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September 23, 2014

The One Way to Truly Manage Stress

How do you manage stress? Picture these modern stress management scenarios.

A young woman rushes into Starbucks, brows knitted, fists clenched tight and orders a Venti Mocha Latte, “Double espresso please.”

A child chews on the eraser end of her pencil as she bends over her social studies test.

Fighting through rush-hour traffic a man tightly grips his steering wheel and screams at the driver who just cut him off.

All of these people tried relieving their stress in different ways.

A few years ago I attended a workshop on overcoming stress. There is no way to escape stress. We all face work deadlines, family responsibilities, monthly bills, crazy-mad traffic, and long, long, long checkout lines.

The speaker at the workshop said that while stress solutions like deep breathing and cat naps might reduce stress for awhile, there is only one real way to truly manage stress.

Change your mindset.

Since we can’t change the length of the checkout line or the work deadline, we must change how we think about them.

Often when we are under stress we have a series of sentences we repeat over and over to ourselves. For instance, when a work deadline looms your brain might sing a refrain of:

I’m just no good at this.

I’ll never get the project done on time.

Surely, I will fail.

These choruses will not reduce stress–only increase them. What we need to do instead is change the channel in our heads to play a different song. Instead of telling yourself, “I’m no good at this” you might tell yourself “The boss wouldn’t give me this job if she didn’t think I could do it” or “I mastered that other difficult program, I will conquer this task too.”

As Christians, we can take this one step further and use the power of Scripture to compose our truth songs. When the brain starts singing the tune “I’m no good at this” you can counter with:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13 NKJV). While we may need to do something difficult, God promises to be with us and give us what we need to accomplish the task.

It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure (Psalm 18:32 NIV). When we need stress relief, we go to the Father who promises strength for our tired souls and security in Him even in this uncertain world.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (John 14:27 ESV). Yes, we may be stressed out, but Jesus tells us to chase that stress away because He can give us peace. Peace that doesn’t depend on everything going just as planned, but peace in Him no matter the circumstances we find ourselves in.

If people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, there is death. But if their thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. (Romans 8:6 NCV). If we ask the Holy Spirit to transform our thoughts, He can change our thinking from worry and anxiety to life and peace.

Use the power of Scripture to combat stress!

Next step: Which Scripture will help you most in managing your stress? Somehow make it visible today: write it on a card to carry with you, scribble it on a sticky note to post on your bathroom mirror, make it your screen saver on your phone. Remind yourself that although we may not be able to change our stressful circumstances, we can change how we think about them.

Filed Under: Spiritual Growth Tagged With: , ,
September 16, 2014

The One Key to a Successful Day

How do you define a successful day? By how much you get done?

This is my to-do list for today:

  • Clean bathrooms
  • Dust furniture
  • Do grocery shopping
  • Finish this blog post

Some days my to-do list is longer. Some days it is shorter. But on all days I tend to think that I am only successful if I have been able to check off everything on that list. I give myself a pat on the back if I am able to finish all the tasks I set out to do.

But I read something today that challenged my definition of a productive day. Read this from the devotional Jesus Calling and hear Jesus’ voice speaking:

Remember that your ultimate goal is not to control or fix everything around you; it is to keep communing with Me. A successful day is one in which you have stayed in touch with Me, even if many things remain undone at the end of the day.

If you’re a Type A person like me, that probably stops you in your tracks. Too long I have tied success to the idea of being productive. But what Jesus really wants us to do is to turn our attention to Him.

Proverbs 3:6 tells us:

Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. (MSG)

Even as we are cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming the living room we can mentally put ourselves in His presence.

Even as we are wiping a child’s dirty face or doing the laundry we can  feel His love.

Even as we are peeling carrots and stirring the macaroni and cheese we can listen for His voice and feel His presence.

God is changing my definition of a successful day.

A successful day is not necessarily one where everything on my to-do list is checked off. A successful day is one where I have kept in touch with God moment by moment.

