I recently read Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love! It’s a very challenging, honest and insightful book based around God’s relentless love for us. I highly recommend it. Of all the topics in the book the one thing that stood out to me as a universal concept to bring to everyone’s attention is when Francis Chan writes about Worry and Stress;
“Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.”
“Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace towards others, or our tight grip of control.”
Whenever I have thought about the actions of Worry and Stress, I have always simply thought they were negative personal actions with personal consequences. I rarely would realize or even think of the more important consequences of the ones I hurt…God included. How extremely short sighted of me! The Bible is packed full of examples and testimony of the importance of trusting God. Worry and stress are the exact opposite of trusting God!
Crazy Love goes on to say;
“Basically, these two behaviors communicate that it’s okay to sin and not trust God because the stuff in my life is somehow exceptional. Both worry and stress reek of arrogance.”
I love that last line…what a humbling way to put it. Wherever you are in your spiritual journey with God I think it is safe to say that nothing positive usually results from stress or worry in our lives. Many people in the medical field have linked stress as a possible cause of all sorts of illnesses including; heart attacks, heart disease, depression, obesity, diabetes, and even cancer.
Everyone has some level of worry and stress in their lives, the real difference is how we deal with it. For me personally, taking a “time out” to just breath, praise God for all the wonderful things that I take for granted, and above all, listen to God and pray for His will to be done in my life. These ways to deal with stress have shown great results for me since reading this book.
Anyone else have any personal experiences on this topic? What are the effective ways that you cope with Worry or Stress?
Dude so true I workout or do some physical activity to keep focused. Great thoughts though
Wow Joshy aka Stuuupid! This was so what I needed to read at this very moment! Thank you for reminding me! It sometimes becomes hard to trust that God’s plans for us are good, full of hope and a future. I guess I just need to keep reminding myself that through struggle God prepares you for his purpose.
Thanks Josh! I am pretty sure that you know how this fits into my life. Actually since I moved to HB, I am dealing a whole lot better. I have a nice run by the beach everyday and get to talk to God the whole time and thank Him for the awesome blessings in my life every day. It is very easy to get captured by things and situations in this world that bring our stress and worry. I like your approach of taking a “time out” to refocus on God. Francis speaks the truth…What do we have to worry about if we have FAITH in God. I have really been taking a step back lately to evaluate these 2 things in my life. To worry and stress about things that are really out of my control has been hindering my relationship with God and wearing me down physically. I think that this was a great topic to bring up and something that we all deal with. We need to learn to trust more and let Faith take over. I’m a work in progress, but at least I’m making progress. Thanks Josh for sharing!!!!!
I’m spending more and more time trying to focus on God. My faith is strong for how the Lord works in my life. Nothing is so important that I need to worry or stress anyway. But on the rare occasion worry or stress has become my trigger to refocus. I do it immediately. I don’t realize why God allows my mind to wonder away so much at this time in my life but HE does. At least I have reasons to keep my eyes on the prize. Doing it now.