When I first became a Christian, I remember explaining to someone that my head felt loud, with lies, stress and mess. I felt overwhelmed.

Sure, I had met my saviour. I knew Jesus had forgiven my sin and set me free. I knew that I could enjoy life with Him.

Yet, at the same time, I felt really aware of how broken I was and how much mess I had been living in.

You see, when I decided to become a Christian my heart had changed, but I was still living in the same painful circumstances which I had faced, prior to saying ‘yes’ to Jesus.

This week, I’ve had a loud head again.

I’ve faced illness. I’ve faced financial stress. I’ve faced parenting a toddler whilst being ill and having little spending money. Throw in the fact that we are locked down, we’ve had terrible weather this week and my husband’s workload has resulted in him working late nights… it’s been one crazy, messy week. Yep, it has certainly felt overwhelming.

I don’t know about you, but when circumstances feel loud, I find it hard to hear God.

I find it hard to get past my sense of overwhelm and, instead, simply enjoy God’s presence.

This post is specifically for you, if you resonate with the above. If you are feeling overwhelmed and you can’t get past it – I get it!

It’s a messy list of prompts and advice that will hopefully lead you back into God’s presence, which you so desperately crave. Enjoy!

1. How have you heard God in the past?

I am a feeler. I am emotional and sensitive. I have the ability to sense a feeling when I walk into a room, or meeting. I get a general vibe.

Once, as a teenager, I went to a New Year’s Eve party. After arriving straight from work, I grabbed some food, pulled up a chair and started chatting to my closest friends, one by one. I unintentionally made each one of them cry! Not because I was mean! But I picked up on their emotions and asked them questions, relating to those feelings. As a result, I was awarded the nickname “D.M.C” (Deep Meaningful Chat!)

I didn’t have language for what happened that night, until recently.

Lately, I have realised that God uses feelings to speak to me. He can give me a sense or an emotion and I can say: “God what should I do with this?”

But, because I am so intuitive, it is easy to feel out of sync with God, when overwhelming circumstances occur.

Overwhelm seems to take over my ability to tune in to those feelings of connection with God.

You may have read the above paragraphs and thought: “Wow, what a weirdo!”

If so, that’s probably because you are not a feeler. You might hear from God in different ways. Another way I hear from God is through pictures. Especially when I am praying for someone else, a picture comes to my mind’s eye.

Some people hear from God by literally hearing a phrase or sentence or word, whether it is in their heart, or head.

My husband just knows something is going to happen before it does. He just knows things, without the ability to explain!

My point is, having the ability to pinpoint how you best hear from God can really help you get unstuck, when overwhelmed.

Being able to identify that I was a feeler instantly helped me to remember that I hate it when there is too much going on! I like it when things feel slow, easy and simple!

If you need help to work out how you best connect to God, here’s a couple of action points:

• Ask someone you love. A mentor, a best friend. Just chat about how you have heard from God in the past. From that conversation a few themes and ideas will be obvious and outstanding.
• I really recommend ‘Prophetic Personalities’ by Havilah Cunnington. She talks about four key ways of hearing God. I resonating with one of the ways most, but identified with elements from three of the ‘personalities.’ So don’t switch off just because you think the course is going to put you in a box! It’s a really helpful way to get you thinking deeply about this subject.

2. What are you hoping God will say?

Sometimes we don’t hear God because we are looking for a specific answer, or a specific direction that He is just not wanting to give us yet!

He always has His reasons! And we need to learn to trust Him.

Proverbs says:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight

Proverbs 3: 5-6, NIV.

Surrender your goals to God. Actually, surrender everything to God!

My wise pastor says: “Always go back to the last thing you remember God telling you.”

If you can’t hear God in a specific area, let go of your striving and go back to the last thing you remember Him saying. Do that!

Action Point:

• Take a moment to do a pride check. Say: “Am I trying to fix this myself, or am I letting God fix this problem for me?” If you don’t feel a sense of peace in your actions, then you are probably trying to fix it for God! Striving is a sneaky thing! Don’t worry though, just repent by hitting pause and surrendering that problem to God.