Filed Under: Spiritual Growth
August 28, 2014

Book Review: Teach Us to Want

Many, like me, imagine desire and faith in a boxing ring, facing off like opponents.

Jen Pollock Michel makes that statement in the first chapter of her book, Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition & the Life of Faith. This engrossing and challenging book is a theology of desire explored through the words of the Lord’s Prayer.

I, too, have seen desire and faith as opponents: my old self wanting my desires to win and my new self rooting for faith. I have often complained that I have a dysfunctional “wanter.” After all, my health would be so much better if I wanted to do push-ups and eat salad instead of craving couch time and Mint Moose Tracks ice cream. My spiritual life would be easier if I only desired what God desired. In fact, maybe life would be better if I simply didn’t have any desires.

But Michel makes the case that desires are a natural part of us. Without desire we don’t have the fuel to move ahead in life. Our unique desires are part of who we are. Yes, our “wanters” can be corrupted, and so we must be careful to guard our hearts, but desire can be what draws us closer to God.

Reading Teach Us to Want helped me learn a lot of desire:

  • Desire pulls us to our heavenly Father as we pray for what we need.
  • Examining our desires can lead to self-discovery and transformation.
  • Unmet desire is a training program for learning to trust a gracious God.
  • We want too much and we want too little.
  • It is not self-effort that recalibrates our wanters. Only God’s grace can turn our heart’s desires toward His kingdom.

Desire has been a topic I have long struggled with. Teach Us to Want untangled a lot of my thoughts on the subject. In fact, now that I have finished reading it, I plan to read it again. It is a meaty book, filled with honest transparency and personal stories.

I think this quote from the last chapter sums up Teach Us to Want:

There is a biblical case for wanting and wanting well…Although easily corrupted, desire is good, right and necessary. It is a force of movement in our lives, a means of transportation. It can be the very thing that motivates us to change and that carries us to God…Growing into maturity doesn’t mean abandoning our desires, but growing in our discernment of them.

Check out Teach Us to Want on Amazon.

Jen Pollock Michel is a writer, speaker, and mother of five. She is a regular contributor for Christianity Today’s her.meneutics and also writes for Today in the Word, a monthly devotional published by The Moody Bible Institute.  Jen earned her B.A. in French from Wheaton College and her M.A. in Literature from Northwestern University. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her family and blogs at jenpollockmichel.com. You can follow Jen on Twitter @jenpmichel.

Filed Under: Contentment Tagged With: ,
August 19, 2014

God is a God of Celebration?

This month has been a time of celebration for my family. My son (the baby of the family) got married on August 9! My husband performed the service, I sang a song, the little grandsons were all ring bearers. At the reception we feasted, laughed, and danced until our feet ached.

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August 9th was not only my son’s wedding day, but my wedding anniversary! Here’s a picture of John and me with our wedding photo.

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This August 9 will be a time of celebration that will live long in my memory.

Did you know our God is a God of celebration?

For much of my life, that thought seemed incongruous with the Lord I knew. Growing up, God seemed to be a God of serious thought and solemn ceremonies, not a God of rejoicing and celebrating.

But looking closer in the Scriptures, I see God truly is a God of celebration. In the Old Testament Yahweh commanded His chosen people to observe seven feasts each year. For three of these feasts they were to abandon their work and travel to Jerusalem to celebrate their God (Deuteronomy 16:16). These were times of feasting and rejoicing—times to thank God for what He had done for them in the past and revel in the blessings He had bestowed on them in the present.

In the New Testament Jesus was known as a partier. The Pharisees criticized Him for eating and drinking with sinners (Matthew 9:11). People wondered why the Pharisees and John the Baptist’s followers fasted, but Jesus’ disciples went on eating and drinking (Luke 6:33). Parties were a favorite theme in Jesus’ parables. The people in His stories celebrated finding a lost lamb, a lost coin, and a lost son (Luke 15). Jesus even compared the kingdom of God to a sumptuous banquet (Luke 14:15-24).

