana and Miracle Whip or?
LYSA:
Okay, look, there wasn't all the talk about health stuff. I don't know, maybe something's terrible wrong with Miracle Whip these days, but I'm just saying that's what I liked.
JOEL:
Okay. Okay, sis.
LYSA:
And so every single day I would make a sandwich. I'd put it on my plate, and then I'd go put my things up. I'd come back and the sandwich would be gone. And it happened every single day. Eventually, I, I decided to make two sandwiches because my great-grandfather would come in. And every single day he would take that sandwich. And so then I would have to go say, you know, granddad, did you take my sandwich? And he would always say this. He's like, I did, but real quick, can you come sit in my lap? I have something that I wanna do, and I would go and sit in this lap and he had this huge Bible.
JOEL:
Mm-hmm.
LYSA:
Or at least in my little girl mind.
JOEL:
Mm-hmm.
LYSA:
It was huge.
JOEL:
Right.
LYSA:
And he would take scriptures and he would pray them out loud over me and over me. And over me.
JIM:
That's powerful.
JOEL:
Wow.
JIM:
And as I look back at my childhood, and I look now at my life, I feel like I am living in the answered prayers
JOEL:
Wow.
LYSA:
Of my great grandfather.
JOEL:
So good.
JIM:
Years later.
LYSA:
Years later. And I've been through a lot of stuff in my life.
JIM:
Yeah.
JOEL:
But I just know that there was something so powerful about his prayers that I'm still feeling the effects of it all these many, many, many years later. Um, there's another prayer.
JOEL:
Well, I just, I wanna just talk, say, 'cause I think how that helps me as aparent right now, like I'm a dad right now.
LYSA:
Mm-hmm.
JOEL:
We've got young kids, 14, 13, 11, um, and six, uh, sometimes it just feels so daunting. It feels like, do this prayer actually matter?
LYSA:
Mm.
JOEL:
Because everything that I'm experiencing doesn't feel like it's flowing with the goal of my prayers. So what an encouragement to, like how many years ago was that?
LYSA:
We're talking, oh, I was probably 12 years old and I'm 56 now, so 44 years.
JOEL:
Yeah. I mean, you're living in and 44 years as a perspective of a theology of remembrance to remind ourselves that God is not limited in time and space. Amen.
LYSA:
And it definitely is a highlight memory. It is a core memory
JOEL:
Love it.
LYSA:
Of my childhood. You know, talking about praying, protection, there's another book, I mean, another prayer that I wrote in my book, Come Close To Jesus based on scripture. And I'll just read the first paragraph. It says, “Jehovah Nissi, God is my banner. I pray for protection over me and my family. Thank you for being our protector. Psalm 18:2 assures me that I am safe with you because you are a strong fortu- a fortress shielding me and defending me. You keep me from harm by watching over my comings and goings, and you are faithful to deliver me from evil people and guard me from the enemy.” Jim, I know you have a teaching from Nehemiah.
JIM:
Yeah.
LYSA:
That is so incredibly powerful, and I would love for you to walk us through that.
JIM:
Yeah, I'd love to. Uh, I'm mindful as just a, an, an overarching theme above this is Jesus, the word of God tells us, is ever interceding. He is praying for us. Even if you don't know it, don't feel like it. Jesus prays for us. Satan preys upon us. P-R-E-Y-S. So in that is to look, and some people will say, you know, why pray? Well, I'm soon to be 64 years old, and what I've learned is, and, and this gets missed, and then we'll go to Nehemiah, is. I will pray because Jesus told me to, and I need all these other reasons because he told me to.
JOEL:
Wow.
JIM:
Literally commanded me to, and because he did it. And think about this recipe theology, or the lack thereof of how many times he prayed. Oh, Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem. Man. I would gather you like a mother hen. You said no, his disciples, I mean really in the garden or outside of the garden. Could you just watch him pray? So a lot of that stuff is to take people in your hands if you're praying for them. And I think this is a lot of what Nehemiah will model for us. And to say, I'm praying because you've commanded me to, 'cause you're doing it all the time.
JIM:
Does prayer change things? No, but I'll tell you what I know at 64. Prayer changes me when I pray the names of my family members, kids and grandkids, spouses, I'm praying over them and praying. And for me from revelation, we've all talked about this, I pray, Lord, I pray that you would cover them, which they're already covered with the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony confessing Jesus' Lord.
JOEL:
Yeah.
