How spiritual practices like prayer and Bible meditation can bring about peace of mind

3 min read

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." -Philippians 4:8, NLT

If you ever find yourself looping the same stressful thought over and over in your mind, you know what a problem it is. It’s one thing if it lasts for a few minutes, but when it stretches into days, it has a way of draining life right out of you.

Take James, for example. He started thinking again about a frustrating thing that happened at work a week ago. He thought he had already moved on, but it resurfaced on his mental dashboard again on Monday morning. It was still there on Tuesday morning. And Wednesday…

The technical term for this way of coping with stress is rumination. That is, when you focus your attention and think repetitively about something stressful – something that did happen or something that could happen – you are ruminating.

Ruminating is kind of like being on a merry-go-round….once it gets going, it is hard to get off.

Hard, but Not Impossible

They say the key to reducing rumination is to disrupt the circuit. Somehow getting your mind off of the stressor is what will break the mental orbit going on in your head.

There are a variety of things to help with this, like watching a movie, a rigorous workout, or a good conversation. For believers, when that beautifully complex space behind your eyes and between your ears is running amok, the spiritual disciplines of prayer and/or meditation are also go-to resources.

Paul the Psychologist?

The Apostle Paul was a theologian and missionary par excellence, but he also had some great perspective on human psychology. For example, this passage from Philippians (in block quote above) is brief but chock full of insight on mental health and how to experience joy and peace, even when life is coming at you hard.

One of the many insights here is the connection Paul makes between what we think about and how we feel. In context, peace is contrasted with anxiety and peace is the goal. The peace of God (v. 7) comes from the God of peace (v. 9). Toward the goal of internal peace, Paul lays out a list of thought categories for the Christian to target (e.g., things that are true, honorable, right, etc.).

The upshot seems to be that if we ruminate about stressful things beyond our control, it will cause us to feel anxious. However, if we fix our minds on the things of God, his peace will be not far behind.

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

-Isaiah 26:3

But we’d be lying if we said this practice was easy. It isn’t. Like we said, it’s difficult to stop a spinning merry-go-round.

And this is where the resource of prayer comes into play. To complement the thought checklist, Paul also exhorts the Christian to pray about anything and everything that may be causing anxiety. When we find ourselves beginning to ruminate about something, we have the alternative of converting that stressful thought into a prayer request. Instead of letting it build up troubling momentum in our thoughts, we can slow it down with prayer.

Shall we give it a try?

I’ll go first.

Dear Heavenly Father, I am having a hard time prying my thoughts away from a situation. You know which one I’m talking about. It’s really bothering me, so right now, I’m asking you to intervene and do what only you can do to make the situation better. Help me to trust you with it today. Take my thoughts in a good direction and give me peace. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

It’s a new day with God. Run with it.