Small doses of stress is a good thing. The problems start happening when stress becomes chronic, when we are freaking out about every single thing, then it affects our mental, emotional and physical health and stress turns into something God never desired.
The reason this happens, that stress becomes overwhelming for us, is because you and I are trying to handle life all on our own. But we were NEVER meant to live apart from the Grace of God. Thank God He does not require our permission to be involved in our lives here! Because He is Loving and Gracious, filled with Mercy and Forgiveness, He allows us breaks in between trials, where we have opportunities to get this stress under some kind of control. But then He must allow stress back into our lives or we would never learn, never grow and never be the loving children He designed us to be!
The Bible says He will not allow more than we can handle…but we can only handle what happens when we are connected with Him! So He does allow just enough to happen to draw us to His side, so that we can have peace when life gets chaotic. We can experience joy even in the midst of sorrow. And we can have a sense of righteousness that is meant to guide our thoughts towards God’s Truth, which will end up giving us better results, that Abundant Life we really want. Again think Cascade of Life here, like we talked about last week, your beliefs will help you control your stress…or not.
<>< Peace, Diane