3. Are you really pursuing God, for yourself?

One day this week, I woke up and someone had sent me a clear, prophetic encouragement. It was a brilliant word and it totally made sense.

Nevertheless, it’s not enough for me to just read it and say that I’ve heard from God. The bible makes it really clear that we should submit every word we receive to God, testing every spirit:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

1 John 4:1, ESV.

I wish I could highlight this point in neon pink!

I feel really strongly that even if you have a positive word, you still need to go to God with that word. You still need to connect with Him for yourself. You can ask Him to confirm it in your own life and you can talk to Him about it. You can be slow in responding to that word.

The thing is, you can absolutely lose your faith and burn out, if you solely rely on other people’s guidance and direction. You could also easily be manipulated. I am not saying this to scare you, but I really want to stress that God wants a relationship with you. You don’t have to get your ‘God fix’ from another pastor or person.

I know this can be a difficult subject. A few years ago I went to Africa and was prayed for by a small, village church community. They gave me a list of words, which they believed to be from God.

But the words didn’t build me up or encourage me. They triggered fear and trauma inside of me. That is not how God speaks to me in private – when I come face to face with God, He is kind and patient and gracious to me. Even when He says something I disagree with, it is never condemning. It is always a loving correction.

It took me a long time to realise that just because the people that gave me the words were Christians, doesn’t mean that they heard from God. I had a choice to receive or reject what they gave me.

Action Points:

• Always pursue God for yourself. Even when you think He’s distant, don’t give up. If you are overwhelmed, keep picking up your bible, or journaling, or whatever usually keeps you connected – even if you don’t feel it!
• Always look for clarity in the bible. If you’re struggling to decide whether a prophetic word someone has given you is true, check it with the bible – does it go against what the word says about Jesus and the gospel? Doing this with a pastor or mentor might help.
• Lastly, I just want to say I am so sorry if someone has given you a bad word. From my heart, I am so sorry that happened to you. I pray you will receive God’s healing, because I know how stressful and painful that is to walk through.

4. Do you need to cut out the noise?

When I started writing this post, I had a picture of plants on a bench – they looked beautiful, but they would soon need bigger pots to grow into. They probably needed to be planted into soil, and not on a decorative bench. Either way: the plants needed attention.

I felt like it was a picture of where I am at currently, in my walk with God.

As a younger Christian, if I was overwhelmed and couldn’t hear God I would get mad and frustrated and want to run away!

But, now, I am aware that when I am struggling to hear God, I say things like: “It shouldn’t be so hard.” That is my warning sign which means I need to give attention to the things that might be holding me back.

With overwhelm, for instance, I need to use a bit of logic! Are there are any really obvious ways I can cut out noise or stress? This is different from trying to fix my problems for God, it’s about doing small, appropriate things with what He has given you.

Here are some practical action steps to reduce overwhelm:

• Could I switch off my phone, could I log out of social media? Turn off the tele? If you are well, fasting is a great, practical way to cut out noise and reconnect with God. Fasting doesn’t have to mean food, it can be a media fast.
• Do I need to cancel zoom calls and any plans I have? (This one has been less of an issue for me, due to a local lockdown!)
• Is there anything I need to do practically, to get over my illness? Do I need bed rest, or vitamins? A healthy soup or a bowl of fruit?
• Am I getting enough sleep? Is there a way I could get more sleep? (For me, a pregnancy pillow next to of a mountain of normal pillows has helped!)
• Is there a way to exercise? If I am in isolation, I could stick some music on and dance round the house! Or, perhaps something calmer…
• Do I need to pick up the phone and talk to another human being?
• Have I laughed recently? What simple ways could I get myself to giggle? Is there a person I can contact that really makes me smile?

Conclusion

If you have stuck with me throughout this post, well done!

Hopefully you were able to catch a few things that could help you get unstuck from overwhelm. Honestly, if all you do is follow through with one of the suggested action steps, I believe you will see change. Please don’t feel overwhelmed by this post!

My prayer is simply that you would be able to reconnect with God, no matter what you are going through. I hope testimonies from my week give you courage to do just that!