ARE YOU STRESSED?

BIBLE PASSAGE:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and
his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and
increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and
young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew
their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not
grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
(Isaiah 40:28-31)

MEDITATION
Today starts a brand new week and you just can’t wait to get started….or can you?
I once had a job that required a 2-3 hour meeting every Monday morning to discuss
proposed changes to the 12 systems my staff and I supported (compared to the 1-3
systems supported by each of my peer managers).

The meetings consisted of my peers, Managing Directors and the Vice President.
Needless to say, Mondays were ‘extra special’ for me, and I didn’t look forward
to the start of each work week. I felt my plate was full when suddenly I was asked
to take the lead for another project.

Have you ever felt that you have so much to do, that if just one more thing
comes along, you’ll start unraveling? The day seems too long and the night
seems too short; the week seems too long, and the weekend seems too short
(so short that you feel you have no time for including time with the very One
who can provide you with the help you need).

Stress can happen to all of us at any age
    (“even the youth grow tired and weary”)
The only difference is, our responsibilities and desires change with age.

S T R E S S!!! How do you define it?
It can be considered as the gap between our responsibilities (what we need
and have to do) plus our desires (what we want to do) versus our feelings of
the time and abilities we have available for fulfilling our needs and desires.
It can fluctuate and be either a narrow gap, or a very wide one; the wider
the gap, the more anxiety we can experience.

Where does one seek help whenever these types of situations arise in their
lives? There are many seminars in the business world to assist people with
dealing with stress. However, there is a much better instruction manual
and it is called the Bible.

First of all, the Bible tells us that God understands and knows all about
stress. Even as the Creator of the world, He does not grow tired or weary.
In other words, He knows how to properly balance everything in the world.
Sounds like He is the most qualified One to give us good advice for handling
stress, doesn’t it?

The scriptures also tell us how He provides for those going through difficult
and stressful times. He provides extra strength for those who have been worn
down from the worry and stress in their lives. He also increases the power of
those who are facing any kind of impending stressful situation. In other words,
He gives us the ability to face responsibilities without buckling from the stress.

So what advice do we receive from the Bible for handling stress?
We are told that we can have our strength renewed whenever we depend
on the Lord. Renewing of our strength means that we develop confidence
for handling stressful situations. We have acknowledged God’s existence,
and we place our hope in Him for assisting us in all types of situations.

Hope is what reminds us of God’s presence and our eternal destination.
It is what keeps us connected with heaven and helps us deal with any of
the temporary problems on earth.

In addition to having our strength renewed,
there are three more positive results from following the Bible’s advice.

1. We will have the ability to soar above the stress. We can rise above
     the details of the stress and look at the overall picture. Once we
     understand the overall goal of what is causing our stress, we can
     see the benefits and begin to develop a more positive outlook of
     the challenges facing us.

2. We can run toward the challenges instead of shrinking away from
     them with hopes they will go away. Instead of having feelings of
     weariness and being overwhelmed with feelings of failure, we can
     face the challenges with full confidence that we will be successful.

3. As stress begins to subside, we will not start to coast and allow
     the stress to arise again. We will not go into idle mode, but with
     God’s help, we will continue our efforts to resolve the stressful 
     situation we are facing now, and ones we anticipate in the future.

The successful route to dealing with stress begins with our dependence
on God. We need to long for Him (in other words, we should choose to
includes Him and a desire to worship and praise Him).

We need to listen to Him (accomplished through reading His Word, prayer,
and worship attendance). We need to look for Him (He is our Creator and
He has a desire for our dependence and not our independence…shown by
trying to solve stress in our own strength). We need to live for Him (serving
God prepares us for balancing our needs and wants).

Stress is something we all face from time to time. Even in the animal world
there is stress. The cheetah awakens each day thinking that he must be faster
than the fastest lion or be killed. The lion awakens each day thinking that he
must be faster than the slowest cheetah, or he will starve to death. Who do the
animals look to for help? They have no manuals or seminars, so they HAVE to
look to God for their strength.

ACTION:
How are you handling your stress? When trying to balance what you need to
do, with what you want to do, do you reduce your wants first, or do you make
the mistake of reducing what you need to do? Do you reduce the time you spend
with God in order to give you more time to do the things you want to do?

Even if the things you want to do are not bad, your time with God should not
be sacrificed for them. Not only do you need to be in touch with Him in order
to develop a relationship with Him and prove to God, yourself and others that
you are sincere about your faith, but it also means that whenever stress enters
your life, you know you can depend on Him to help you deal with it.

Pray,
“Heavenly Father, thank You for loving and caring about me.
Forgive me for excluding You when I need you most during
times of stress, worry, overwhelming sadness and feeling of
hopelessness. Father, You know how Satan will attack during
these times of turmoil, so I pray that You will turn him away
and spoil his efforts to draw me away from You. I pray that
You would help me with the things in my life right now which
are causing me to worry and become stressed out. I know that
some things are so big that unless You help me, I have no hope
of overcoming them. Help me to stop being independent of You
and to start bringing all of my fears, worries and stresses to You.”

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