Numbering Our Days: Combating Anxiety in the Power of Small Intentional Moments

By Nichole J Suvar

Each of us was placed on this earth for a certain number of days. Time is precious, and you don’t want to waste it. You desire a life that has meaning and purpose but you find yourself caught in a current of non-stop rushing. When this becomes your existence, day after day, you find you’ve lived a series of months, even years, unintentionally. In the middle of all of this is the suffocating presence of anxiety. You want a life that matters, but how do you do that in the middle of…life?

How do you use the struggle of anxiety as a path to a life of meaning? With short daily devotions and practical application, Numbering Our Days encourages you to move out of maintenance mode and away from the spiral of anxiety and into a life lived with intention. Anxiety doesn’t have to define you. It can be what brings you back to Jesus, living a life that brings Him glory and points others to Him.

This book will help you to pause, reflect with Scripture, and take action to combat anxiety and start living intentionally, one moment at a time.

Because small moments, day by day, add up to an intentional life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664285743

Nichole J Suvar

Nichole lives in Indiana with her husband Paul and their three children. She enjoys training for road races, discovering hiking paths, or curling up with a mystery novel. Through years of struggling with anxiety, Nichole has found help and solace in focusing on small moments of intentional living in everyday life. She’s found that even the struggle of anxiety can be a tool to help point us to our Savior and live a life that brings Him glory. Nichole shares her journey of striving to live an intentional life on her website at livewithintent.org.

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Copyright © 2022 Nichole J Suvar.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-8575-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-8576-7 (hc)

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022922395

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/13/2022

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

—Psalm 90:12

For Paul.

You’ve walked beside me through my many anxious days, always willing to hold my hand and remind me of the better, eternal picture.

You’ve believed in me in ways that I never could.

Thank you.

All my love, always.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Intentional Heart

Moment 1: Numbering Your Days

Moment 2: Give It to God

Moment 3: Starting the Day with Him

Moment 4: Turning the Heart toward Gratitude

Moment 5: Checking How You Are Smelling

Moment 6: Monitoring What You Are Consuming

Moment 7: Motivating the Unmotivated

2Intentional Thoughts

Moment 1: Not Believing Everything You Think

Moment 2: Jumping to Conclusions

Moment 3: Reminding Yourself of the Truth

Moment 4: Keeping Your Mind on Him

Moment 5: Keeping It All in Perspective

Moment 6: Encouraging Yourself Despite Discouragement

Moment 7: Securing Your Identity

3Intentional Money

Moment 1: Assessing How You View It

Moment 2: Looking at How You Treat It

Moment 3: Making a Budget

Moment 4: Giving It Away

Moment 5: Stemming the Flow

Moment 6: Spending Intentionally

Moment 7: Opening Your Eyes

4Intentional Relationships

Moment 1: Looking to Others’ Interests

Moment 2: Loving Your Enemies

Moment 3: Asking for and Giving Forgiveness

Moment 4: Listening

Moment 5: Choosing Community

Moment 6: Keeping and Restoring Trust

Moment 7: Looking for Those Who Aren’t Like Us

5Intentional Health

Moment 1: Choosing to Start

Moment 2: Tapping into Truth

Moment 3: Finding Moderation

Moment 4: Guarding Your Mental Health

Moment 5: Defining Your Perspective on Work

Moment 6: Viewing Your Physical Health

Moment 7: Placing Your Hope in the Right Thing

6Intentional Home

Moment 1: Finding That One Word

Moment 2: Focusing on the Small Things

Moment 3: Using Your Blessing to Bless Others

Moment 4: Finding Contentment

Moment 5: Securing the Doors

Moment 6: Getting Everyone Involved

Moment 7: Cling to the Good

7Intentional Time

Moment 1: Being Aware of How You Are Spending It

Moment 2: Choosing to Rest

Moment 3: Giving It to Others

Moment 4: Slowing Down

Moment 5: Waiting

Moment 6: Setting Aside Worry

Moment 7: Entrusting Your Time to Him

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

You were placed on this earth for a certain number of days. You know time is precious, and you don’t want to waste it. You desire a life that has meaning and purpose. But your day is filled with dishes, laundry, carpooling, the nine to five, texts to respond to, soccer practice, and bedtime routines. You say you want a life that matters, but how do you do that in the middle of … life? With so many areas of everyday life in maintenance mode, there isn’t a lot of growth or improvement. And it’s not because you don’t want it, but with the rush of life, it often gets set to the side for another day. When this becomes our existence, day after day, we will find that we have lived a series of months, even years, unintentionally. How can one stop the cycle of mindless living? How do we start to live each day intentionally? We start small. We look for purpose in the small moments of living and seek Jesus in the center of each of them.

