When We Are Stressing Out

When my kids were little, most every ounce of my day was focused on one thing: keeping them alive.

• Don’t touch that.
• Don’t eat that.
• Don’t stand up on that.
• Don’t crawl under that.
• Don’t lean on that.
• And don’t even look at me like that.

Keeping them alive was a full time job and crazy stressful.

Life is just full of it…stress.

The opportunity to be stressed out is constant. Driving, cooking, emails, phone calls, kids, husbands, expectations. It’s all so constant. Like having 3,743 tabs open on your browser. ALL THE TIME. Life is loud and noisy and distracting. Here’s a few of my top “opportunities” from this past week:

• My car wouldn’t start one morning taking kids to school. And we were SO GOING TO BE ON TIME.
• The clerk at the grocery store wanted to talk to the person ahead of me for SO LONG.
• One of my kids had a fever.
• Another one had horrible things said to them at school.
• My NEVER ENDING to-do list.

Stress ALWAYS presents itself. Every single day.

Then I wonder how much of that I’m projecting onto my kids. I wonder, because they ask me things like are you alright, what’s wrong, what happened, why are you frustrated?  They are constantly observing, learning from me, watching to see how I’m going to respond.

What am I teaching them?

Maybe an even better question is this: 

Do I recognize that right there, in the middle of it all, God invites me to be with Him? 

TRUTH TO SOAK IN.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  Matthew 11:28-29

HERE’S WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS VERSE. 

“All who are weary and carry heavy burdens.” Yes, we fit that criteria today. We are tired and worn down. Many of us, silently carrying heartaches and struggles, secretly wishing that life was just easier today. Heavy with fear or disappointment.

“Come to me…and you will find rest for your soul.” Could there be any calmer words? Jesus extends an open invitation to come to Him, because He knows that it’s there that will your soul will find rest. Not once is He asking you to get your afternoon together and figure it out for a change. Not once is He shaming you or telling you how awful you failed. Not once. He instead invites you to come near Him, right in the middle of it all, and allow Him to show you how to navigate the moment.

HOW DOES THIS MATTER IN REAL LIFE?

As great as this sounds, here’s the hard truth: you are responsible for the care of your soul. Nobody’s going to make you to do it. Nobody’s going to clear your calendar and schedule in some breathing room. No one is going to come up to you and say, “Hey! You look totally overwhelmed and stressed out today! Why don’t you take a half hour to yourself and really rest!”

The invitation is there. It’s your choice to accept it.

In his book, Soul Keeping, John Ortberg says

The soul was not made to run on empty. But the soul doesn’t come with a gauge…For the soul to be well, it needs to be with God…God wants to be with you every moment…The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God.

WHAT IF WE REALLY BELIEVED GOD ON THIS ONE?

What if we took Him up on His invitation? What if we really believed that the only remedy for our weary and heavy soul was God?

Take some time this week to clear the noise, to set your mind on Him, 

• At the stop light
• While doing dishes
• When the car won’t start
• When your baby has a fever
• For 30 minutes before the kids get up
• In the middle of it all

Come to Him, and you will find REST for your soul.

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What are ways that you find rest for your soul? We’d love to hear from you!

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