Have you lost your felt sense of awe in God?
Research shows when we humans experience a felt sense of awe, we become less self focused, have increased feelings of connectedness, increased capacity for critically thinking, increased positive mood, and a decrease interest in materialism.
Becoming less focused on self sounds counterintuitive in this world, but awe actually helps us establish our self worth and resilience in the most efficient way...
It does this by helping us understand and feel our insignificance within His creation (ever stood by an ocean and realized how small you are?), yet our significance to Him, and reigniting our trust + safety in Him.
It is easy to try to establish our felt sense of significance + safety by overconsumption and filling our schedules.
But if we are not careful...
This can create a faith that makes it feel like it is all on us to succeed and our worth becomes measured by what we have to offer and how many things we can accomplish. This can cause our identity + felt sense of safety to become entangled with doing, rather than being.
This can result in a felt sense of un-safety and guilt physiologically + psychologically when slowing down actually “being”still before God and others, rather than “doing” things for God and others. This is not His plan or desire for us.
Instead, we are invited to release our white knuckle grips on the things we are trying to do and identify with in order to establish a felt sense of safety without Him, and chosoe to meet Him with open hands and an open heart on a frequent basis to establish it within Him.
The sense of self and safety He offers us, creates a greater resilience within us to take on the worlds trouble because we know Who we belong to and Who is in our corner, aiding us in battle or daily living... It is not just a knowing, but we feel it in our bones and cells from our head to our toes.
The sense of self and safety He offers us, creates a greater resilience within us to take on the worlds trouble because we know Who we belong to and Who is in our corner, aiding us in the battle of daily living in a fallen world ... It is not just a knowing, but we feel it in our bones and cells from our head to our toes.
How else can a sense of awe build resilience?
It is associated with decreased stress and improved mental and physical health.
It improves our sense of purpose and allows us to feel less focused on our daily troubles.
Here is the thing though, this “sense” is not just in your mind, it it is felt from your mind, but also your body, in your gut via your enteric nervous system + glial cells, and sensory system. It is both a knowing AND a felt, internal sense. You have been created with cells in your design that have the capacity to influence how you think, feel + embody certain truths.
This sense can be hijacked, but God, in His goodness + wisdom provided us with the capacity to take control, and soothe both our minds and physical body’s like the Psalmist describes in Psalm 131:“O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
This alone, should pause and make us in awe of our Creator and the agency + power He has given us.
But do we?
Some tips for reclaiming your felt sense of awe towards God:
Open His word and read Psalm 23. Notice what happens in your physical body as you read and imagine this scene.
Go for a walk in Nature and notice His creation while connecting with your breath. Notice the breeze or sounds like birds chirping.
Ask a friend to sit with you and hold your hurts and receive His love through another person. Notice what it feels like to loved by another person.
The Psalmist wrote:
“Because of your unfailing love, I can enter your house; I will worship at your Temple with deepest awe (Psalm 5:7).
It is so easy to get caught up in being busy or burdened by the lack of margin in our lives and cares of this world that we forget who God is and lose our deep awe towards Him.
The enemy wants to fill each space in your calendar and control the amount of white space in your calendar, because he knows if he cannot make you bad, he can make you busy, distracted, and choked out with worry and overwhelm.
This felt sense of being busy and overwhelm chokes out our capacity for awe. It is hard to be in awe when we cannot physically breathe or slow down to be in the present moment because we are running on stress hormones.
Being intentional to carve out space in your day, to evoke a felt sense of awe in Jesus is an incredible way to set the tone for your day, increase resilience in your life to handle life’s daily stressors, and improve your mental and physical health.
When you do so, you are reminded that greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. It is not just a knowing, but a felt sense.
How can you create margin in your day today to meet with God and reignite your felt sense of awe in Him?
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10869/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10018061/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9143136/
