Under pressure

“If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small.” 

Proverbs 24:10 NLT. (http://bible.com/116/pro.24.10.nlt)

Most of us complain about stress. It's not fun being under pressure to do something. I have to admit there are plenty times I my life where I fail under pressure. I always look back at those events with sadness. Failing under pressure usually means hurting those we love. It means making poor decisions with serious consequences. I have written about the stresses of life in this blog and I usually write about trying to turn things over to God to relieve the stress. Sometimes God wants us to be under stress. He wants us to develop a strength that will be able to defeat even the toughest enemy. The only way to develop that strength is through trial. Even though I hate the stress when I'm in the midst of it, I always grow personally and spiritually through fire.

Dear Lord, thank you for caring enough about me to guide me through tough times. Thank you for helping develop my strength. I trust you and love you with everything in my life. I have had many trials and tribulations, but they have made me who I am. I wouldn't ask to change anything in my past or ask to remove the stresses that lie ahead. When I turned my life over to you, it was through all things, not just the good parts of life. Thank you Lord for my wondeful life. It is wonderful because of you and you alone. Amen!

Hi! Is not enough!

‘May the LORD bless you and protect you. May the LORD smile on you and be gracious to you. May the LORD show you his favor and give you his peace.’” Numbers 6:23-26 NLT (http://bible.com/116/num.6.23-26.nlt)

That's my message today. It's not the typical short greeting that we use in our fast paced society. For me right now, I'm lucky I have time to say "Hi!" I need to SLOW down and keep in mind the purpose of my life, it's about relationships. 

School starts and life gets crazy. I çant wait for the new routines to set in. I get so busy this time of year that I just don't take time to do anything I really want to do. I love sitting and talking to students , leisurely, in the morning, after school, between classes, and at the start of each class. But, I've got so much to do, I just don't take the time. I hate it. It's not what I teach that's important, it's who I teach that's important. Building relationships takes time, it can't be done "on the fly"!

Lord, give me time. Give me peace to just talk with people. Help me relax. Help me to show your love even when times are busy and stressful. I love you and want to be your servant with everyone I meet and everywhere I go.

I need peace! We all need peace!

This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. (Acts of the Apostles 10:36 NLT)

I need peace. We all need peace and we can only get that peace through Jesus.

I have to admit. I have been stressed lately. I've been stressed about the end of school. I've been stressed about Run for the Son ( my Cma chapter annual fundraiser), I've been stressed about a variety of family issues, I've been stressed for other people and their stresses, and I have been stressed over bring stressed! This is craziness and I just haven't handled it well. 

I'm a strong believer in Christ. I know and have personally seen his power in my life. I know I can not be defeated because of my savior. So, why can't I shake this stress? Why can't I enjoy the PEACE of Jesus? It always boils down to one reason, I am a selfish, self centered sinner who's faith is a long way from where it needs to be. 

Today, we recieved word of a colleague's child that has a very serious illness. My challenges in life are miniscule compared to the battle many people face with life threatening illness, joblessness, homelessness, and loss. My struggles can't even be called struggles compared to the potential loss of a loved one that one of my CMA family faces. I don't face the trials that many face every day. I'm blessed beyond imagine. My entire attitude, my entire "stress" filled attitude needs to stop. I need to focus my entire life praying for others, not my petty problems. I need to serve as a prayer warrior, not just for my self, but more importantly for those I know are battling REAL life battles. 

Dear Lord, my life is yours. I ask forgiveness for complaining. I realize how great I have it. Please Lord be with my friends, family, and colleagues facing real life challenges. They need you. They need to be aware of your presence. They need your healing touch and your wonderful grace. Take away their stress, give them peace, and give them rest. We all need the peace that only flows through you. I praise you now and forever more! Amen,

The frenzy of worry!

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (Matthew 6:25-27 NIV)

God forgive me. I'm a worrier. I can't help it. I love my Lord, but when I walk into the unknown I become anxious and wonder about the outcome. I know God is in charge. I know the strength and power of my Savior. But, I still wonder, I still worry about how my sinfulness affects the outcome of events. Will God use this situation to teach me something. Will he provide pain and suffering to teach me a valuable lesson? I'm afraid of the pain.

