No one wants to be in an emergency. Even the thought of an emergency may evoke a sense of dread or uneasiness in some of us. Merriam-Webster defines “emergency” as “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.” Emergencies can be terrifying to us because they are unexpected. Whether it’s a broken arm, a flooded basement, or any other kind of disaster, emergencies can strike without warning and leave behind devastating consequences in their wake, and they aren’t just physical, either. Spiritual emergencies can happen in much the same way as physical ones, and their consequences can be equally damaging (potentially even more so). If emergencies can catch us so off guard, what can we do to recover when they happen?
One thing that can be incredibly helpful in alleviating the pain or toll of an emergency is triage. Triage is “the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients and especially battle and disaster victims according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors.” Triage is an idea that can be used during spiritual emergencies as well as physical ones. Triage involves simply stopping and evaluating the situation before establishing a plan that prioritizes the most urgent needs first. Here at SMCC, we believe that this idea of triage can be incredibly helpful to someone in the middle of a spiritual emergency, so we’ve created a step-by-step guide to triage in spiritual emergency. If you’re reading this and currently going through some kind of spiritual emergency, we want to encourage you to read on.
One thing that lies at the core of spiritual emergencies is the realization that the truth that you believe, the truth that you’ve likely built your entire life on, is a lie. What do you do when you find out that everything you believed to be true is actually just the opposite? Many of us have had this very same experience and it can be an incredibly difficult and at times painful thing to go through. The very first step to recovery in any emergency is to keep breathing. When you first enter an emergency (especially a spiritual one), it can be all too easy to start to panic and begin to feel like the entire world is crashing down around you. In these moments, it is essential to slow down and keep breathing.
The Bible gives us an excellent example of this step in the life of the Apostle Paul. Before giving his life to Christ, he was a guy who seemed like he had it all figured out. Scripture tells us that he was a Jew who studied under a man named Gamaliel, who was one of the foremost rabbis (teachers) of the time. We also see that Paul had such a great passion for Old Testament Law that it actually led him to persecute early Christians. Basically, he checked all the boxes for being a very successful Jewish teacher. One day, though, his entire life was turned upside down. This is recorded in the book of Acts chapter 9, which tells us about a journey that Paul was taking to a city called Damascus. At this time, he is travelling there to persecute Christians by capturing them and taking them back to Jerusalem. On his way there, however, something completely unexpected happens starting in verse 3. Here’s what it says:
3 “As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ 5 ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. 6 ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’ 7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.” (Acts 9:3-9)
Imagine being in Paul’s shoes at this moment. You’re all in on your beliefs, so much so that you’re willing to have people imprisoned and killed for challenging those beliefs, and you have a supernatural vision of the very person that you are leading the charge against in which He essentially reveals to you that your entire life has been a lie. You can imagine all of the questions that must have been buzzing around in his mind. Many people in the same situation would likely face the near-overwhelming urge to panic in the face of such a dramatic reality check. We see something different from Paul, though. Instead of panicking, Paul slows down and keeps breathing. In fact, due to his newfound blindness, he really didn’t have much of a choice but to be still and keep breathing. As we continue reading, we see that his sight is restored to him after three days of blindless and he eats and drinks. The first step in a spiritual emergency is to keep breathing and take care of the basics of life.
Why is this helpful? It’s important to keep breathing as a first step in a spiritual emergency because otherwise we can start to panic and make rash decisions that end up harming us even more in the long run. This is why Paul’s blindness in his own situation could be considered almost a gift. It forced him to slow down and keep breathing. When we are facing a spiritual emergency, we can tend to immediately jump all in on something else because we don’t know how not to be committed. This can cause us to jump ship from whatever we were previously all in on to things like crystals or witchcraft. This can even cause us to give our full commitment to non-commitment itself. When we desire truth, but are afraid of recommitting to a lie, we can tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater and remain firm in our own non-commitment. It’s important to keep breathing at the onset of a spiritual emergency because otherwise we could make rash decisions that would put us in this unhealthy limbo. If you take some time and keep breathing, not only can you survive a spiritual emergency, but you can thrive through it. Think of it like an oxygen mask on an airplane. The very first thing any flight attendant will tell you is that if there’s some kind emergency, you should always put your own mask on first. In the moment, it may seem trivial, and you might not even feel like it’s doing anything, but as you keep breathing, oxygen is flowing into the mask and keeping you alive. The same is true for spiritual emergencies.
We’ve talked an awful lot about how important it is in the middle of a spiritual emergency to simply pause and keep breathing, but you might find yourself thinking that it’s easier said than done, so here’s a few practical steps you can take to just keep breathing:
Eat Well – there’s nothing wrong with enjoying an ice cream cone or a cookie from time to time, but maintaining a good diet is critical to being able to keep breathing.
Exercise – you don’t have to be super into fitness to do this step. It can be helpful even to just take a walk here and there.
Rest – make sure that you get all the sleep that you need, but also make sure to take some time to rest throughout your day or your week.
Avoid Making Rash Decisions – it’s easy to panic in an emergency and put yourself in a situation that you may not have intended or wanted to be in. Take some time to process things slowly before making your next move.
Grieve – this may initially seem counterintuitive, but it’s so important to acknowledge that something valuable to you has been lost. It can be very hard to heal if you don’t first grieve.
When reading through these steps and trying to apply them to your own situation, you may be tempted to skip or avoid grieving, but this step is first and foundational to your healing from a spiritual emergency. If you don’t grieve properly, it’s likely that you’ll set yourself up for even more pain. In the middle of your grief, try to remember that this situation will not last forever. Think about Paul and his story. Spiritual emergency turned his entire life upside down. Imagine for a moment the confusion, the pain, and the loss that he must’ve been feeling. Had he chosen to panic in this situation, I doubt many people would’ve faulted him for it. Instead, he paused and kept breathing. As he took the time to process and heal, he was eventually able to get to a place where he could say this:
7 “But whatever were gains to me now I consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” (Philippians 3:7-8)
Despite having lost his grip on reality, Paul was eventually able to regain it, and the understanding that he gained was far better and far truer than what he had been living before. It may take some time, but you will find truth again, if you want it. You will find meaning again, if you want it. You will find purpose again, if you want it. For now, the best thing you can do is to keep breathing and perhaps even reflect on the claim that Paul makes in the Scripture passage that we just looked at. Jesus committed to death so that we could commit to life. He allowed His breath to be taken so that we could keep ours. So that we could continue to breathe and one day, by His grace, find Him, and find a life built on truth with Him.
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