Addressing our Stressing – Finding God in What’s Freaking Us Out
Stress is literally killing us. Everybody knows it but we rarely address it properly. We only address its symptoms. We take Xanax for our anxiety. We take ace inhibiters to get our blood pressure down. We have Prozac for our depression and Pepcid for our ulcers. We see psychologists, psychiatrists and psychics and we still have stress issues. Stress really is killing us.
We have so many arenas of stress it is impossible to avoid. There is the financial stress, family stress, work stress, wedding stress, divorce stress and even vacation stress. It causes us to be angry, fleshly and paralyzed. Yes, we are stressed out and we can’t get away from it.
Stress is killing us. It is killing our joy, destroying our peace, ruining our happiness, depressing our love and hindering our faith. I don’t think that is what God intended for our lives. The thief comes to rob and kill and to destroy. Jesus came so that we might have life and have it more abundantly (John10:10). Jesus came so that stress doesn’t have to kill us.
Because stress is so prevalent in our lives, over the next four weeks in July we will be looking at how we as followers of Christ can deal with stress. We will see how we can handle it in a way that pleases God and blesses us as well. We will see that the Scriptures give us clear guidance for addressing our stressing.
Christians should be the best people at handling stress in a stress-filled society. Because we often handle it in a manner no different than the rest of the world the effects of stress are the same for us as they are for anyone else. This makes others think less of our Christian faith and rightly so. Part of my testimony needs to be that Jesus Christ makes an impact in every aspect of my everyday life, even in my stressful times.
I know that summer is a time to kick back and relax and believe me I want you to do that. It is also however a time to be refreshed, revitalized, and rejuvenated. Unless we take intentional steps and learn to make some changes in our lives regarding stress, we in all likelihood will come out of summer just as stressed as we went into it.
Over the next four weeks we will be talking about: Stressing Over the Little Stuff of Life, Stressing Over the Decisions of Life, Stressing Over the Injustices of Life, and Stressing Over the Big Stuff of Life. Let me encourage you right now to make every effort for the next few weeks to hear these four messages. This series would also be a good one to invite a friend to because this topic speaks to a universal problem. Who isn’t feeling a little stressed out? The Scriptures, rightly applied can make a difference in all of us. There is hope for us in addressing our stressing. I am looking forward to seeing you this week.
In His Service, Pastor Dave