If you are like me you can really get yourself "worked up" into a frenzy of worry. When that happens I always turn to prayer. It's always works. The peace of my loving God can be found through prayer. He understands my weakness and my worry. He can calm me even I the wildest of circumstances. The paralysis that I feel when I worry is completely gone when I turn it over to Jesus. 

Thank you Lord for your wonderful peace. Thank you for the calm you provide to get me through times of stress. I love you and could not survive without your love and grace. All I have is yours!

Overwhelmed?

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

Most people I know have experienced the point of being overwhelmed at some point in their life. It can happen on a daily basis at certain times of the year. For me, the anxiety level increases at the start of school, at the end of school, and times of confrontation. I feel powerless when I see my family going through tough times, illness of loved ones, and through tragedies in the community. The news is another source of stress and tension. I can get myself into a state of amazing stress and anxiety. Then I realize, I serve the creator of the universe, he is my strength.

All of these sources of tension, stress, and anxiety, are also sources of strength. When I get to the place where these contentious moments overwhelm me, I turn to God. He is always there. When I finally turn to the creator of all things, it's amazing how the anxiety fades away. The paralysis of life, is eliminated, I can get back to living life knowing God's strength is perfect and I feel his strength in me. My God has already conquered death, he has won the victory over evil and pain. 

The relief I feel is supernatural. It's not just some placebo. It exists in my life and can also be real in your life. I can not imagine dealing with the troubles of this life without Jesus. You can have that reality in your life. Get in your knees, ask forgiveness for your own sins, commit yourself and your life to Christ, the son of the God of all things. Turn your troubles over to him and your weakness will be made strong!

Self Induced Stress................ It's crazy!

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22, 23 NIV)

What's it going to take to get you to relax? The fruit of the spirit is a great place to start. 

I had a stressful day today. It's my fault. I let myself magnify my stress. Do you know what I mean? I woke up early last night about 2am and stressed myself out about some of my student's  progress at school. After a perfectly relaxing, great weekend, I created my own "self induced stress". I destroyed my own sleep for no good reason. 

 Why? 

Like always I worry about things that may not even come about. It drives me crazy. I need to focus on love, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. I need to heed my own advice and relinquish control to my wonderful Heavenly Father. God will guide my path. He will lead me. I can not fail when I rely on him. I can rest in his arms knowing none of this matters. It is Christ and his rule that matters the most.

Thank you Lord, for patience with me, for grace, for your power and strength, and your almighty hand in the events of my life. I pray you will fill me with the fruits of the spirit to defeat my stress!

Chocolate works!

Psalm 102

New International Version (NIV)

 ¹ Hear my prayer, LORD;
   let my cry for help come to you.
² Do not hide your face from me
   when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
   when I call, answer me quickly.

 ³ For my days vanish like smoke;
   my bones burn like glowing embers.
⁴ My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
   I forget to eat my food. ⁵ In my distress I groan aloud
   and am reduced to skin and bones. 
⁶ I am like a desert owl,
   like an owl among the ruins.
⁷ I lie awake; I have become
   like a bird alone on a roof.
⁸ All day long my enemies taunt me;
   those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
⁹ For I eat ashes as my food
   and mingle my drink with tears
¹⁰ because of your great wrath,
   for you have taken me up and thrown me aside.
¹¹ My days are like the evening shadow;
   I wither away like grass.

It seems like I'm always hungry. I have gained some weight over the last couple of years. I used to spend a lot of time running which helped keep my weight down. Now, I am so busy that I don't take the time to run or keep my weight down. When I'm stressed, I eat. Chocolate is the preferred stress relief food. 

I can't relate to forgetting to eat. I have lost my appetite because of a stressful situation but not to the point of forgetting to eat. My entire body is affected by stress. These verses are from a severely stressed person.

I don't handle stress very well on my own. If I try to do it on my own, it usually ends in disaster. I need to trust more in my Savior to get me through these stressful times. Stress is dangerous. Not only can it affect your eating habits, but it can affect everyone physically and mentally. You need to come up with some way to deal with your stress. Prayer works. Letting God speak to you through scriptures works. Diving into Christian service works. Confiding in a close dear friend works. Getting away works. Sleep works. Hobbies work. Sweat works. Chocolate works!

