Being Blessed not Stressed- In His Word- 1-17-2021
If you ever have received email correspondence from me you
no doubt have been given my motto, statement, to “Be Blessed Not Stressed-“ it
has become a goal in my life and as I read through those old files I found some
notes in a portion of a book I am working on explaining the meaning behind it.
Accepting life’s
little problems as they come and putting it into perspective. Or as my husband
used to tell me “don’t sweat the small stuff, and there is no big stuff!” Continuing on in this daily I hope you find
the encouragement I did for the year we just went through and the beginning of
this one to not allow myself the stress attack but instead to accept the
blessings that will come from the stressful times!
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 byline “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, or that scurry into my
life unexpected, or things that people have thrown at my face. I have instead
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.
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.
~*~
Around midnight Paul
and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were
listening. 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!
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. But Paul shouted to him, “Stop! Don’t kill
yourself! We are all here!” The jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon
and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and
asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They replied, “Believe in the Lord
Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.” 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 take
my heart and my life and make it refreshed and renewed; that I may learn what
Your love is. Thank you, Lord for all that you have done, and will do in my
life from today forward, 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 to ask
Jesus to come into my life and be the listener to my prayers said to do that. You
have to tell someone and trust me it may seem hard if this is a new concept,
you may get mocked but do it anyway!
The reason we do this is that it makes it real to us. When you must 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 cannot 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?
Read for yourself; Matthew 16:15-17 & John 6:1-69.
Be blessed not stressed today as you walk in His Word and In
His Love, in Jesus’ name…