Whenever we have a question about life, it’s always the best move to go to scripture. For this particular question, we’re going way back to the days of the Israelites, wandering in the desert, looking to one man chosen by God to lead them.

When you read about the people in the Bible, do you think about them as book characters or as actual people? Are they two-dimensional, only having the characteristics that you read on the page, or do you flesh them out in your mind to three-dimensional, real-life persons? Do you think of them as people who have thoughts, feelings, and even everyday actions that aren’t captured within scripture?

I’ve often wondered about Moses. What was he like as a person? There are a lot of things about him that we could list. We know that he was a firstborn son, hidden among the reeds in a river as a baby to avoid execution. He grew up under the shadow of slavery and ran away after killing someone in anger. He had numerous interactions with God between the burning bush and Mount Sinai, intervened for the Israelites in front of Pharaoh, and led millions of said Israelites out of Egypt and through a wilderness for forty years. Those are facts but, have you considered the parts about him that made him human like you and me?

Moses may have had a speech impediment. He was unsure about being the spokesperson for the Hebrews and even asked God for Aaron to step in and take his place. Perhaps, along with a speech impediment, he was soft-spoken. Maybe Moses had a really short temper that he had to keep in check. There are also the small, inconsequential things that we don’t know about him that could help us see him as a human. Maybe he preferred a salty snack over a sweet one or, he fell asleep faster if he slept on his side versus his back.

In 1956, Paramount Pictures produced a rendition of the story of the Exodus, and Charlton Heston was cast as Moses. If, like me, you have watched this film, then you get a picture of Moses as one who has confidence and strength. However, when we think through the different struggles and adversities that Moses faced, he was more likely one who lacked self-confidence and was anxious about the duties being asked of him. He may not have been one who struggled with decades of anxiety, but he certainly would know the feelings that come when grappling with unease over stressful situations. He more than likely struggled with anxiety, people pleasing, and doubting God’s call on his life.

One thing we do know about Moses is that he did amazing things in his lifetime. Leading more than one million people for over forty years is a feat unto itself, let alone being the intercessor and go-between for the Israelites and God. With all the weight of responsibility on Moses, I wonder if he ever lay awake at night worrying. Was he anxious about neighbor disputes or worried about what the next day would bring? We get glimpses into Moses’s humanity every now and then, such as when he expressed doubt about his abilities and passed off the job meant for him to his brother, Aaron, feeling that his brother would do a better job. We see flashes of anger when God tells him to talk to the rock to bring forth water, and in his exasperation with the grumbling congregation, he strikes the rock instead. And Moses shows grief as he has to say goodbye to his brother, Aaron, on a mountaintop, taking the high priest mantle off Aaron and placing it on his nephew instead.

With all the accomplishments that Moses had in his lifetime, do you think he ever struggled with purpose? Do you think he ever wondered if he was doing the right thing or making the right choices? Do you think he ever got anxious over the thought that maybe he was missing the mark in some area of his life when he was busy focusing somewhere else?

Psalm 90 gives a glimpse into Moses’s heart. The oldest psalm, written by the man who stood before Pharaoh, demanding that he let God’s people go. A psalm written by a man who stood in the presence of God, looked into the heavenly realms on Mount Sinai, and got a glimpse of the future dwelling place as he received the blueprints of the Tabernacle. Moses, the man who heard the Ten Commandments straight from God, was flawed, just like the rest of us. He dealt with feelings of inadequacy, anger, and grief. So, to breathe a prayer that came from someone with this kind of experience is to breathe a prayer of a godly individual.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! (Psalm 90:12–17)

This psalm is rich and deep, and not only can it be our hearts’ cry, but we can learn from it as well. If we are seeking to live a life of intention, this is a great place to start. The prayer in verses 12–17 can be summed up in three steps:

1. Recognize the temporal. Where in our lives have we become consumed with the here and now and lost sight of eternity?

2. Reconnect to the eternal. How can we take this area of life and reconnect it to eternity?

3. Refocus our intention. How can we be intentional with this area of life, that it may give God glory and point others to Him?

