It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)
All of our past posts have been placed HERE if you want to go back and read one.
This week, my wife and I had a visit from a good friend that we hadn't seen in a while, and when I was asked how I'm doing, I responded "I'm just managing the stress" or something like that. My wife looked at me. I have no idea where that came from, and I don't know why I would say that.
Here's the reality though... "I'm just managing through the stress."
I am experiencing some stress. I'm in another "busy season". I've been traveling and travel again this weekend. I haven't been eating great. I haven't been to the gym for 2 weeks. I'm not sleeping well. My "to do" list is long. I'm working long hours. My daughter is getting married in 6 weeks! There's some financial pressure....
I could go on and on, but when I honestly look at my life today, I have every reason to be experiencing some stress.
What about you? What do you see when you look at your life and you look at the things that are pushing and crowding around your life?
I'm learning that stress isn't something I can avoid, but it's something I need to learn how to live with, how to manage, how to eliminate at times, and then I need to figure out how to restore my life.
As I write this today, my email program on my computer just crashed. I'm a little panicked, I can feel the stress rising because of the list of things I have to do today that requires I have access to the communication on my computer. It's the worst time for this to happen! (Isn't that always the case?)
Don't panic, just walk through the steps to get it back, and now my computer says that it's "rebuilding my database". That sounds good right, "REBUILD".
Stress and the management of stress should cause us to constantly be rebuilding our life after it's stretched, pulled, broken down, and worn out.
REBUILD.
Even Elijah ran to a cave in 1 Kings 19 to have the Lord rebuild his life.
Here's the question today:
How are you doing with all that is pushing on you, pulling on you, confusing you, disheartening you, challenging you, driving you, eating at you?
What does "REBUILD" look like for you?
Let's look at stress for the next few weeks and see what we can learn from it, through it and in it!
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me-watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11 (MSG)
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