Have you ever had a day like this? (Slide 1) Video Clip from youtube.com entitled ‘elastic stress.’
How many of you have had stress this week? How many of you experienced stress as the result of a major issue or conflict?
How many of you experienced stress this week due to a series of issues that seem to pile on top of one another? How many of you experienced stress this week due to a minor inconvenience?
How do you deal with stress? Does it depend on the level and type of stress? Or is stress just plain stress no matter its cause or source or its level of intensity?
Well, as I did my research for this morning, I found a new stress buster that I think we need to rent (if we can find one) for our church picnic next year.
(Slide 2) Video Clip from youtube.com entitled ‘two men zorbing…’
Did you hear the two GROWN men inside that clear ball? It is called Zorbing… Z-O-R-B-I-N-G. It is very popular in Europe. I think that what we need to do is set up a track at the top of the hill over looking the west beach at Bixler Lake and then take turns going down the hill and into the lake.
(Slide 3) Stress and overload go together don’t they? What would you say to that stressed out office worker or this couple to help them deal with their stress?
Today is the first sermon in a series that I am calling, ‘How to Deal with Overload: Saying ‘No’ So We Can Say ‘Yes.’ And the first thing that we must do to properly deal with overload is to admit to the existence of overload.
(Slide 4) Our main text for this morning comes from 1 Peter 5:7 which says, Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you. Notice that the verse does not say give only a few of our worries and cares to God. What does it say? Give all your worries and cares to God..
God does care about what happens to us. He is not a distant God who simply creates us and then stands aside and allows things to happen. He is a God who wants to help us with our worries and our cares.
(Slide 5) But just how do we let God help us with our worries and cares?
I think that the first thing we have to do is to admit that we are overloaded and that because we are we have worries and cares that God needs to take off of our hands. And I think that the kind of admission that we need to have is in the line of AA’s first Step. ‘We admitted that we were overloaded that our lives had become unmanageable.’
Now frankly this is hard for us to do. We do not want to admit that something has got us licked. This is America after all and we don’t need anybody’s help, right? Wrong.
If we are going to learn to say ‘no’ to the things in life we need to say ‘no’ to so that we can say ‘yes’ to the things we need to say ‘yes’ to – God and family are two things that come to mind – then we have to at some point admit that we are overloaded – financially, time wise, emotionally, occupationally – and ask God for help. But how?
By learning to give and continuously give our worries and our cares to God. (Slide 6) This means that we start developing the habit of surrendering our worries and cares to God as often as we need to. That may be, for a time, daily, hourly, or each second.
Let’s talk about habits for a moment. What is a habit? (Slide 7) A habit is, according to the Webster’s 2 Riverside Dictionary:
• A repetitive behavior
• Usual practice or manner
• An addiction
• A distinctive dress or costume
Now when it comes to habits, I think that we focus on the first and third definitions. Habits are therefore bad things not good things.
However, in developing the habit of surrendering our worries and cares to God, we need to think of the habit of doing so in line with the second definition, ‘usual practice or manner.’ This is the positive aspect of developing habits.
Our health is based, in part, on the habit of things like teeth brushing, a balanced diet, and adequate rest. When we don’t practice these habits we have bad breath and tooth decay, our weight gives us problems, and we get cranky! If we are going to deal with overload then, we have to develop the proactive life building and life giving habits of surrendering our worries and cares to God as often as we need to.
Now, if you have had to deal with a bad habit in your life or in the life of a friend or family member, one of things that has to happen for change to take place is a new set of habits have to take the place of the bad ones. What kinds of habits do we need to start putting in place to surrender our worries and cares to God and effectively deal with overload in our lives?
Here are a few: (Slide 8)
• Confess your self-sufficiency. I believe that another name for self-sufficiency is pride. We cannot let pride get in the way of overcoming the overload that we face. I am not speaking of the need for privacy and dignity that we all need to have. I am speaking of attitude that says, ‘I need nothing and no one.’ The Bible says otherwise. In the New International Version of the Bible Romans 14:7 says, ‘For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone.’ Overload comes when we do not make the decision to ask for help and solely rely on ourselves. We need to develop the habit of confessing to God (and at least one other person) our self-sufficiency in dealing with our overloads.
• Share your worries and cares with a trusted person. Again the Bible speaks to this in places such as Galatians 6:2 which says, Share each other’s troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ. Sometimes our worries and cares begin to been seen in a better perspective when we share with trusted people. The New Testament, directly and indirectly, talks of this important habit of supporting, caring, and encouraging one another as part of Christ command to love one another. This is a vital and important habit to have anyway.
