Sleep Hygiene/Mental Health

 The book "Are You Really Okay?" helped me realize how important it is to get a good night's sleep.  A lack of sleep can affect our mental, physical, and emotional well-being.    It is important to get at least seven to eight hours of sleep every night.  Good sleep hygiene affects our whole well-being from our mood,  our judgement,  to our ability to learn and retain information.   A lack of sleep impacts our physical health from which can lead to disease, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and mortality.  

The author also emphasized that sleep hygiene affects the quality of sleep that we get every night.   The concept of sleep hygiene is a combination to sleep practices that help us have a good night's rest.   These include: avoiding caffeine close to bedtime,  sleeping and waking at the same time,  keeping your room cool and dark, limiting screen time before bed, limiting day time naps to 30 minutes or less,  and following a similar bedtime routine every night.   The last two that tie together are: increasing the amount of sunshine during the day and exercising regularly during the day.  Practicing a nightly routine can will help our mind and body focus as we go about our day.     When we do not practice these steps, we can become vulnerable emotionally or anxious during the day.   

The author mentioned in the sleep hygiene chapter to keep a sleep hygiene diary.   She emphasized the importance of tracing the amount of sleep that we get every night.   When we track our nightly sleep,  we must write down our sleep and wake times to see what is working for us and what is not.   The author explained that if we are going through a season of sleeplessness,  it could mean we are dealing with anxiety.     We can counter this type of anxiety by praying though the night when we are having these type of sleep problems.   

This chapter in the book "Are you Really Okay"? opened up my eyes to the importance of sleep hygiene.   Debra Fileta explains the necessary importance getting good sleep can have in all areas of our life.   Sleep hygiene can affect the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of our life.   We need to practice sleep practices to help our mind and body get the necessary sleep every night.   Lastly, we need to examine weekly if the amount of sleep we are getting so we can access how our body is re-charging every day.  

Getting Healthy Inside and Out

 Lately,  God has been revealing to me how important is to be be healthy from the inside out.   He has been showing me how important it is to love him with my mind, soul, and body.    Loving him with everything we have has to be a holistic daily experience.    Mark 12:30,  says we are to "Love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength."  The book, "Are you really Ok?' by Debra Fileta has helped me examine if I am really loving God with everything I have and it has reminded me the things I need to work on in the past in order to heal in the present.  Lastly,  it helped me realize how past circumstances, situations,  life experiences, and trauma can affect us later in life.   

Mental Health

 The fight, flight, response in our brain remembers certain traumatic experiences.   It can affect our mental health in certain aspects.    The amigdala causes our body to go into this fight or flight mode and triggers certain responses in us.   Trauma has a way of skewing our emotional response in certain aspects.   It heightens the anxiety responses in us.   This is way professional counseling is an important to healing in our mental health.  

Trauma is a refining process one year at a time.   God heals us from trauma through time.   He peels down certain layers one step at a time.   Certain flashbacks help us revisit healing one step at a time.    God can speak through aspects of the flashbacks in our life.   God comforts us through these times and shows us he is our peace.   

Trauma taints us with disillusionment.  Sometimes we cannot tell the difference between truth and trauma.  We have to  acknowledge these experiences in our life.  When we acknowledge them,  we are able to see the truth.   Trauma is defined by loss of different things in your life; loss leads to distress; loss leads you to trauma.  

Mindfulness is a lost practice.  In Christian mindfulness, we are meditating on God's truth.   We are renewing our minds; Romans 12:2.   Mindfulness centers our hearts and minds on the here and now.  God is the great I am; Exodus 12:3.   

Breathing is another important aspect of mindfulness.   When we are stressed,  it affects how we breathe in certain situations.    The act of mindfulness and meditation helps us align our hearts with God's.   Start a truth journal.  One way to face our trauma with truth is a truth journal.    One side write down what the trauma says about us and the other side shows us what God says about us.  

Dangerous Calling

 The book we read for the Institute, Dangerous Calling, reminded of various pitfalls to avoid when we are in ministry.   It revealed things to be careful to not get fall prey when serving in ministry.     There were also some exciting aspects of ministry the book described.    When we have a healthy awe of God,  then our ministry flows through this awe of God's glory.   Lastly,  taking on the humbleness of Christ and how we served the disciples by washing their feet.  

This book convicted me of my desire to serve God in ministry.   It reminded of how much it's important to not fall prey to certain pitfalls in ministry.   The book gave us a glimpse of certain disciplines that we need to have currently before we get in ministry.   The book showed us why it's important to not fall into our own self-glory.   Also,  how it's important to not neglect our families and our own personal walk with God.    Our ministries should flow from our growing relationship with our savior, Jesus Christ.   

