Be Blessed Not Stressed-
Accepting life’s little problems as they come
and putting it into perspective.
While going through an extremely stressful year, noticing a
few more white hairs and thinking on what we did about certain situations I
signed a letter with my usual signature; ‘Be
blessed, not stressed.’
I had been adding of
late the by line “living the motto” as I have
come to a place where I no longer want to stress over things that are
dropped in my lap, that scurry into my life unexpected, or things that people
have thrown at my face. I have chosen to work each day on doing the right
thing. I have chosen to work on not stressing over everything, but instead
handing each thing over to God; as often as it takes for me to know the peace
of His unexplained forgiveness and grace once again.
This book is a compilation of situations and experiences
that have brought me to my knees and how we can work through situations with
God our Father and find peace.
In that peace we will be blessed, not stressed as we walk
hand in hand, or arm in arm in His love.
As a child when things went horribly
wrong, or when I perceived them as such; I did not know that I had a God to turn to. So I wished upon a star each night
before bed. I would peek out my window and strain my eyes until I saw that
first star; “Star Light Star Bright” would be spoken from my child sized voice
and I would dump on that star all of my hopes and dreams. Little did I know they would
fall, crashing to the ground unheard by the ‘wishing-star.’ I believed the star
would do it all; after all it was the thing that I was taught. One such night I
began wondering where the stars came from, I had heard of God of course, as a
“supreme being” who created everything by speaking it into existence; but I did
not know Him.
When we do not know God, then we do
not know who it is who can help us and we grasp at stars to answer our prayers.
I think the first step in being blessed and not stressed is to accept that we
need a savior. We need someone to whom we can know is listening to our every
hope, our every dream and our every fear. We need to know that our Savior is
listening and cares. That He will not drop our prayers to the earth and shatter
our lives but instead He will hold us through those shattering times and
comfort us by His Word and by His people surrounding us with love.
We have to accept that Jesus died on
the cross so that we could have this love, and peace and even some joy in our
lives.
~*~
25 Around midnight Paul and Silas were
praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26 Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake,
and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew
open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off! 27 The jailer woke up to see the prison doors
wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill
himself. 28 But Paul shouted to him, “Stop! Don’t kill
yourself! We are all here!”29 The jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus
and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.” 32 And they shared the word of the Lord with
him and with all who lived in his household. 33 Even at that hour of the night, the jailer
cared for them and washed their wounds. Then he and everyone in his household
were immediately baptized. 34 He brought them into his house and set a
meal before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced because they all
believed in God. Acts 16:25-34
If you are reading this book and you have not
yet found God to be your savior, and you are at the place in your life to do so
please pray a similar prayer to the following. Make it your own though, this is
my generic version of how to pray and let God know you believe in Him, you tell
Him what you think, in your own words so he knows in your heart that it is true.
Dear God, Thank you for listening to my
prayer today. I want to thank you for sending your Son Jesus to die on the
cross for me and to say I believe in Jesus as Your only begotten son who died
and rose again, to open the door so that I could ask you for forgiveness of all
that I have thought, or done that was not right. I ask that You forgive me of my sins, and
make me part of your family. I also ask that You would take my heart and my
life and make it refreshed and new that I may learn what Your love is. Thank
you Lord for all that you have done, help me to follow You every day. In Jesus’
name, amen.
Now if you just prayed for the first
time you need to tell someone. The instructions in the little New Testament
that I followed in order to ask Jesus to come into my life and be the listener
to my prayers said to do that.The reason we do this is that it
makes it real to us. When you have to admit to someone that you believe in
Jesus as your savior, your prayer listener, your Lord God; it makes it real to
you personally. Before that its just words you said that you think you can take
back. I know! I was supposed to sign my name in my Gideon’s New Testament and I
wrote it in pencil in-case I changed my mind. Let me tell you, I have not in all
my years of knowing who God really is, never have I wanted to change my mind.
It is funny too, because up until then I changed my mind on a regular basis!
Once I made that first step in being blessed by God I have never turned back. I
pray that I never will have that big of an ordeal that I would think I had to
walk away from Him.
Let me make it clear here that you
really can not walk away from God. He is like one of those sticky goo hands you
throw part of it to the wall and it always comes back to you. When you think of
it, it makes sense; where could you go that God would not find you?
This time of year we are often caught up in a debate between Santa and Jesus, or some other created story that brings joy for a moment. I believe the day nor the hour do not matter but what matters is that we rejoice and celebrate as God's Word tells us a celebration of what God has done is a good thing. Many places in the Bible tell His people to celebrate instances that He has brought them through. This year let's not get caught up in what someone else is doing or isn't doing, if they are saying a word correctly or not. Instead lets take time and think about who it is that put the stars in the sky. Let us rejoice and celebrate that God did choose to come in the form of His son Jesus and was born to save us from our lack of holiness, our imperfections and our sorrows. It does not matter if you have a gift to give, as long as you give your heart to Jesus and receive from Him a joy renewed. I new start, if you choose to take it.
To truly be blessed and not stressed we must remind ourselves daily that He us because we matter.
We must remind ourselves that things may or may not improve in an instant but with God here to talk to and make requests known to we have a reason to hope that they will indeed improve.
Read for yourself; Matthew 16:15-17
& John 6:1-69.
Dear Heavenly Father it is my prayer that everyone who reads this would truly "get" your present this year; the gift of Love that goes on forever. The life eternal. In Jesus name, Amen
Portions of this Article were taken from "Be Blessed Not Stressed-by Teresa M. Wilson" copywrite 2014.