Stress: Part 1 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

Subscribe to the ‘Time With God’ Podcast

Transcript

Good morning.

Welcome to a new week, and I’m looking forward to meeting with you each weekday morning this week as we take some time with God. Let God set our minds on his thoughts and his perspective on life.

Our perspective can be overwhelming, can’t it? And so often stepping back, remembering that God is a part of the picture. Not only remembering that, but inviting God to be an active part of our lives makes such a drastic difference to our lives. All this week I want to talk about a very relevant topic, and that is the topic of stress.

Stress, it’s something that every one of us faces, don’t we? It’s an inescapable part of life, and yes, even of the Christian life when you’re walking with God, stress is a part of life. So how do you respond to stress?

Well, I want to look all week at the story of Elijah.

And you remember in the days of Elijah, the king of Israel’s name was Ahab. He was not a good king at all. He didn’t walk with God. And to make matters worse, he married a very sinful and evil woman named Jezebel. Even today we use the word Jezebel to refer to that kind of woman.

Well, Jezebel raised up a group of prophets of the idol Baal.

Hope 103.2 is proudly supported by

And here in Israel, a nation that worshiped God, they were worshiping these idols and promoting all sorts of terrible things.

So Elijah kind of had a duel with the prophets of Baal on the top of Mount Carmel, and God revealed Himself to be the only true God in a very powerful and real way. It was shocking, and it revealed to the people of Israel who was really God, and they went out and killed all those prophets of Baal.

Well, King Ahab got home and he told Jezebel what had happened.

And this is what it says in 1 Kings chapter 19 in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a message to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.

You can just imagine the stress that rose up in Elijah’s heart. He had been facing a very stressful time already. It had been a time of drought by his prophecy for 3.5 years, all of Israel had been suffering and struggling. The king had been searching for him to try to find a way to end the drought.

The drought had just ended. Then there’d been this confrontation with the prophets of Baal. Elijah is exhausted. He’s at the end of his rope. And then to cap it all off after this great victory over the prophets of Baal – comes this threat from Jezebel. The next verse says, then he was afraid, and he rose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

And he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and sat under a broom tree.

Well, what we see in Elijah’s life was a whole series of events that led to mounting stress in his life. It wasn’t fake stress, was it?

It was a real stressful situation, and I’m sure it’s the same for you also many times in your life, and I wonder if there are many of us today who are listening. Who are facing such stress in our lives that we’re wondering how we can keep going. I know I’ve been to that point in my own life. I’ve seen the cliff wall approaching and have known that I would have a breakdown if something didn’t change, and you’ve faced that too.

When that happens, don’t forget that God is real, that he’s there in your life, that he can overcome any situation, and not only that, but even if he takes you through that situation, he can strengthen you and enable you.

He can strengthen you and enable you.

So bring your stress to God today.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

Feature image: Canva