Addressing our Stressing – Finding God in What’s Freaking Us Out
The COVID19 Crisis and the racial tensions in our nation and city have taken our stress index to new levels. 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 inhibitors 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 COVID Stress, 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 seem to get a handle on 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 believe this 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 (John 10:10). 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 August we will be looking at how we as followers of Christ can better deal with stress. As part of our 31 Days of Rest, Refresh and Revitalize 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 rest and believe me I want you to do that. It is also however a time to be refreshed and revitalized. 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 person or on the Facebook feed.
In His Service,

Pastor Dave

In addition here are suggested Scripture Reading from the Psalms for the next 31 Days as well as link to a RightNow Media Video series on Stress by Henry Cloud  – https://www.rightnowmedia.org/Content/Series/327582. If you don’t have an account please sign up for a free one using this link – Here’s a link to set up your own free account on RightNow Media if you don’t already have one. https://accounts.rightnowmedia.org/Account/Invite/calvarychapelsi?returnUrl=https://www.rightnowmedia.org/Account/Media/InviteReturn

August 1 – Psalm 4
August 2 – Psalm 5
August 3 – Psalm 8
August 4 – Psalm 16
August 5 – Psalm 19
August 6 – Psalm 23
August 7 – Psalm 24
August 8 – Psalm 25
August 9 – Psalm 27
August 10 – Psalm 32
August 11- Psalm 34
August 12 – Psalm 37
August 13- Psalm 40
August 14 – Psalm 42&43
August 15- Psalm 51
August 16 – Psalm 55
August 17 – Psalm 63
August 18 – Psalm 73
August 19 – Psalm 84
August 20 – Psalm 90
August 21 – Psalm 91
August 22 – Psalm 97
August 23 – Psalm 100
August 24 – Psalm 103
August 25 – Psalm 121
August 26 – Psalm 136
August 27 – Psalm 139
August 28 – Psalm 142
August 29 – Psalm 144
August 30 – Psalm 145
August 31 – Psalm 150