Too often my worship of my generous, caring, loving God is sedate, somber, and dull. But I want to learn how to celebrate!

Instead of absent-mindedly mumbling my way through worship on Sunday, I want to passionately express love to my King. Instead of looking cool, calm, and collected, I’m going to clap along with the praise songs and sing the hymns at the top of my lungs.

Maybe I’ll even dance. Some churches even use liturgical dance to celebrate our awesome God. I may not dance in church, but maybe I can do it in the privacy of my own home. Admittedly this may feel a bit risky and undignified. But I will be in good company. King David was criticized by his wife, Michal, when He worshiped without inhibitions. David was focused on praising God and not on how he looked. He told Michal, “I will celebrate before the Lord” (2 Samuel 6:21 emphasis mine).

So this week celebrate our awesome God. Sing and clap and dance your worship!

Question: Give your reaction to the statement: Our God is a God of celebration.

Filed Under: Spiritual Growth Tagged With: , , ,
July 8, 2014

Why We Need to Make an Effort to Rest.

This week I’ve needed to make an effort to rest.

Somehow my husband came down with a summer cold and though I really tried to avoid getting it, I was unsuccessful. All week long I’ve been dragging around the house, sneezing and sniffling. My body has felt very tired. So I’ve gone to bed early. I’ve slept in a little longer in the morning. All to obtain rest.

An Oxymoron to Ponder

All this working to get rest got me thinking about a verse in Hebrews that has always seemed like an oxymoron to me:

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. Hebrews 4:11

Make every effort to enter rest? Work hard to rest? Strive to rest?

What does that mean?

A passage from Jane Rubiettas’ book, Resting Place, helped me understand it a little better.

“Our fear factor kicks in when we consider going without work, when we contemplate actually viewing God as our Shepherd, who longs to lead us beside waters of rest, who eagerly anticipates restoring our soul, who wants nothing more than to have us lie down in green pastures. Fear looms larger, more real on the horizon of our mind than faith and reduces us to primal survival instincts: I must take care of myself. I’m my own bottom line. God doesn’t love me. God won’t care for me,”

What she is saying is that the reason we continually need to make an effort to rest is that it goes against our natural tendencies to believe that God has our back. We think we have to keep working. Because salvation can’t possibly so easy. Because God won’t really provide everything I need.

The bottom line is–a lack of rest demonstrates a lack of trust in God.

Wow.

Make an Effort to Enter God’s Rest

This new insight makes me realize that the reason I continually need to make an effort to enter God’s rest is that I need to push back my natural tendency to think that if I did just a little more I’d be more successful. God wants us to enjoy our work, but He also wants us to rest in Him, in His provision, in His love.

Satan will always try to get us to doubt God’s love for me. He will whisper that I need to work a little harder to get God to like me more. My human nature will always believe that it all depends on me.

But God invites us to rest in His sufficiency. God promises to fulfill all my needs.

To rest in His love. He whispers His love in His Word

To rest in the fact that there is nothing I can do to make Him love me more than He already does. The Father demonstrated His love for me, by sending Jesus to take the punishment I deserved.

Next step: Today make an effort to rest. When you find yourself working harder, pushing faster in order to impress others or God, remember that God invites you to rest in His love.

Filed Under: Spiritual Disciplines Tagged With: , ,
June 24, 2014

Three Simple Things to Help You Find Joy in God’s Presence

The only reliable source of joy is in God’s presence. But how can we find that? A little experiment with three common objects helped me focus on God’s presence and find more joy.

Lighted candle. Silver cross. Smartphone.

What do these three items have in common?

At first glance in might not seem they have any connection.

But all three items proved very useful in my quest for my joy.

I have been concentrating on finding joy in God’s presence. Because really, the Lord is the only reliable source of joy. Sunny days make me happy, but this past week we’ve had rain almost every day. Friends bring a smile to my face, but sometimes they are busy–too busy to get together. I love chocolate, but not what it does to my hips.

However, whenever I turn my attention toward God, I discover joy.