JIM:
I don't pray applying the blood. I pray relying on the blood. It's already covered, but I wanna just speak the name and many times I've heard you say. During times of deep crisis, you just prayed the name of Jesus. So there's power in the name of Jesus. Leave the results to God. But it changes me to say, I feel like I just love calling my kids and my wife and grandchildren's name out before the Father.
JIM:
Nehemiah. Uh, this is found in chapter 10 and the setting is just simply the walls of Jerusalem are knocked down the gates have been destroyed by fire. He's over in Persia with King Arctic Xerxes. He gets bad news like Jerusalem's in trouble right now, which is where we've all been. So many of your books lately talk about your 9/11.
JIM:
Many of you have a 9/11 and when you get bad news, there's many, there are many paths to take: fight, flight, you could freeze, you could fawn, people please, or whatever. Here's what Nehemiah did, and I want you to slow down when you're, when you have time to, to slow down and read God's word in Nehemiah one, because the words are incredible and if you go through it quickly, you won't see it.
JIM:
When he got the bad news, first thing it says he did was he sat down and there's a whole thought. And if you Google and read more about that, just to sit down without getting up and running around. To sit down. Second thing he did is he cried, he wept. So the idea of sitting down and not going into fight or flight, and then secondly, he began to weep over the destruction of what had gone on in home in Jerusalem.
JIM:
Third thing is he did is mourning. Do you know you can mourn without weeping, and Lord knows you can weep without mourning. But he mourned all that was going on. See, if you don't grieve, the pain won't leave. Grief is our friend. It's a canoe in a river guiding you through mourning. It doesn't mean that you're just in futility.
JIM:
He sat down, he wept. He mourned, and then he fasted. By the way, the, the, the text will reveal and scholars tell us it's probably three to four months before he as the cup bearer to the king went in to allow himself to look vulnerable before the king, so probably three to four months, some say longer. He's doing all these things. He's not rushing out to do anything else.
JIM:
Then also, of course, he prayed. He just called out to the god of heaven. I call out to you, oh God of heaven. You know what he does? He does what my grandkids do. He said, I ask God that you, why would you ask God this? You would open your eyes and open your ears, and my grandkids will come.
JIM:
Granddaddy, put that phone down. You said you would "wrastle" with us, as we call it. You would watch me play a video game. They call me to account, so he says, God, would you hear me? Would you see me? We get to do that.
JIM:
And then number six, he humbled himself as he did this in the sense that in the old language, I beseech you, God, please. He's humbling himself and not grandstanding.
JIM:
And then number seven, he confesses. You know what he does though? He says he confesses his sins, the Jews sins. But he said, I confess the sins of my father's. He looks back up generational lines, and then he adds this line. You don't hear it much these days. We have acted very corruptly against you, not well, I slipped, made a mistake, but God, we have acted very corruptly against you.
JIM:
And then confession should always proceed repentance. And he says, we repent. And he says, God said, you told us if we don't keep your commandments, you'd scatter us, which God did. But then these four words and the four words are, when I think of prayer, I think of two sets of four words. One is thy will be done.
LYSA & JOEL:
Mm-hmm.
JIM:
The others from Nehemiah one. God said this, but if you return and that's repentance to stop doing what you're doing and return and move in a new direction. Two more. And this is what happens. He says, then he asked God for success before any of the modern success writers. God grant me success today 'cause he wants to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And then he says, I ask for favor in the sight of the king 'cause he's fixing to go in there and ask the king. Those are modeled in God's word. I don't wanna do those y'all as a recipe, do all those 10 things, like obeying the 10 Commandments.
JOEL:
Right.
JIM:
And you get this output. But my heart is there saying, Lord, I can do those things, leave the results to God.
LYSA:
Mm. It reminds me of a scripture that I read recently. I've been reading in 1 Corinthians and I got to chapter four.
JOEL:
Mm.
LYSA:
And um, I was reading and all of a sudden it says, we are servants of Christ and stewards of the mystery.
JIM:
Mystery.
LYSA:
Mystery, yeah, of God. And then it goes on in verse two to say, and let us be found faithful.
JIM:
Amen.
LYSA:
And so I think sometimes we can spend so much time fighting for our family, trying to come up with strategies, trying to come up with the right conversations, trying to, you know, put things in place to soften some of the consequences of some of the people's choices.
JIM:
Oh yeah.
LYSA:
You know, draw boundaries. Boundaries are healthy. We already talked about that, but I think sometimes it's like we're doing a lot, but ultimately they, we have to leave room for the mystery of God because we can't dictate outcomes.
