What to Do With Stress

The sensation is somewhere toward the top of my brain. It is more of a dull, shallow pain, as opposed to the deep, sharp pain of a headache. I imagine it would be the same feeling that an engine straining at high rpm’s would feel, if an engine could feel. Or, maybe what rubber bands would feel that are stretched out and balled up at the core of a golf ball or baseball. The sensation comes on slowly, but once my brain begins to feel this type of pain it takes a long time for it to go away. The sensation I am speaking of goes by the name stress. 

Just writing the word makes that part of my brain tingle a bit. My temples pulse and shutter a bit and my heart rate quickens.

Stress. 

It sounds like something a snake would say when it is trying to get into your head. “Stressssssss.” “Ssstressss. “

This month of August has been so full of activity and problems to solve that I have felt a low-grade stress constantly and a high-grade stress a time or two. 

So what do we do when we feel the low-grade stress? Or what do we do when we are stubborn enough not to take low-grade stress’s warning and press on into the high-grade kind?

Jesus said, “Come to me all who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus has done this for me a thousand times. If I can acknowledge that I am stressed, humble myself enough to be still, and patient enough to trust Jesus, restoration comes. I have also found that many times the challenges I have been stressed about somehow resolved themselves. 

Grinding it out, drinking a red bull, and trying to prove you can keep going will only leave you revved up, stressed out, and possibly headed for a break down. 

It is amazing that we serve a God who is not a slave driver. Jesus actually said that if we come to Him He will give us rest. As He departed from His disciples He said he was going to leave something with them. What was it? He said, “Peace I leave with you. Not peace like the world gives. The kind of peace that only I can give.” Later in the New Testament we find that the peace Jesus gives is a peace that passes our understanding and goes straight to our heart. 

To me, the hardest part about all this is admitting to being weary, heaven laden, or stressed out. But take a moment. Focus on the top of your brain, and see if there is a sensation like I described in the beginning.

Peace,

David

P.S. If you are ready to sign up for a Life group at Living Streams you can click here and it will be awesome.https://www.livingstreams.org/groups

 If you don’t know what a Life group is at Living Streams, you can click here. https://www.livingstreams.org/groups

God's Plan for 2019

Woohoo! Men’s Retreat was amazing once again. Raw authenticity, relentless encouragement, biblical authenticity, and genuine friendship all over the place. It was also fun to get shot with arrows, skid on the top of water after zip-lining down a mountain, and playing basketball at midnight! (I guess you had to be there.)

As we study the Bible and seek to be a community that puts God’s glory on display, builds courageous people, and engages in society’s pain, we are consistently asking ourselves what our church family is lacking. For the past three years Jesus has given us a direct answer.

In 2016 we experienced leadership transition. Our leadership spent countless hours refining a renewed vision for Living Streams. In the end, we launched something called, “Vision Nights”—six weeks of sharing and teaching designed to infuse more vision into our church culture. 

In 2017 we heard Jesus say we lacked community and unity. In response, we launched “Fam Nights.” The goal was to bring together different age groups, socio-economic categories, and ethnicities, to eat together, and to grow in our relationships with Christ and each another. 

In 2018 Jesus told us we lacked in the area of service.  We went a little crazy and launched, “Kinetic Missions” and “Urban Kinetic.”  The response took our breath away. Over two hundred people participated in catalyzing missions experiences; and over three hundred people engaged in society’s pain by serving in a variety of outreaches right here in Phoenix. 

Now, that brings us to 2019. This year our leadership is hearing Jesus say that we lack in “the church” that which is supposed to happen outside of church: People gathering in the name of Jesus outside of the Sunday morning context. As a response, we are launching Life Groups—small groups of adults who gather consistently for raw authenticity, relentless encouragement, biblical counsel, and genuine friendship.

We believe participation in a Life Group is vital for those who consider themselves a part of the Living Streams family. Some of the richest “pay dirt” in Christian spiritual formation takes place in Life Group experiences.

Beginning August 25 we will ask everyone attending Living Streams to join a Life Group. We understand that it may take some courage, as well as some adjustment in weekly routines; but we promise to try to make this easy and enjoyable. We will provide the groups, leaders, and curriculum to help our congregation find the pay dirt that God has for us in these Life Groups.

If you are ready, click on the link below to register.

If you are not ready, click on the link below to register…or at least to get more information.

https://www.livingstreams.org/groups

David