So I set out how to do that more often. I asked myself: How could I remind myself to stop and turn my heart to Christ at different times during the day?

Here are three things that worked for me:

1. I lit a candle during my devotional time in the morning. Somehow this made Jesus feel more present as I read His Word to me that day. Christ, the Light of the world, filled the room, illuminated Scripture, and chased all the dark out my heart.

2. I took a small silver cross that usually sits on a bookcase in the family room and started placing it in odd places around the house. Because the cross had sat in that one place on the bookshelf so long, it had become almost invisible. Now when I saw it in the kitchen, near my computer, on my vanity tray it reminded me: Jesus is here. My Savior loves me. Christ makes this place sacred.

3. I set the timer on my smartphone for 20 minutes or 35 minutes or any other random time. When my gadget beeped, it reminded me to stop what I was doing for a minute, close my eyes, and put myself in God’s presence. Sometimes I would also take the time to listen to a Christian song that would help me see Christ in my mind’s eye. Set an alarm on your watch or phone to beep at various times during the day to remind you–God is near.

God is here. What an amazing thought! He is always near, but I don’t usually pay attention.

What I found was that when I did pay attention, I found joy. Joy in that moment. Joy that spilled out into all the other moments in my day.

Psalm 16:11 tells us:

You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;

Joy is found in God’s presence.

And these small items helped me to remember:

God is here.

 Next step: Choose one of the items above to make you more aware of God’s presence. Light a candle. Place a small cross in unusual places. Set your alarm on your smart phone as a call to focus on Christ with you.

Filed Under: Spiritual Disciplines Tagged With:
June 10, 2014

Do You Want to Be Alone? Using Silence to Hear God’s Voice

Solitude and silence are elusive commodities. But sometimes we need silence to hear God’s voice.

When I was a young mom, the thing I craved more than anything was to be alone. An introvert at heart, I draw energy from time by myself with a good book.

But in the days of babies and toddlers time alone was a rarity. Kids were always hanging onto me, sitting on my lap, even insisting on following me into the bathroom.

Lately I’ve been reading about solitude and silence. Richard Foster, the author of The Celebration of Discipline, writes:

Solitude is more a state of mind than it is a place…There is a freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from people but in order to hear the divine Whisperer better.

This world has so much noise. Music blaring. Car horns honking. Phones ringing. It is hard to find a place where it is quiet enough to  hear the Divine Whisperer.

The world demands our attention. Work responsibilities summon us. Family members need our time. Even church activities call for a place in our schedule. It is hard to concentrate on the Divine Whisperer.

So sometimes we need to get alone to hear God speaking. We need silence to hear God’s voice. Remember the story of Elijah on the mountain? The Lord told Elijah:

“’Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” (1 Kings 19:11-12).

God told Elijah to go and be alone in the presence of the Lord–alone so He could hear the gentle whisper.

God is, of course, always with us. We are always in His presence. But sometimes we need to find a quiet place in order to sense His nearness.

I encourage you to find sometime today to be alone in God’s presence.

Sit in a quiet place, still your thoughts, and tell God, “I’m here.”

Speak to Him about all that it is in your heart.

Listen for His gentle whispers of love.

Next step: Make an appointment with God. Find a way to get alone–ask your husband to watch the kids, get a babysitter, go outside in your backyard and sit in the shade for an hour. Open your Bible and hear God whisper to your heart.

Filed Under: Spiritual Disciplines Tagged With: , , ,
May 20, 2014

How to Run When You Can Barely Walk

psalm 119-32

 Don’t you love watching little kids run?

I mean they don’t run because they really need to up their fitness program.

They don’t run because they are trying to get their 10,000 steps a day in a shorter span of time.

They don’t run because they are trying to burn a few extra calories.

Little kids run because they want to. They run out of joy. They run because energy literally bubbles out of them.

Running in God’s Path

I’ve been reading Psalm 119. Every day I read a stanza–meditating on it, savoring it.

The other day I got to verse 32 and stopped.