JIM:
That is true.
LYSA:
We, we can't control people. We can't fix things that are beyond our ability to fix.
JIM:
I, I've actually tried to do that a lot of times. Confession time.
LYSA:
Yeah, me too. I've tried to control everything. I think we all have. Right?
JOEL:
I haven't, I'm trying-
JIM:
Your day's coming, dude.
LYSA:
Shine your halo over there. I'm joking, but you know what? We don't trust. We try to control.
JIM:
Yeah, it's true.
LYSA:
And sometimes control is fear disguised as strength.
JOEL:
Yes.
LYSA:
Like I'm afraid, but I wanna appear like I've still got it all together and so I control in the face of fear.
JIM:
The Lord has just told me in a word that you ought to write a book about when we can't trust we try to control. I just feel that's a prophetic word. Would you consider, would you pray about that?
LYSA:
Yes.
JOEL:
That may or may not be coming.
LYSA:
Honestly, that may or may not be coming. Yes.
JOEL:
Yes.
LYSA:
But I think like we're doing so much and we're thinking so much, and we're spiraling so much and we're processing so much, but I just think can we just sometimes leave room for the mystery of God? Sit in the midst of the unknown outcomes. The prayers that we deem have not yet been answered or answered in the way that we thought they should be.
JOEL:
Yeah.
LYSA:
And, and, and all of our desires for things to shift, morph, change, transform all of that. Could we just leave room for the mystery of God and sit and then let us be found faithful?
JIM:
Amen.
LYSA:
Getting into God's word. Letting God's word get into us. And when we pray the word of God, we pray the will of God.
JOEL:
Yeah.
LYSA:
Thank you so much for joining us today.
SHAE:
And now it's time for Listener Mail, where we respond to your questions. Today's Listener Mail is brought to you by Compassion International, which I'm so excited to tell you more about.
SHAE:
Compassion is fighting child poverty in powerful, practical ways. Through the work of local churches and the generosity of sponsors like you and me, compassion is releasing children from poverty in Jesus. Name, we've seen the impact of sponsorship firsthand through education, medical care, healthy food, clean water, and the love and hope of the gospel.
SHAE:
And now we want to invite you to join us in sponsoring a child when you. Sponsor. You'll receive a copy of the Proverbs 31 Ministry study guide titled Keep Holding On as our thank you for investing in the Life of a Child. Go to compassion.com/Lysa to choose a child to sponsor today. Okay, friends, let's hear today's question.
SHAE:
This listener says. I'm engaged. I pray a lot about the relationship I have, and I have felt God's peace. But at the same time, I feel this hesitation and sometimes icky feeling in my gut. It's been two years and I keep looking for what's wrong. I don't know if I'm just uncomfortable with the attention and affection, or if something is really wrong, how can I discern how to move forward?
SHAE:
Now I'm gonna pass it off to Dr. Joel Muddamalle to answer this question.
JOEL:
You know, let me just start by saying, um, I'm just, uh, empathetic to what you're experiencing right now. I personally know that feeling where you feel like everything is going in a certain direction and you're praying, and, um, still there's an unsettledness about your heart.
JOEL:
And I actually think that the word discernment is probably the most important word that's being used here. There's an incredible quote by Charles Spurgeon where Spurgeon says that discernment isn't simply the determination of right and wrong. It's actually determining between right and almost right?
JOEL:
And so I like to think of discernment, almost like an act of surgery. You have to assess and see what is true, what is right, what is honorable what is good, and then look for those things that present as good, that present as helpful. But underneath it, there might be something that's off that is not submitted to the Lord that might have hints of pride or arrogance or selfish ambition, really any of the vice of the flesh that Paul talks about.
JOEL:
And in the midst of that. What we wanna do is be careful that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water, per se. And um, we discern and we surgically attempt to remove those things that are creating that chaos and creating that confusion. And so, you know, my encouragement to you would be to consistently bring this like you're already doing in prayer. Uh, bring in some wise counsel. I, I always suggest having, um, a couple girlfriends or a couple guys in your life that, um, if you're a guy, uh, that love Jesus more than they love you. And I mean that order, the way that I said it, like they love Jesus more than they love you, so they can consistently call you up to the character and to the life of King Jesus.
JOEL:
And, um, I don't. Think this is something that you just solve through perfection. I think it's something that has to be processed through discernment. Praying for your friend.