Work, school, errands, distractions, traffic, emails, appointments, conflicts, and social gatherings are just the short list of what may happen in a day’s time. Often, these activities are necessary, but they can easily pull our focus away from an eternal perspective. We can start to get caught up in the needs and wants of now, and those will often spiral into stress and anxiety. We aren’t meant to live in that state. When we can identify the temporal that is distracting us and instead turn our hearts toward an eternal perspective, our minds will follow that path as well. When recognizing the temporal and then reconnecting to the eternal, we can refocus our intention toward a life lived for Jesus and not ourselves. Verse 12 recognizes the temporal when it says, Teach us to number our days. Verse 14 reconnects to the eternal: Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love. And finally, verse 17 refocuses our intention with the request to establish the work of our hands.

We can often fool ourselves into thinking that the everyday life of caring for family, friends, and self can distract us from a life of purpose. But if we approach each of these events with intention, they can become part of the purpose.

This sounds ideal, rising in the morning with God being the first thought, walking through our day with purpose, and seeing our work mean something. This sounds great, but then life seems to get in the way. But if we live this life with an eternal mindset, knowing we have been placed here for the purpose of furthering God’s kingdom, not our own, we become more focused, more intentional, and less desirous to spend most of our time on trivial pursuits. Psalm 90 speaks on the ritual of seeking God first, desiring to have a heart of gratitude despite the circumstances, wanting to see God’s glory revealed here on earth, and longing to have the work of our own hands be established and long-lasting.

At the end of each devotion in this book will be a prompt to allow you to reflect on your own life and journal your thoughts on recognizing the temporal, reconnecting with the eternal, and refocusing your intention.

I didn’t always see life in this way. It was a long road for me to finally come to this view. My first vivid memory of being anxious goes back to third grade, when I was eight years old. I would lie awake at night anxious about the ozone layer around the earth and the ever-expanding hole that would kill us all. About halfway through my third-grade year, I was diagnosed with ulcers. I was literally making my stomach have sores because I was worrying too much. The solution at the time was to stop worrying—and take some Rolaids.

Three decades later, the same overwhelming feelings are still a struggle, but I’ve been able to take the thoughts from third grade that kept me up at night and pass them off to God, resting in His control. Now, however, I have picked up other anxieties: am I being a good mother, am I doing anything good with my life, what if my husband died tomorrow, what if I lost my job, what if, what if, what if. The worries weren’t always rational. In fact, most of the time, they weren’t. And when the worries and anxieties became something that controlled me instead of me controlling them, I finally pursued answers. This time, it was more than just worrying. This time, I finally had a diagnosis: general anxiety disorder. Once I was told that I had chronic anxiety, it helped make sense of my struggle. This wasn’t just a little girl who was worried about the ozone. This was a grown woman who had struggled with anxiety for most of her life, so much so that she identified with it as part of her. Having a name and bringing it into the light suddenly gave me power over it. But not the power of my own doing.

It would be great to say that having a diagnosis and getting treatment cured my anxiety, that I never worried about another thing again. I have come to believe that this is my cross to bear. This is what keeps me coming back to Jesus. Every morning, I want to pick all these cares back up, worry about the outcomes, and do all the hard work to make them what I think they are supposed to be. But every morning, I have to give them back over to Him. So, in a full-circle kind of way, anxiety brings me closer to Jesus. Just like a recovering alcoholic will always be tempted to go back to drink, the recovering anxious will always be tempted to pick it all back up and take it on themselves. Even if you don’t have a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, it’s likely that you can identify with this cycle of anxiety in some form or another.

From this daily relinquishing is born the process of living an intentional life. We can be intentional with laying down our anxiety, and when we do, we can thrive. If being intentional in this area is a good thing, what other areas of our lives can we be more intentional with?

Psalm 90:12 cries out, Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. This verse and the five that follow can become your theme for an intentional life. For when we see each day as a gift, when we see that we have a limited number of these twenty-four-hour opportunities, we have more of a desire to make them count. If you want to live a life of purpose, you have to live each day with intention. A purposeful life is made up of thousands of days, each one driven by the decision to be intentional.

Because a day in your own life is made up of a myriad of different parts, let’s separate those parts of the day so that we can focus better on each one. This isn’t something to obsess over and worry about getting right; instead, like everything else in life, it’s about keeping a balance. See it as a practice and not something to get perfect.

The seven areas of the intentional life follow:

1. Heart. Everything else stems