“I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free.” (Psalm 119:32 NIV)

Immediately I pictured a little kid whose just been sitting in school all morning running out of the door out of sheer joy of being outside.

She runs because she is free.

What I found especially interesting is that just four verses earlier in the psalm, the writer says, “My soul is weary with sorrow” (verse 28). It sounds like he could barely walk because of sadness. How was it that he could now run?

I think the psalmist could run because he went to a reliable source of strength–God’s Word. He says:

“Strengthen me according to your law” (verse 28). Lord I know that Your Word is where I’m going to find the energy and the hope to keep going.

“I hold fast to your statutes, O Lord” (verse 31). Even though things look desperate, I’m clinging to Your promises.

“I run in the path of your commands” (verse 32). I‘m sticking to Your path, following the signposts in Your law.

So when you can barely walk look to God’s Word. Ask Him to give you hope and strength from Scripture. Cling to His promises.

Because when we look to God’s Word and listen to His voice, He sets our hearts free. That word free is from the Hebrew word rachab  which means “to grow wide or large.” Some other versions use the phrase “enlarge my heart.” As God widens our hearts so that we can better understand His promises to us and more fully grasp His love, we no longer feel like we are plodding through life.

We are running on the path He has set out for us. Running out of joy.

Next step: How do you feel today: plodding on a path of sorrow or running full of joy? Pray that God will “enlarge your heart” so you can better understand His love and promises and run free in His joy.

original photo credit

Filed Under: Bible Study Tagged With: , , ,
May 15, 2014

When You Struggle to Rejoice

phil 4-4

Do you struggle to rejoice? Does the command in Philippians 4:4 make you wince?

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!

I certainly have days when it’s hard to be full of joy. Hard to rejoice in anything.

And what is rejoicing anyway?

I looked up the word rejoice in my Greek dictionary and found that it comes from the word chairo.

It carries the idea of being glad about something. It is the picture of a person who is euphoric over something that has happened. Other words to describe chairo would be overjoyed, elated, ecstatic, exhilarated, thrilled, jubilant, or even rapturous. (from Sparkling Gems From the Greek, p. 682)

When I read that I asked myself–when was the last time I was purely ecstatic about God? When did I feel thrilled in God’s presence?

I think it’s been too long.

But perhaps it’s because I keep looking for joy in other things. I expect to find it in success. Or friendship.

I wait for joy to happen when everything goes according to my plan.

And because that isn’t very likely, joy remains elusive.

Perhaps I should be glad that I can’t always find joy in something other than Jesus. Because then in my desperation, I’m forced to look to the only reliable Source of joy–my Savior.

God doesn’t tell us to be euphoric over success, or achievement, or even cute shoes because none of those are lasting.

God asks to be elated in Him.

Next step: Have you struggled to rejoice this week? Take all of your disappointments to God. Then rejoice that He hears your prayers and cares about your problems–big and small.

 
Filed Under: Spiritual Growth Tagged With: ,
May 6, 2014

When You Struggle to Say Yes to God’s Plan

Sometimes I have a hard time accepting God’s plan for my life. You too?

I remember a conversation I had with my daughter as I was tucking her into bed when she was about four. I said something like, “Anna, you are getting so big! Pretty soon you’ll be all grown up!”

And Anna, very serious at the thought of being an adult, looked at me and said, “Mom are there any houses on our street that are empty?” Awww…my daughter wanted to live close to me when she grew up.

So imagine my surprise when she got married and moved to—China!

Let me tell you I did not take this news well. Especially because not only did Anna and her husband move 7000 miles away—they had the audacity to take my grandchildren with them. No more chasing giggling toddlers through the halls, snuggling on the couch with them reading storybooks, or laughing along with Winnie-the-Pooh videos. Now my husband John and I had to settle for playing peek-a-boo on Skype and getting pictures of our grandchildren through email. As a result, I was about as upbeat as Eeyore on life-support.

