Stress Pt. 3

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 1 KINGS 19:4

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Good morning. I hope you're having a great day, and
we want to make it better by taking some time
with God.
You can't handle the pressures of life, the stresses of life.
You need God in your life. In fact, God designed
you so that your life would not work properly unless
he was at the center of your life. So let's

(00:26):
take some time right now, put God at the center.
Ask Him what He has to say to us today,
how he wants to shape our lives, how he wants
us to respond to the circumstances of this day.
This week, each weekday morning, we've been talking about stress
and how to respond to it. We've seen that stress

(00:47):
is an inescapable part of life, even when you're walking
with God. Don't you remember that Jesus, as God called him,
to go to the cross, He said to his father, Ah,
I'm really struggling. He went into the garden.
And said, Please, can this cup pass from me, yet
not what I will, but what you will. And in

(01:09):
the stress of that time, the Bible tells us he
was under such stress that he sweat great drops of blood.
Blood came out through his sweat pores. He was so stressed.
The apostle Paul talks about the constant stress that he
feels over what's happening in all the churches.

(01:30):
He would write to churches, and there were issues and
problems going on in the churches, and he would correct
them and help them to grow again, but he was
always concerned for what was happening in the churches, and
that was a good thing. Stress is a part of life.
It's not sinful to feel stress.
The Bible tells us not to worry, but there's a

(01:52):
big difference between worry and stress, right?
Worry is treating today and the possibilities of tomorrow as
if there were no God.
Right, worried that things are out of control.
But stress is just the reality of the pressures of life,

(02:16):
and that happens whether you're walking with God or not.
How do you respond to stress in the right way?
We've been looking at Elijah. He was in an incredible
stressful situation, and the first thing he did was get
away and rest.
So important in your life. Maybe the most spiritual thing

(02:37):
you could do in your life is take some rest.
Some people have a hard time doing that. They think
they're shirking responsibilities. They should be doing something, but sometimes
the answer to the issues in your life is not
doing something, but resting, getting ready to face the things
of life. A second response to stress also comes out

(02:59):
of Elijah's story.
We keep reading in the story. Elijah has rested.
Then he goes to a place to meet with God.
Verse 9 of chapter 19 of First Kings in the
Old Testament.
There Elijah came to a cave and lodged in it,
and behold, the word of the Lord came to him.

(03:22):
And he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?
He said, I've been very jealous for the Lord, the
God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken
your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets
with the sword, and I, even I only am left,

(03:47):
and now they seek my life to take it away.
Well, this is the next thing you need to do.
Talk to God about how you're feeling, right? Sometimes we think,
oh no, I couldn't talk to God about something like that.
I can only have to be praising God or praying
for other people, but the reality of the Christian life

(04:07):
is this you're in a
Intimate relationship of friendship with God. That's what the Christian
life is. It's not the habits of going to church
and reading your Bible and praying. Yes, all of those
are part of the Christian life, but the reality, the
core of the Christian life is that you are in
a relationship with God, and God wants to be an

(04:31):
intimate part of everything in your life. If you have
an intimate friend and you're really struggling in life, you're
going to tell them about it, right?
Well, it's so important that you talk to God about
how you're feeling, that stress that you're feeling. Do you
know the very act of bringing things to God acknowledges
that God is there. I've been in desperate times in

(04:52):
my life. I couldn't see any way forward, any hope,
any light at the end of the tunnel. But as
I turned to God, I realized there is hope. There
is hope. God is there. When I can't depend on
anyone else, I can depend on Him.
So can you. I'm John North.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
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