Your Word Is A Lamp To My Feet Series

2.2 Real-Life Stressors

So many of you are living through substantial challenges right now. In the life of our church currently, I know there is a young mother whose elderly mother is in hospice care, and her father is also suffering from multiple strokes. On top of this, her parents divorced years ago, making life so complicated for this young lady. Another couple’s adult son is addicted to a particular drug and is reluctant to accept any help from the family. This is despite being raised in this church and the prayers of a godly mother and father. Would you pray for each of these precious families in our church?

As of 2013, one in nine people worldwide has had an anxiety disorder. I seriously doubt any of us think this has improved after a worldwide pandemic. The stress and anxiety many feel from life’s stresses are enormous.

Again, the psalmist says: “I am severely afflicted;

give me life, O Lord, according to your word!

110 The wicked have laid a snare for me,

but I do not stray from your precepts” (Psalm 119:107, 110).

2.3 Real Faith

I love the faith of the psalmist. What is faith? Faith is believing God in spite of appearances and obeying God in spite of consequences. Again, faith is believing God in spite of appearances and obeying God in spite of consequences.

2.4 More Real-Life Examples

Recently, a mother in our church family confessed how she is so anxious about what her daughter is hearing and dealing with at school. This mother is overwhelmed with the choices of how to protect her daughter best. Another young mom said she struggles with comparing herself to others around her. She feels she comes up short by comparison. Continually picking up our phones and looking at everyone's Facebook and Instagram highlights creates thoughts of inadequacy and anxiety. Everywhere we look these days, we are anxiety-filled people.

2.5 A Meteor Shower of What Ifs

I love how Max Lucado frames anxiety: “Anxiety is a meteor shower of what-ifs.” What if I don’t close the sale? What if we don’t get the bonus? He says life filled with anxiety is like living perpetually on the plank of a pirate ship.

Studies show that stress and anxiety can be detrimental to our health, there are some heights we cannot reach until we face some serious setbacks and adversity in life. Anxiety will take our breath, and it will take our sleep if we’re not careful. Yet, life’s stressors can push you to a higher level of strength, and personal achievement that you would have never experienced had you not had such a serious setback. When facing a serious setback, are you likely to panic or crumble? How do you respond when you face a serious illness, a job loss, or a severe financial reversal in life? Over and over again, I hear about people who want nothing to do with God, faith, and the church because God failed them.

2.6 I Am Determined

I love this fact about this guy: despite every one of the challenges he faces, he we determined to keep God’s law.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path.