Stress

Rick Warren once said “God gives you just enough time to do His Will. If you always feel behind, you’re trying to do more than he intended.”

Just like me, I’m sure you feel stressed at times. It can be that you are stressed with work, school, and/or family. It often feels like there are never enough hours in the day to get the things you need to get done, done. You can try hiding your stress when you are around others but that never resolves the problem, and in facts makes it worse. What usually happens is that when we feel like we are behind, we work harder and longer, which creates more stress and takes time away from the social part of life where you relax and enjoy time with family and friends. There is an equal balance of work vs. social time, and no part is greater than the other.

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is steadfast. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” ~ Isaiah 26:3-4. When you are set to a schedule with God being the forefront of each new day, the Lord will provide peace and calmness to your life. He will place you where you need to be in order to accomplish the goals He has placed for you. Like Rick said, “If you always feel behind, you’re trying to do more than he intended.” God will give you all the time you need to complete His task, so if you are feeling behind, it could be because you are trying to do more than He intended you to do.

Freshmen year of college I was asked to take a strengths test to see what my top five strengths were. Come to find out, my top strength is Achiever. An achiever is described as a constant need for achievement. It said “…you feel as if every day starts at zero and by the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. No matter how much you may feel you deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, you will feel dissatisfied.” Satin is great at making you feel like a failure. He is great at telling you, “No, you haven’t completed this. Why don’t you do just this one fun thing before you start this next project, or why don’t you just take a rest and get back to it later? And so on and so on.” You begin taking on these task that fill up your day, and by the end of the day you are left farther back than when you started the day. You can try going to bed later, getting up earlier, and skipping lunch to catch up but ten times out of ten, that will never work until God is put first in your day.

The last part of the achiever definition said “You have a fire burning inside you. It pushes you to do more, to achieve more. After each accomplishment is reached, the fire dwindles for a moment, but very soon rekindles itself, forcing you toward the next accomplishment.” This fire that is inside of you encouraging and pushing you is great to have, as long as you are using it to complete the task God has given you. I hope that you take some time to reflect on your everyday schedule. You can even write down everything you do each day and after a week look back and see where God was put in that schedule. See where you met the goals He had given you for that week. I promise, it will put things in perspective and maybe even be a huge eye opener. Then with a few changes the feelings of being behind and stressed will no longer exist! “But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” ~ Psalm 34:10