God's Wisdom In A Nutshell

Today I am veering away from Genesis to talk about stress. It is the holiday season, Thanksgiving and all the excess calories we ate are weighing on us…pun intended!

Christmas with all the decorating, shopping, cooking, wrapping and planning- adds to our already busy lives. And right around the corner is the New Year, making us realize that there is a finite amount of time to tie up all the projects and things we need to do by the end of the year.

Needless to say it is a stressful time of year for many. But does it have to be?

In the book of Hebrews, God tells us why we feel stressed and it has everything to do with what we don’t have on our To Do list.

So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.
That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
So I declared an oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.”

(Hebrews 3:7-11)

Rest and a stress free life are tied permanently to our relationship with God. When we are in a relationship with the Lord and sit with Him daily by reading the Bible, we will hear His voice through the words that we are reading. This is how the Lord teaches us things that we could never ever learn anywhere else.

“For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”(1 Cor 1:19)

So by taking what little free time we have and using it to learn from the Lord, we will improve every aspect of our lives. He will tell us how to slow down and where to omit excess. He will teach us that more is not better and that chasing after money will cause us to lose it in the end. The Lord is counterintuitive. His ways don’t make sense to our human intellect. We do have time to sit with Him. Our peace of mind and our lives depend on it.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.

This is what the Lord will provide if we sit with Him daily by reading His Word. We will be lead to jobs that are less stress, and thus be given time to rest. We will be protected from the illnesses that the secular world suffers through. God will give to us great things in the presence of our enemies and we will have more than enough of everything. Best of all, our future is secure with Him after we leave this earth.

Why stress?  Give some time to the Lord and He will rearrange your priorities or maybe even do a complete overhaul to your life. If we follow His lead, we will never be disappointed.

Food For Thought,

Lisa