Overwhelming
Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Doesn’t everyone? Occasionally we feel stymied by our sense of circumstances, when worries swirling within hamper our progress. Even if we cannot locate what makes us feel burdened, things can still weigh us down until we feel free of them.
Though it is not the singular application, that kind of life experience fits with a scripture I have in mind and is reassuring to me. The Epistle upcoming on Trinity Sunday is part of the power-packed eighth chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. In it, Paul describes one of our incalculable privileges as believers. He says we can cry out to God the Father, through the connecting capacity of the Holy Spirit to realize our saving relationship with Christ the Son of God. By this, we might realize all of our prayers involve God the Holy Trinity. It is a little involved, but please read through this passage and think of yourself as the one who from time to time cries out from your inner being to God.
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” —Romans 8:12:17
The point that excites me here is we are not on our own. Being not merely creatures of flesh and bone, but spiritual creatures living by the Spirit, we are connected in companionship with God. When in circumstances where we want to cry out to God, we can. In doing so, we know we are heard, and that the Spirit is at work in us to guard and keep us. The suffering we undergo, of whatever kind, is a connection point to the redemptive suffering undergone by Christ. The Spirit enables us effectively to cry out to the Father.
A monk and theologian from the fourth and fifth centuries, John Cassian, listened intently to the desert solitaries of prayer as he visited them: hermits—desert abbas, around Egypt and Palestine. In Cassian’s teaching and writing afterward, he recommended we offer a particular line of the psalms fervently in our spirits in all circumstances. In the New Revised Standard Version it is worded, “Be pleased, O God, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me!” (Psalm 70:1 and also 40:13) The recommendation to internalize this short prayer for help is also enshrined in the opening lines of Evening Prayer by the influence of John Cassian’s writings on the founder of Benedictine monasticism in the sixth century.
I have memorized it from the New English Bible version: “Show me favor, O God and save me; hasten to help me, O Lord.” Time after time, when it comes to my lips, as a simple comfort, or when I feel severely overwhelmed, I feel in line with Paul’s description in Roman’s 8:15-16: For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
In those times of repeating the prayer over and over again, I feel the Spirit coming alongside me and ushering me through the fears and anxieties. I am sure I will have overwhelming times. Indeed, I never know how long they will last. Still, I also know I can reach out in every case to God, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, and experience that kinship we have with Christ. That helps restore me to patience and trust. It gives me hope and calms my heart so I can move forward.