Hi Friends! I woke up this morning feeling a little achy and drained. I laid in bed staring at my ceiling and turned over to stare at the floor. I thought to myself “God, I’m carrying so much stress.” It’s been a horrific week at work to say the least. As I laid there, the aches didn’t go away. The tiredness didn’t fade. The anxiety didn’t pass. I wanted to feel the tangible presence of God just hover over me in peace and finally feel relaxed. That didn’t happen. Instead, I received a delicate heat check. I remembered a quick snippet that I read in Eric Gilmour’s “Sonship.” A book about intimacy and relationship with God.
“He will live only in the hearts that love him. Only there does He desire to dwell. Loving him means giving him first place. It means nothing can stir our hearts as he does. We need to be on guard against being overwhelmed by earth’s joys and sorrows by our work and activities. When such things preoccupy us, Jesus no longer has first place in our hearts. Nothing that concerns excites or upsets us should be allowed to penetrate into that sanctuary where he lives and has his throne. Ultimately, nothing should disquiet us because he who is our peace is living in the deepest recesses of our heart.”
Eric Gilmour — Sonship, 80
Heavy truth that may immediately makes you respond with, “This really has nothing to do with your love for God; we all will have bad days.” OR “Jesus was still first in my heart; I read my Bible and prayed every day this week.” If this was you, ask yourself, Why am I protecting my love for Jesus and my complacency with stress that share my heart? I took a step back and accessed what my life submitted to Jesus looked like as I stressed heavily this week.
- My prayer time wasn’t focused but bombarded with worrisome thoughts.
- I rarely stop throughout my day to check in with God because I’m busy.
- I’m more likely to say things I shouldn’t.
- I begin to use scripture as a band-aid to get me through instead of the thought-provoking guide it’s intended to be.
- God becomes a check off my to-do list because I barely had time anyway.
If any of this is you I want to encourage you. God sees you, and he cares about every aspect of your life. Stress is a clever tool of the enemy to maximize problems and to-do lists to distract us from God. God deserves our undivided gaze because He is God. And ironically is the only one with the answers we truly need. My plan was to give 4 practical tips on managing your stress and prioritizing God that I wrote down during self-reflection. Truthfully, I haven’t mastered them in a way to share here wholeheartedly. So instead, here are my 4 tips, not to serve as thorough instruction but encourage. I believe that these 4 tips can keep our gaze upon the Lord when stress comes.
Breathe. Take in God’s air and let out your cares as you wake in the morning and rest at night. In a perfect world, God created us to dwell in His presence. But the world is so perfect. So I urge you to build your day around the Holy Spirit. Let the world spin as you pause in His embrace. We weren’t made to run on empty, but the cares of life take our all. So set time or sneak away, but whatever you do, take your stress into the presence.
Walk. To walk on a journey is to make progress, but we only progress if we are walking in the right direction. The is what it means to walk in obedience – to journey in God’s guidance. What does stress have to do with obedience? Obedience is the preventative measure against stress-inducing choices. Some things we can avoid if we just dig into God’s word and obey. Is stress a side effect of disobedience? You may not have stolen or cheat, but were you diligent as the book of Proverbs says. Maybe that could have prevented the piling up of the task. Was your response in a heated moment soft? Perhaps that could have made the difference in that huge fight.
Accept. Accept God’s invitation into being free and light in Him. Many times that I’ve shared my testimony about the grace God has given me through the loss of my mother, I am often met with the response, “You’re not being real or you suppressed your emotions.” To hear this no longer bothers me. I am aware that God gave me an invitation to peace, and I accepted it. He gave me a door to healing, and I walked through. Sometimes we struggle because God’s promises seem too good to be true or high above our heads. But they are in your reach and available to you. You’re invited.
Express. In your time with God you can express yourself or sit in the stillness. He wants to hear your concerns and restore them unto him.
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