When Worry Makes Me Weary

I was so incredibly blessed by this devotional yesterday. Hope it touches you as well. I believe it pertains to so many of us.

"When Worry Makes Me Weary"

Renee Swope

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 (NIV)

As we drove home from a weekend in the mountains, I felt a heavy sense of dread and sadness. Laying my head back on my seat, I told my husband, J.J., "I don't want to go home."

After talking through my reasons with him, I realized the stress and strain of countless commitments - at home and work - were taking a toll on me. I just wanted to go back to the mountains where I could rest.

J.J. encouraged me to make a list of everything on my plate and ask God what I needed to cut back. At first I resented his suggestion. It felt like he'd just added one more thing I "needed to do." Yet I knew J.J. was right and eventually I made the list.

Then I asked God to show me where to make changes. Much to my surprise the changes I sensed Him leading me to make weren't in my schedule - they were in me.

God didn't show me I needed to cut back at work or in ministry. He didn't show me our kids were in too many activities. He didn't lead me to take a sabbatical, although I was kind of hoping He would.

Instead, I sensed it was worry - not my workload - that was making me weary.

I thought about the months leading up to this point and realized I'd spent almost as much time thinking and worrying about deadlines as I spent working on them. Some days my concerns about commitments and meeting people's expectations had consumed me.

I had let my mind dwell on the possible outcome of several different decisions - all at the same time - and it left me depleted mentally, emotionally and physically.

Honestly though, until I stopped and talked to God about it, I didn't recognize my mental mayhem as worry.

My mind is wired to think a lot so I'd gotten used to the constant flurry of motion in my brain. Yet anxiety had crept in slowly, causing tangles in my thoughts, a tightening in my chest, and tension in my neck. Some days I couldn't stop thinking about ALL I needed to do.

Instead of going back to the mountains to rest, I sensed God wanted me to find a resting place in His presence right in the middle of my busy life. Through today's key verse from Matthew 11:28, He invited me to come to Him with the worries that were making me weary.

Do you sense Him inviting you to come to Him today?

He promises a place to quiet your thoughts in His presence. "Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'" (Ps. 91:1-2 NIV)

He offers freedom from the captivity of your concerns when you bring them to Him:"'Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. And I will lead you back from captivity.'" (Jeremiah 29:13-14 NIV)

Today, instead of letting our worries make us weary, let's respond to God's invitation and come to Him - asking, seeking and finding a resting place for our restless thoughts.

Dear Lord, when my concerns consume me, help me remember You are there inviting me to come to You and talk about all I'm thinking and doing. Show me if my workload or my worries are making me weary and help me trust You with both. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Here Renee gives some practical tips to help our weary souls :)

Freedom From Fear

YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS SERMON SERIES. 
It's excellent. Healing. Freeing. 
http://www.moorelife.org/listseries.php?xml=rss%2FFreeFromAllFears.xml 
Commit to listen to one a day. Don't skip. And go in order.

No If's by Joyce Meyer

No "Ifs"

by Joyce Meyer - posted May 07, 2012

For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening…nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
—Romans 8:38-39

To fully understand all the different facets of love, we must talk about the two kinds of love: the God-kind of love and man’s love. Man’s love fails, gives up; but God’s love does not. Man’s love is finite, comes to an end; but God’s love is infinite and eternal. Man’s love is dependent on favorable behavior and circumstances; God’s love is now. People place conditions on their love, but God’s love is unconditional.

According to God’s Word, He loved us before the world was formed, before we loved Him or believed in Him, or had ever done anything either good or evil. God does not require us to earn His love, and we must not require others to earn ours. As believers in Jesus Christ, the love we are to manifest to the world is the unconditional love of God flowing through us to them.

Loving people unconditionally is a very big challenge. I would be tempted to say it’s impossible, but since God tells us to do it, surely He must have a way for us to do it. Sometimes we pray to be able to love the unlovely and then do our best to avoid every unlovely person God sends our way.

Learning to walk in love with unlovely people and learning to be patient in trials are probably the two most important tools God uses to develop our spiritual maturity. Believe it or not, difficult people in our lives help us. They sharpen and refine us for God’s use.

Love Others Today: “Lord, help me to love others today without imposing ‘ifs’ or conditions. Let me remember that as I do it, I’m being refined by You.”

---

From the book Love Out Loud by Joyce Meyer. Copyright © 2011 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.

Who & Why

A friend of mine shared this awesome post with me, so I am sharing it on my blog.

My favorite excerpt from it is talking about a person who doesn't know you. When someone leaves a hateful comment on your blog or tweets about you, that’s the equivalent of someone driving by your house and yelling, “I hate your yard! Your heart must be horrible too!” You’d never listen to that person in real life. Don’t listen online.


Here is the article: 2 questions that make 99% of all haters invisible By Jon Acuff

Vulnerability in Times of Temptation

I am just loving this woman and her vulnerability! So much of what she posts and speaks is so relatable for me. Having gone through many of the same things she has in her life, I am just so encouraged by her honesty.


While, my blog is about being truly me and vulnerable, I don't expect everyone to air their dirty laundry all over the place unless you are comfortable and led to do so. But, I will say, there is such power in sharing our struggles, shortcomings, joys, highs, lows, etc.


