Spiritual Formation

Anxiety drove me into the arms of Jesus. And over the years, I began to see patterns of how some ways of prayer mirror psychotherapy techniques that help reduce anxiety. Going further and studying spiritual formation, I was exposed to even more ways to pray in ways that are helpful. I was intrigued that the little bit of neuroscience that had informed my early graduate work helped me make sense of new discoveries about the brain and how it’s shaped by anxiety and reshaped by various forms of prayer.

God’s Word transforms. You and I know this. And now Amber, a student at Santa Fe College, knows this too.

Coming into college, she carried deep pain. But God began showing Amber love and care through her school’s InterVarsity chapter, and her anxiety began to ease. She committed to exploring faith and attending the Urbana Student Missions Conference.

Behind Good Friday’s violence lies something more startling and, in some ways, even closer to our daily experience: Good Friday’s boredom. 

As we enter into Lent, a season marked by repentance and contemplation of the death of Jesus for our sins, let’s ask the Lord to rid us of our pride in our schedules.

Tyler, a freshman at Queens College in New York, expected college to be his fresh start, a way to escape his hometown, and a place to find himself.

Most students enter college with this same mindset, with a burning desire to discover who they are and what their life should look like. When you support InterVarsity, you help students like Tyler find the deeper life in Jesus they’re truly longing for.

So even when it’s hard to say yes, know that on the other side of that yes, on the other side of your fear and uncertainty, there is a better, richer intimacy with Jesus.

Each of us wears cultural lenses. Our culture lenses shape our worldview, our relationships, our behavior … even the way we read the Bible.

In a way that is so holy and sacred and perfect that it’s almost incomprehensible, God wants.

But the phenomenon of highway hypnosis reveals that there are many, many ways in which you are not the boss. You are so not the boss of you, in fact, that your conscious mind can take a full daydream holiday while you’re driving and some other part of you will manage that unbelievably complex task quite well.

Healthy accountability friendships give us space for self-discovery and for deep and genuine friendships. This leads to less anxiety, higher performance at work and school, and spiritual transformation.