Stress and the Christian

Stress and the Christian

So we’ve learned now that in order to have a strong foundation it’s imperative that we are in constant communication with the Lord.  I know I often use the term “spend time with the Lord daily” but I realize now that’s really misleading because it gives the impression that there are times during the day when we’re not in communication with Him.  I think I first became aware of what Paul meant when He said “pray continually” when my oldest daughter was diagnosed with Hepatitis and was fighting for her life.  I literally stayed in contact with the Lord every waking moment from the time I was given that news until the day when her life was no longer in immediate danger.  Two years after she was first diagnosed, she discovered she had been miraculously healed by the Lord and that was the day she recommitted her life to Him.  For me however, having spent several weeks in contact with Him every waking moment was a real revelation.  I grew more in those weeks then I had in several months before that, so I knew I had hit on something and I (of course lol) talked to Him about it.  He then continued to teach me why staying so close to Him was important in my every day life.  That’s what I’m trying so hard to share here with all of you.

You see, for some reason we humans simply refuse to really learn things when times are good and everything is going smoothly.  If we do happen to learn something (which isn’t often) it’s not a well remembered lesson and is often forgotten later.  However, when we are in the midst of a storm and we see the Lord sustaining us, working in our lives, then we learn and we remember!  It’s the storms of life also that bring out who we really are inside.  I know we’ve all heard and probably experienced the fact that when the times are really hard is when you find out who you’re true friends are.  Well it’s when the times are really hard that you also find out what you’re really made of and just how much (or how little) you really trust the Lord and rely on Him.  It’s during these hard times that we also discover just how good a friend (and sometimes the ONLY friend) that the Lord is to us as well.

These storms in our lives wash away any pretense in us or in our relationship with the Lord.  We’re given the choice of trying to stay afloat by our own power or by climbing into His arms where it’s safe.   These storms that the Lord allows into our lives either will make us pliable, soften our hearts, make us merciful and allow us to empathize with others, and increase our faith and trust in God, or they will cause us to become bitter, harden our hearts, angry, full of doubt and unbelief.  Both ways of reacting are entirely up to us.  It depends entirely on which way we choose to react as the storm rages on around us.

Those who have constant communication with the Lord as their anchor will always choose to be pliable, bending under the weight of the storm and leaning on the Lord, counting on Him to get them through it no matter the outcome.  Those who don’t yet have that anchor of constant communication with Him are often tossed back and forth by the wind and rain of the storm just as this verse tells us that this is what happens to those who are still not mature in Christ:

Ephesians 4:13-14 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.

Yes, that passage also brings us right back to studying God’s Word as well as being in constant communication with Him.  Both are vitally important and those who start out with just the communication part are inevitably pushed and prodded toward His Word by the Holy Spirit because that’s often how He chooses to speak back to us and it’s an invaluable tool for learning more about the One we love and owe our very existence to.

I still have much I want to share although I realize that this is getting long already, so those who need to can stop here  and take up the next portion after a break.  I will make the next part of this a separate post, although I’ll post them both today.

Join us at FH for this study on Stress!