Stress: Part 5 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning.

As we finish up this work week, we want to finish up this series we’ve been doing all week, each weekday morning on stress.

Stress is such a real part of our lives. It’s inescapable, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter if you’re walking with God or not walking with God. Stress is a part of life, and sometimes we face incredible stress, and we don’t know if we can even make it through that stressful situation. Maybe your marriage is breaking down. Maybe you’ve lost your job. Maybe you’ve gotten bad news from the doctor again.

Sometimes it’s not one of those huge massive life changing stresses, but stress after stress after stress has built up, and you’re at the end of your rope. Well, how should you respond to stress in your life? We’ve seen from the life of Elijah, the first thing you do is you try to find some rest.

When I’ve come to the end of my rope, I’ve had to take time away, and when I did that, it made such a difference in my life that I’ve built it into my life every single year. In just a couple of weeks, I’m going away on this year’s personal retreat with God. 8 days I’m taking, just with God, taking some of my annual leave and every morning I’m just going to be with my Bible open talking to God, listening to Him with my notebook, writing notes about what he’s saying to me.

All afternoon I’ll be riding my mountain bike just letting stress flow out with my sweat.

And every evening I’ll be reading a challenging Christian book and letting God speak to me through that. And I’m going to come back as I do every year, with energy for the year to come.

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The first thing to do when you’re facing enormous stress is to rest. The second thing to do is to talk to God about how you feel. That’s exactly what Elijah did in his stressful situation.

The next thing is to let God change your perspective. Elijah thought that he was the last person left in Israel who honored God, and now he was about to die. He was running out of energy, and God changed his perspective, helped him to see there were 7000 other people who still honored God in their lives, and that God was going to radically change the circumstances Elijah was facing.

The last thing I want to say to you is this. When you’re facing stress in your life, don’t face life alone. Don’t face life alone.

We start where we ended with a reading from Elijah’s circumstances yesterday.

The last verse was verse 18 of 1 Kings 19 in the Bible.

And God said to Elijah, who felt so alone, I have left 7000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to the idle baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.

So Elijah departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the 12th. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him.

This was symbolic that he was calling Elisha to be his protege and take up his role as a prophet when he was gone.

And Elisha left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.

And he said to him, Go back again. What have I done to you? And he returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, sacrificed them to God, boiled their flesh with the yolks of the oxen, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him.

Well, isn’t this interesting? Here, as Elijah comes to the end of this super stressful time, God has changed his perspective. He recognizes now. There’s thousands of people who still love and follow God in Israel. I’m not alone.

And then he goes and he calls Elisha to come and work with him. In the last verse Elisha arose and went after Elijah and assisted him.

Don’t try to do life alone. Don’t try to face life alone, even if you’re following a call of God in your life. Don’t go it alone. Find someone to go with you to do that thing with you, to share the burden with you, to assist you.

As you apply these principles in your life, you will find God interacting with you and your stress, and you will be able to face life.

I’m John North.

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