God guarantees stress will be a part of our lives here on Earth. He also guarantees he will help us through tough times. He provides several ways for us to deal with stress. They are gifts from him. He loves us and it pains him to see us suffer, especially when we do not rely on him.

Dear Lord, Help me to deal with the stress in my life. Help me to do positive things to relax and reduce the stressors of my day. Thank You Lord for your love thank you for your grace. I love you and worship your name. Amen!

Wrestling with myself!

Psalm 13:2 (New International Version, ©2010)

² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
   and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
   How long will my enemy triumph over me?


I tried wrestling when I was in junior high. I didn't last long. I just couldn't get past the idea of grabbing someone else's sweaty body and them grabbing mine. I was very uncomfortable with the whole idea. When you add on top of that the "interesting" uniforms, I had a very short career. But, I love watching wrestling. It is such an intense sport. Strength is important. But, Strength without technique can be easily defeated. The regular season for our wrestling team is about to end and the tournament series will begin. It will be intense. All of the training they have gone through, all the strength development, are for this purpose. The real battle is about to begin.

It can be just as intense when I wrestle with my thoughts. I battle with my own thoughts all the time. It doesn't matter how strong I think I am, I can easily be defeated by my own thoughts. Have you ever convinced yourself of something that was just not true? Have you ever gotten overwhelmed by an unreasonable worry? The evil in this world, worry, stress, and my own sinfulness can really drag me down. I can be driven to panic, to depression, to more worry, and more stress, just by my own thoughts. The only way to defeat these thoughts is to constantly spend time with my savior. Like a wrestler needs to develop his technique, I need to develop "skills" to listen to God and not my own sinful, hurtful thoughts. When I don't spend that time with my savior, I can get trapped in sorrow, depression, and darkness. Many times my own thoughts are the real enemy. I can defeat these thoughts through Jesus. But, I can't do it on my own.

No Pain..........No Gain

 Corinthians 7:9-10 (The Message)

 ^8-9........... You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss.
 ¹⁰Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.

No Pain.......No Gain. Tomorrow starts the fall sports season at my High School.  Coaches will begin the task of preparing their teams for competition. I think it's fair to say the coaches will "distress" their teams.  The point of putting a team through stress in practices is to prepare them for the stress of the game.  I can tell you it is a rare athlete that likes the stress.  I was a football coach and I have great experience with the stress of two-a-day practices. It was painful for the athletes AND the coaches.  Why would a coach put himself and his team through this pain? These long HOT practices helped prepare the football team by physically and mentally stressing their bodies and thus making them stronger.  When I was Cross Country Coach, we ran up to 10 miles at a time to prepare for a 3.1 mile race. We would run up to 60 or more miles a week to get ourselves ready for this "short" race. Once you endure the pain and realize you can run 10 miles, a short 3.1 mile race doesn't seem like a big deal. I have never heard of a successful coach that didn't provide some kind of stress beyond what the athlete will see in competition.  Do we expect less from God?

God allows us to be "distressed". He knows that the stress of life can make us better. By enduring the turmoil that life can bring, we can see his wonderful glory. We can draw closer to him.  We can use our pain to make ourselves and others strong.

Athletes have two choices to make in handling the stress of practice.  They can quit and some always do. Or they can endure it and use it to make themselves better.  We have exactly the same choice to make in life.  We can get mad at God and thus move away from him, or we can use our pains and trials to draw closer to him.  Athletes that quit always end up with regrets.  We will face the same regrets if the stresses in life drive us away from God.  We may not like the stress.  We may not enjoy the pains it brings.  But, if we use it to draw closer to God, their will be no regrets.  Not only will we endure, but we will enjoy the wonderful blessings from God.

Please Lord provide me the strength to endure the pains and turmoils of life. Help me to draw closer to you when faced with family problems, financial difficulties, loss of employment, cancer, illness, or the death of loved ones. Help me to see your hand in my life and the ultimate joy you promise. Amen