Overcoming Acedia: Leaping Over Life’s Walls with Faith
Find strength in Psalm 18 to conquer inner battles and embrace God's power in daily life.
One of the blessings of attending a non-denominational Christian church is its emphasis on the Bible. The pastor of the church in Baltimore would spend weeks on a chapter of scripture, extracting the many themes—or focusing on just one—in that chapter. For a few weeks, the pastor shared his insights on Eugene Peterson’s Leap Over a Wall, which, of course, I had to buy (By the way, if you haven’t read anything from Peterson, I highly recommend his books).
The title itself stems from one of my favorite psalms. Every time I hear the psalm sung in church, my mind immediately darts to this powerful passage, and I pulled two different translations here:
In your strength I can crush an army,
By my God I can leap over a wall.1
Whatever version you read, you can’t help but feel powerful. You don’t tiptoe over whatever wall you face in life. You have the power to leap over it.
Most of Psalm 18 is about being delivered from enemies. Of course, David had many enemies (such as Saul) in his lifetime, and he certainly created enemies from his behaviors (cough, Bathsheba).
As a woman, it can be hard for me to read and relate to psalms of war, but when you think about the deeper messages, you can see how we have many enemies within us.
I’ve written in the past about the many gremlins that infect our minds and consequently our behavior. One that’s plaguing me in particular (and still won’t let go) is acedia.
Without going into much detail about acedia (you can read a little more about it here and here and in one of my books), acedia shows up as a frustrated motivation, like someone throwing a wet blanket over your efforts. In the morning, I’m so filled with motivation and inspiration (which is why I do most of my writing and creating in the morning).
Acedia takes the wind out of your sails.
Then I start my frustrating job, which drains my brain by about 1:00. I think, This day will never end. That’s acedia talking. It shackles any motivation to do anything new—or even continue doing anything at all. Not even a relaxing yoga practice.
Rather than use the latter part of my day to write more or do something fruitful, acedia keeps its heavy weight on my shoulders and tells me that it’s too late to start anything. Then I watch political news clips on YouTube, which always manages to strengthen acedia’s hold on me. Like attracts like, and acedia loves political news because it’s disempowering. Acedia takes the wind out of your sails.
I might even get a barrage of text messages from my mother, whose soul is definitely imprisoned by acedia and depression. Yes, acedia is always looking for new host bodies and minds.
Perhaps I’ll go to bed feeling this way, or I imagine Cher slapping me on the face, “Snap out of it!” That’s when I’ll open my Kindle to a warming book that activates better thoughts than what acedia would have me consider.
Sometimes I’ll wake up hearing the demands of the world telling me what I should do or awakening the many fears I carry deep within. I cry out, “Help, help, help,” and go back to sleep. Even if we don’t pray when acedia takes over, our souls still cry out for help. Maybe it’s in our sleep, I don’t know.
Almost always, I wake up feeling new.
As I stretched open my arms during my morning yoga practice this morning, I heard, “Leap over a wall.” I just repeated that over and over.
I then re-read Psalm 18 and thought about God conquering acedia in my sleep:
The Lord thundered from heaven,
And the Most High uttered His voice,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
He sent out His arrows and scattered the foe,
Lightnings in abundance, and He vanquished them.
You go, G! How perfect that God comes to our aid when these gremlins take over. Yes, we have to ask, and sometimes acedia will tell you that it’s pointless to even ask. Oh, why bother, things just aren’t working out for you, acedia says.
No, you must ask. Even if you don’t receive immediate relief, keep asking. Even if relief comes just for an instant and returns when your mother sends another wet blanket text message, ask again. Joy not only comes in the morning, but it also comes in the return.
Then you know what David means when he proclaims:
The Lord lives! Blessed be my rock!
1 Psalm 18:29, NLT and NKJV