Edmund Clowney's- Called to Ministry

 God used the book "Called to Ministry" by Edmund Clowney to confirm by calling and desire to serve him in ministry.   He reminded me that we are first called when he surrender to God in our conversion.   We are also called by specifically called by our specific names that God gives us.   Clowney clarifies calling to relation to the certain gifts that God gives us.   Our calling is confirmed by how we use our gifts in the church.   

Being a servant of others is an aspect of calling we should take on as we seek to embody Christ.  Jesus was the true servant because he laid down his life for us by dying on the cross for us.   Jesus humbly served his disciples by washing their feet in John 13:1-17.   This shows how we should humbly serve our people.   Jesus came humbly through Bethany on a donkey.

Clowney also shows us the importance of relying on God's wisdom in relation to calling.   We are rely on God's wisdom in relation to our specific calling.   In another sense,  we are to use godly wisdom as we live out our calling.   Clowney discusses how God's wisdom is through seeing his glory through and recognizing who he is.  God's wisdom is to be a treasured possession and compared to a jewel in Job 38.  When we desire godly wisdom,  then God's kingdom is glorified through us.  

Lastly,  we should die to ourselves daily since we are called to the ministry.     As ministers of the gospel, we live out our calling by how we fully surrender to God.   Jesus says in Luke 9:23, "If anyone desires to come after me,  let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."  Jesus calls to to surrender those desires not of him every day as we seek to serve others.  We are to prune out sinful thoughts that we have that are not of God.  

In another sense,  Paul says, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."  The apostle Paul did not want to live in this earthly body anymore but desired to be with Christ.    As we live out our calling, we are to surrender to God's will for our lives.   It is important we pray not our will be done but Christ's will for our life.  This process of daily surrender will open us up to God's kingdom as seek to serve him in our calling in ministry.  

Gentle and Lowly- How to Minister

 Gentle and Lowly shows us as minister of the gospel how to interact with Dane Ortland's intended audience of sinners.   It shows us how to love people in their sin and show them mercy.   This book gives us a clear picture of the mercy of Jesus Christ and how we should embody that in ministry.     Ortland clearly defines how to take on the heart of Christ and how he is gentle and lowly toward us.   This book of Jesus Christ's tender and lowliness towards us while we were still sinners shows me how I need to remember Jesus' love towards us when ministering to the broken and outcast. 

Also,  it shows as ministers of the gospel how our hearts should move towards those in sinner.   We should embody Christ in ministry in moving toward the broken and outcast.   Jesus moved toward the lepers, hurting,  destitute, and demon-possessed.   He had compassion on them in their sin and desperate situation.   It is this compassion that we should have to specific sinners we are ministering to.  

In minister, it is important we take on the mercy of Jesus Christ.   Orland uses the verse Exodus 34:6-7 to exemplify this point.   It says "God is compassion and merciful, slow to anger."    As ministers of the gospel,  we should model the mercy of God.   His mercy was so endless he sent his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins.   This shows us in ministry,  the amount he calls us to show mercy to the sinners. 

Lastly,  in ministry in order to take on the heart of Jesus Christ it is important we rely on his Spirit.   When we rely on the Holy Spirit: he uses us to convict sinners of their need for him,  teach others,  and guide others in truth.   Also,  in ministry when we rely on the Holy Spirit he leads us to those he wants us to share the gospel with.   Similarly,  the Holy Spirit shows us the true heart of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit shows Jesus' heart and love for sinners to know him.   

God is our good shepherd. He leads his flock

 God showed me of this theme all throughout Scripture.   This terminology starts in Ezekiel 34:10 and lasts until verse 34.   The theme of God being our good shepherd relates back to Jeremiah 23:5-6,  which gives us a sense of intertextuality in regards to the passage.   This concept of God being a shepherd goes back to John 10:11-18.  This passage Jesus is portrayed as our "good shepherd" in how he leads us.  

Ezekiel 34:1-8,  Ezekiel prophesies against the leaders to Israel.   Shepherd terminology is used to show the significance of how the leaders of Israel lead the people astray.   In verse ten,  we can see how God puts himself in place of the shepherds to show how leads his people.     In the preceding verses, 11-20 God gives us a picture on how he leads us people when they are lead astray.    While in verse 22,  God details his saving work for his people.    God is jealous for his people to know him and he desires to lead them.

In the conclusion to this section of verses,  starts in verse 24 with Jesus portrayed as our good shepherd and servant king.   When we interpret this passage in terms of biblical interpretation in how in relates back to this foretelling in Jeremiah 23:5-6.   The preceding verses in Jeremiah give us the shepherd metaphor.  This shows us how Jesus is our good shepherd that serves us and leads us in a righteous manner.   Lastly,  a New Testament passage that gives us a depiction of God as a good shepherd is John 10:11-18.