Lately I’ve been studying the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and I was struck by how she willingly accepted God’s plan for her life. When the angel Gabriel came to tell her that she was going to be the mother of Jesus, she questioned how that was going to happen because she was a virgin, but she didn’t complain that being pregnant before marriage was going to make life difficult. She didn’t whine about being the subject of gossip. She didn’t even bring up the point that her fiance Joseph would surely not believe her strange story about an angel and a virgin pregnancy.

Mary simply said yes to God’s plan.

And because I was struggling with saying yes to God’s plan for my life I wondered: How was she able to do that?

When I examine Luke’s Gospel, I see three reasons she was able to accept God’s plotline for her story.

Mary Believed God Was With Her

First, I think she could say yes because she believed Gabriel’s words, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). She believed that God was right there with her.

I wonder if she felt God’s presence at that moment. Seeing a heavenly being, hearing God’s words to her—it’s hard for me to imagine she didn’t have a sure sense of His love in that moment. In time held still, with God’s presence all around her and His love shining into her heart, all of the possible consequences of rejection and ridicule faded away. She said yes to God’s plan because she trusted that God was with her. And she knew that if God was holding her hand, she could get through anything.

But even when we don’t feel God’s presence, we have the promise that He is always with us. That same Messiah that Mary trusted and carried, promises all of us in Matthew 28:20,

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Gradually, I learned to say yes to God’s plan for my daughter and her family even though I wish they weren’t so far away. I’ve been learning to say yes because I am trusting the Lord is with me. If I hold onto God’s hand I can say yes, because He is with me–and with them.

We can say yes to God’s plan when we trust that He will walk beside us.

Mary Said Yes With Humility

Secondly, Mary could say to God’s plan because of humility.

Mary was given a difficult situation. She was asked to yes to a plan that included being pregnant before marriage. This plan came with a certain dose of humiliation. She probably heard whispers of, “What a tramp!” and “Joseph deserves so much better” as she walked the streets of Nazareth. And yet Mary said yes to God’s plan.

Listen to her words from Luke 1:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.”

Luke 1:46-47

Mary magnified the Lord–not herself. She rejoiced in God–not in her superior plan. She talked about her humble estate–not how she deserved better.

Sometimes I’m tempted to think that it was easy for Mary to yes to God’s plan. After all she was selected for the most special role any woman could have—she was going to be the mother of the Savior. Who wouldn’t want to be the most special?

But think about it—very few people during Mary’s lifetime truly understood her unique calling. Most people would have seen her either as a tramp, someone who violated God’s laws, or as a crazy person, someone claiming to have a virgin birth.

And that’s why it’s so amazing that she responded to Gabriel with the words, “Let it be to me as you have said.” Her humility enabled her to say yes to God.

Mary Saw Her Humble Life As A Part of God’s Grand Plan

Thirdly, Mary was able to say yes to God because she understood her small life was a piece of God’s big plan.

Perhaps you also struggle with accepting life as it is right now. Sometimes it’s hard to say yes to God’s plan because we wish for a bigger stage or a heftier reward. We want something more exciting or more romantic or more beautiful. Life just seems so—ordinary.

You may feel like you are nothing special. But the Bible tells us that each of us has been selected for a unique calling (Ephesians 4:10). Only one woman is mother to your children. Only one woman is the wife of your husband. Only one woman can minister to the needs of your church with your specific God-given gifts. Only one woman can reach into your world with your particular skill set.

When we feel ordinary we need to remember that is not how God sees us.

God sees you as special. God sees you as unique. God sees you as a one-of-a-kind person with a one-of-a-kind life.

All those tears you wipe away, all those dishes you wash, all those memos you type all add up to one incredible life when you see them through God’s eyes.

We can say yes to God when in humility we see our small lives as an essential part of God’s grand plan.

Next step: What is God asking you to say yes to? What from Mary’s story will help you say yes to His plan? His presence? Humility? Realizing your life is a part of God’s grand plan? Write a prayer expressing all your feelings to the One who loves you.

Filed Under: Contentment Tagged With: ,
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