Stress: Part 3 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

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 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 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 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.

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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 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, 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 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 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.

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, 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 be praising God or praying for other people.

But the reality of the Christian life is this you’re in an 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 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 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.

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

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