Soul Supplement: Time for Divine Therapy – Excerpts from “For the Unhappy Christian: A Workbook to Encourage Healing”
God hears everything. There hasn’t been a single thought or whisper that He didn’t hear clear as a bell. That makes divine therapy the best kind of therapy. Let’s start by telling God a little bit about how you’re feeling. Have you been having feelings of unhappiness lately? Why? Do you often worry? What do you worry about? Write whatever comes to mind. There’s no need for a filter when you’re 1- on-1 with your Heavenly Father. It’s like a soul supplement.
Throughout this workbook, I will be suggesting things you can do that have been proven to help people lead a more fulfilling life. You’re not obligated to do any of them. They are just things to consider.
My first suggestion is to volunteer. If you can volunteer at your church, that would
probably be the first place to try. Volunteering outside the church is also a great idea. We are called to serve our fellow man, and that includes all people. All people. You’ve probably heard about the benefits of volunteering before, and maybe you didn’t care to listen. Or maybe you’re too busy—or at least you think you’re too busy.
But it’s about priorities. If you decide that volunteering is important to you then there is likely time available in your schedule for that. But don’t do it if you just want to make yourself feel better. “One key for deriving health benefits from volunteering is to do it for the right reasons. A 2012 study in the journal Health Psychology showed that participants who volunteered with some regularity lived
longer, but only if their intentions were truly altruistic. In other words, they had to be volunteering to help others—not to make themselves feel better.”
If you are older, here is a website that can connect you to volunteer opportunities. This website focuses on isolation and loneliness, so volunteering is just one of its many features. To find the volunteer opportunities, click “Get Involved” in the upper right corner.
https://connect2affect.org/
If you’re younger, here is a website that can connect you to volunteer opportunities. If needed, you can earn volunteer hours and a certificate.
https://www.dosomething.org/us 1
Throughout this workbook, there will be Scripture to read, like a supplement for your soul. Try to read all of it and try to force yourself to read slowly. Reading it more than once is also a good idea.
“The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have
not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-12)
Let’s read verse 12 again:
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
What do you think this means? What does it make you think about? Don’t worry about trying to think of a good or correct answer. Write about how it makes you feel.
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