Insecurity is like a poison that affects every area of a person's life. Healing may be a bit painful, but it's better than being emotionally handicapped all your life. We must learn to trust God for the attention He knows we need.
If someone does not give us the attention we think we should have, then what is the Godly response? Respond with mercy and understanding. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Remember that love always believes the best of others according to 1 Corinthians 13:7.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Would you want someone to judge you harshly or show you no mercy or spread gossip about you and spread strife in your church or organization? Of course you wouldn't! And neither would I.
Peace can be maintained and strife kept out by following the example of Jesus. How would we handle the situation you are facing? Never forget that strife destroys. It destroys marriages and relationships on every level. It destroys churches, business and people's health.
Strife is a peace stealer. If we can learn to recognize and deal with strife, then we will stop a lot of intended destruction.
Strife brings stress and stress brings sickness. We are vessels created by God for righteousness, peace and joy. We were never created to house strife, worry, hatred, bitterness, resentment, rage, unforgiveness, anger, jealousy, turmoil and upset of every kind. Our bodies are built to endure a lot of punishment and still survive, but filling the temple with wrong things damages it.
A lot of disease is caused by dis-ease. The symptoms and the sickness is real, but the root cause is stress.
Strife causes much of the stress in our lives. Nothing is physically harder on us than getting angry or upset, especially if we stay that way for a long time.
Look at what the Bible says in Ephesians 4:26 and James 1:19.
Stress can be mental, emotional or physical tension, strain or distress. Stress was originally an engineering term. How much stress can be placed on the steel beams in a building structure without it collapsing? Today, more people are collapsing than buildings! We are built by God in a marvelous way to handle (and handle well) a normal amount of stress.
Everyone has some stress. If you go out of a warm house into the bitter cold, then it creates thermal stress on your body. There's a certain amount of mental stress to each person's job. We all get a normal amount of physical stress. Stress in each of these instances cannot be avoided, but we must realize that proper rest and quiet time are vital to rebuild the energies that have been expended.
No wonder God establishes that man should work six days and then have a Sabbath (one day in seven to totally rest from all his labors in Exodus 20:8-10. According to Genesis 2:2 even God rested from His labors after six days of creation.
We can handle normal stress, but when things get out of balance or excessive, then we often sacrifice our good health.
The world is a stressful place. Even the noise levels are growing at an alarming rate. Everybody is in a hurry. The sad thing is that they're going nowhere and they don't know it. All of this creates an atmosphere of stress and void of peace. The atmosphere in the world today is supercharged with stress and strife. Many families are experiencing financial pressures. Normal living frequently requires two incomes, thus both parents have to work or maybe Dad works two jobs. Many single moms work two or three jobs to pay the bills and still have all the work to run a household when they get home.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment