Stress

"The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it." Mark 4:18-19 (The Message)

I've been working on starting a college group at my church, so Man vs. Bible has been a little neglected lately. Don't worry though, if there's one thing I know how to do well, it's how to waste my time productively.
Hey. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes for a second. Calm down.
Today I wanna talk about stress. Stress is like the common cold; we all get it sometimes, we all hate it all the time, and there's no real cure. There’s big stress, like "How am I going to make it through another day without feeling happy?" or "How do I owe so much money to a company that makes hats for squirrels?"

Or there’s small stress, like "I haven't written a blog post in a long time, I hope no one is waiting on me.." (though personally, I would say don't sweat the small stuff.)

The fact is every once in a while, God likes to throw us a curveball when things seem to be going well. It's not because He likes to watch us lose sleep at night, and I promise you He doesn't. It's because He has to remind us that we're as strong as He made us in the first place.
I admit, sometimes that stress can build up and seem a little... big.

When this happens, I'lI ask God, "Isn't this problem a little big for me to handle?"

And God says, "Yes. Now go get it."

I dunno about you, but I love a good challenge, especially when I know God's got my back. So I run in head first.

Give it to God

That phrase can be pretty frustrating, because a lotta times you feel like you can't physically give your problem to God so you don't understand what it means to "give it to God." Well, I've thought about that for a long time, and the way I figure it, it means to just stop worrying.

When you worry, you either frantically try to think of ways you can solve your problems yourself, or you convince yourself that there is no solution and that it's out of your hands. What 'giving it to God' suggests is letting Him worry about it instead, because frankly, it is out of your hands. God's gonna take care of you whether you surrender your problems to His care or not, so what's the point in stressing about them?

Sometimes we just need that reminder of the truth; we are always in good hands.

Jesus calmed the seas and quieted the storms. I think he can handle a little stress (or a whole lot of stress honestly.)

P.S. I'll post a follow-up of this topic around finals week I'm sure. You know, if I get bored of studying for some reason.

In the meantime, I want to hear how you fight stress. How do you de-stress when things get heavy?