• Pray regularly. Continuous prayer is meant here and the Bible tells us in Philippians 4:6: ‘Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.’ A continuous regimen of prayer to God for help and to thank Him for who He is, helps us start to focus. This is prayer, which goes on and on and on and on and on. It is hard work but it is essential because as one continues to seek the Lord, you can look back from time-to-time and see how He has worked things out.
Each of these habits, along with reading the Bible and pondering verses and passages that deal with stress and burdens and God’s power help in this area, will help us develop the habit of surrendering our worries and cares to God.
Another practice that will help us admit to and start dealing with overload is the practice of slowing down. (Slide 9)
(Slide 10) In James 1:19 we read, ‘Dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.’
Now, I want to ask this morning, ‘When we are overloaded, are we quick to listen?’ When we have a schedule that has us and or our families overbooked, do we find it easy to listen to the needs and concerns of others?
When we are overloaded, are we slow to speak? When we have commitments to keep, do we find it easy to speak clearly and kindly to others?
When we are overloaded, are we slow to get angry? When we have to make a decision and we have too many choices or too much information and too little time to make the decision, do we exercise patience with others or are we susceptible to blowing up?
Dr. Richard Swenson writes, ‘When I look deeper at the life of Christ, I notice that there is no indication He worked twenty-four hour ministry days. He went to sleep each night without having healed every disease in Israel-and He apparently slept well.’
‘Neither did He minister to everybody who needed it, ‘he continues. ‘Neither did He visit or teach everybody who needed it. There were many needs that He simply chose not to meet.’
The demands on our time and our abilities made by our places of work, our families, our friends, even the church, often wear us, and our patience, out. We are therefore anything but ‘quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.’
How then do we slow down so that we are honoring God by our patient listening and speaking to others? How do we begin to create margin, that space between peace and chaos?
Here are a few suggestions:
• Re-examine and reset your priorities. Some of us here have gone or are going through what some have called ‘the empty nest syndrome.’ It can be a challenging time in life from what I have observed. The kids who one minute were running around the house as 2 and 3 year olds, became interesting teenagers who kept you praying hard and loving well (or maybe the other way around), and then were suddenly young adults who moved out and have moved on with their lives. They come back to visit but they will never come back home like it used to be. Somewhere I read that this is a challenging time for parents because their number one agenda, raising their kids, has been checked off the list. What do you do now? From my perspective (and that is what it is my perspective) this is a time for re-examining and re-setting one’s priorities. Again we read in the New International Version these words from Philippians 2:12 and 13, ‘continue to workout your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act accordingly to his good purpose.’ I believe that working out (not working for) our salvation includes the re-examining and re-setting of our priorities throughout our lives so that we follow the Lord and being strengthened by Him as we do so.
• Set good boundaries. What are boundaries? Think fences. We have a lot of those around here. Fences serve as barriers to keep things out and other things in. Those of who have lived on a farm understand the importance of fences. Boundaries are those things that we have (or should have) in place that help us stay responsible for ourselves and likewise help us become responsible people. We need good boundaries to stay spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and even physically health (and safe.) Do you remember this slide from last week? (Slide 11) These are areas where we need good boundaries to stay sane! Let me suggest, in the context of our main text this morning that we need to have the following boundaries in place to help us reduce overload and create margin in our lives.
• (Slide 12) We need to set boundaries on our commitments. Toward the end of his life, Joshua, said to the people of Israel, (as recorded in Joshua 24:15:) “But if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua was first and foremost talking about his commitment to God but it we can also look at it as a boundary setting moment. Joshua resets his (and his family’s) commitment to the Lord. ‘As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.’ It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if we could really simplify our lives and not have what seems a thousand commitments to fulfill, right? But, what season of life are we in? If we are in a season where we have to work because we cannot yet retire, and if we are in a season where we have children in either elementary or secondary education, and if we are in a season where we have aging parents who require our care and attention, then our commitments are many. But, the question becomes, do we have too many commitments within some of those areas? Do we need, to use an agricultural image, to let some ground lie fallow for a season and not plant more commitments? This boundary also has financial implications as well.
• (Slide 12a) We need to set boundaries with our heart. We read in Proverbs 4:23, ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do.’ In Matthew 6:21 Jesus says, Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be. Your treasure is what you value – possessions, and relationships – and what you give your time and attention to. Overload comes when we have hearts crammed full with so many things and the important things, such as faith and health and sanity, are squeezed to the margins or even left out. What is in our hearts, is expressed in our schedules, our buying choices, and our time commitments. How well do we honor God in this manner? Perhaps what we need is a heart transplant, a radical change of heart away from over commitment and overload toward simplicity and ultimately toward God.
What is your heart saying to you this morning? What is the Lord saying to you this morning?
As we conclude this morning, I invite you to take some pencil and paper and write a note to God about your commitments and heart. Say what is on your heart and ask Him to help you make the changes you need so that you can honor Him with your life. Amen.