When we can be vulnerable and real we are so much more approachable. Our life can be such an example to so many if we will allow it. I am so encouraged when I can read or hear that someone has gone through or is currently struggling with a similar struggle that I am or have.


Vulnerability is about leaning on each other, encouraging another, not judging each other. It's about admitting the truth. Admitting what you are going through. And holding one another up.


We fear vulnerability because we fear rejection.


God accepts you as you are. So be vulnerable and let Him use you!


Today I read this post from Tricia Goyer and was so encouraged. That's what being vulnerable does, it helps you feel a sense of norm in the midst of your struggle, which in turn makes you feel comfort vs struggling alone. When we can open up, we can find partners in our struggles. Friends whom we can lift one another up. Armor bearers. More times than not, when you say "this is what I am going through" to a trusted friend, they will tell you a similar thing they are going through or have gone through. It just works that way.


In Tricia's post she asks What about you? What advice would you give? Or if you found yourself attracted to someone already married (or someone other than your spouse), what did/would you do?


(You have to read her post to understand the advice :)) The advice I would give is of course to pray. Pray for strength. Pray for that person. Turn your struggle into prayer time & some big time one on one with God. Focus on the solution which is being strong & resisting temptation. Knowing your feelings can be common and normal, but not letting that be a license to give in to temptation.  Resisting the urge to give in & knowing that flirting with lines in marriage are not okay. Make boundaries. Limit your time around that person. What we feed grows and what we starve dies. We make vows, commitments, & promises not to break them, but to fulfill them and continue fighting for them. Feed your marriage, starve your temptation. (And that goes for any temptation)


I love when Tricia says "If those feelings are there don't dwell on them. When you are near him and feel those feeling emerging, start praying for this man's marriage and family, as hard as it can be".  I would add, maybe he's not married, maybe you both are, or maybe just you are...so Pray for your marriage and family. Pray for him that God would bring him a godly wife & for his walk with God. But don't dwell on temptations. Focus on the solution.  Bringing everything to God. Count your blessings and don't believe the lie that the grass is greener on the other side. Even if it appears pretty plump & green.


Lastly, don't suffer in silence. Tell someone your struggle. Whatever it is. Lean on someone you can trust. 

Stuff Christians Like - Jonathan Acuff

I have been reading this book "Stuff Christian's Like" by jonathan acuff, thanks to a recommendation from our sweet friend vanessa wyler. my word it's hilarious!!!  i love his candidness & sarcasm! one of our favorite chapters/blurps from the book are "wishing you had an easy job like working at a church". I can't tell you how many times when i have told people my husband is a pastor they just couldn't comprehend what exactly that entails, when i say it's a 24-7 job they look at me like i am either lying or nuts. some day when i have a little more time i will write life as a pastor's wife from my point of view.

here is my favorite chapter:
Wishing You Had an Easy Job - Like Working at a Church

Don’t you wish you worked at a church? That would be such a dream job! I’ve never been blessed that way but my assumption is that other than Sunday, a church job is kind of like having a really long quiet time. You probably get to read the Bible all day and take long breaks in your prayer closet and spend eight hours a day growing your own spiritual life. I’m sure the phone rings sometimes, like when someone needs a casserole of hope after a death in the family or a youth group van breaks down, but for the most part I imagine the average day is filled with a lot
of “me time.”

And God is your boss. How cool is that? There’s no politics or in-fighting or gossip like a the average corporate job. It’s just a collection of people, a family really, living out of the gifts God has given them. Loving on each other. (You actually work at a place where “love on” is an acceptable verb!) Everyone is all on the same page, pouring out to each other the love that God is pouring into them. Don’t you want to hug this book right now just thinking about that?

I bet there’s always an acoustic guitar being played somewhere in the office. (Should we even call where people work at a church an “office”? Let’s call it a happy holy spot” instead.) And when you go to make copies on the printer, you’ll hear the acoustic guitar and probably join an impromptu sing-along right there in the mailroom and make up a song.

Is it even really a full-time job? Seriously, other than maybe a few hours on a Sunday morning, what else are you doing? Praying? Worshipping? Holding car washes to raise money for mission trips? What that take, four hours tops? How do you spend the rest of the week? Being loved on, I bet. See, there it is again! That’s the kind of thing that is constantly happening if you work at a church, but good luck trying to say that at a real job. If tomorrow in one of my meetings at work I said, “I really need to love on these third quarter budget estimates,” I would immediately get “laughed on” by my coworkers. Not if you work at a church. They support each other!

Plus, they’ve got an entire congregation full of people that love them unconditionally. Imagine having hundreds of people that are fans of what you do and how you do it. People that are going to wholeheartedly accept what you do and never write mean e-mails no matter if they disagree with your decisions. Me? I read negative e-mails from our customers all the time. People who work at churches? They’re opening thank you notes and sunshine e-mails and gift baskets with delicious cheeses and spiced meats all day long.

Someday, if they ever sunset my job (a fun sounding euphemism we’re actually using now to replace the word “eliminate”), maybe I’ll get a church job and get to live the sweet life.

'Stuff Christians Like' by Jonathan Acuff