Meditate | What To Do When We're Down

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor

I read some of the book of Joel recently and had the opportunity to meditate on what I read. What stuck with me is a short list of things to do when I find myself in a spiritual rut, a time when it feels like “joy has withered away” (1:12). It may not only feel like I have no joy, I may feel utterly devastated, with no will for what my life requires of me and a severe lack of supportive thoughts running through my mind—“the new wine is dried up, the oil fails” (1:10). In this kind of a barren state, I’m probably not feeling like I have much of a supply of creative ways of making something of my situation, in fact, it may feel like I was handling things well for awhile but now I’ve fallen out of touch with what had been motivating me—“the harvest of the field has perished” (1:11). The language and imagery in Joel gets much worse, describing a time when I go from feeling not just like things, ahem, suck, but that my life is being all-out attacked! Okay, so at this point, in Joel, the Lord chimes in and says what to do: “Turn to Me” and “rend your heart, and not your garments” (2:12-13). Next, Joel lists a few of the Lord’s core qualities, that He is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness” (2:13) before giving the following commands:

”Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Consecrate a fast,
Call a sacred assembly;
Gather the people,
Sanctify the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children and nursing babies;
Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber,
And the bride from her dressing room.
Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep” (2:15-17).

In meditation, I let myself first settle into a sense of the Lord’s mercy, graciousness, and kindness, and then it struck me that each of the items in the list above translates fairly effortlessly into a piece of practical advice for my life when things feel as horrible as they are described in the first chapter of Joel. This is simply my personal interpretation; these renderings are in no way comprehensive meanings. They are simply what came to me when I contemplated this list with regard to my own life; perhaps the ideas will bear their own unique fruit with regard to yours:

• “Blow the trumpet” – be willing to admit that something is wrong, is out of whack; consciously admit or acknowledge that it is so.
• “Consecrate a fast” – maybe it would be helpful to do some “withdrawing of the senses” (“pratyahara” in yoga). Is a lot of my conscious attention directed externally? Do I spend most or all of my time saturating my physical senses through eating, drinking, watching things, reading things, listening to things? It might be helpful to “fast” of some of this intake, to tone down the sense-saturation. Fasting of external stimuli could open some space for my inner awareness to expand—it might not feel good, but it might help make a shift possible.
• “Call a sacred assembly” – take time to concentrate my mind on sacred matters; meditate, read the Word or other spiritual literature, make time for a walking meditation in nature; go to a devotional service of some kind.
• “Gather the people” – reach out to friends or to a mentor in my life to talk.
• “Sanctify the congregation” – do some self-examination specifically with regard to the 10 commandments; see if I’m falling into any of the usual out-of-alignment behaviors—coveting, bearing false witness (toward others or within my own mind about myself and life), etc—and if so, bolster my determination to refrain from them.
• “Assemble the elders” – call to mind the times I have made it through rough patches in the past; remember how horrible things felt and then how they got better. The “elders” of my experience carry the wisdom that “with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles” (2 Chronicles 32:8).
• “Gather the children and nursing babies” – call to mind my own innocence; think of what makes me feel innocent, playful, joyful and go and do some of that.
• “Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room” – be creative! Is there something I really love to do that requires some knowledge and effort that I have been talking myself out of doing?
• “Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep” – the “heart” part; simply acknowledge how hard and hopeless things feel; let myself just cry or process whatever emotions are dominant in a safe way.

So what happens when I choose to follow these commands? The rest of chapter 2 in Joel makes it pretty clear:

"The Lord will answer and say to His people,
'Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil,
And you will be satisfied by them'...
Be glad then, you children of Zion,
And rejoice in the Lord your God;
For He has given you the former rain faithfully,
And He will cause the rain to come down for you—
The former rain,
And the latter rain in the first month.
The threshing floors shall be full of wheat,
And the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil...
'Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel:
I am the Lord your God
And there is no other'" (2:19,23-24,27).

Chelsea Rose Odhner

Chelsea lives with her husband and three children in Willow Grove, PA. She enjoys making music, doing yoga, talking and writing about spiritual topics, and living life overall.