Tag: stress

Reset, Reflect, Refocus

Welcome to 2017.  I know I’m a few days late, and it’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’m looking forward to this year being a year of amazing things.  2016 was a 2016 of a year, but like all the years that came before it, it had its ups and downs.  It’s all in how you want to look at the year you just left and the year you are going into.  We are 9 days in as of today, and if you are reading this, guess what, you are alive and have the internet.

I challenge all of you reading this to change YOU this year.  You are the only thing that YOU can control.  I titled this post: Reset, Reflect, Refocus for this main reason, we are 9 days into the year, and many of us have already forgotten the resolutions that we made, or didn’t make, or life has been life already these 9 days in.  So my challenge to you is to wake up everyday and reset your mind again.  Wake up with the attitude that today is gonna be a good day.

Reflect every night and everyday about what God did for you during that day and the day before.  Can’t think of anything?  Are you somewhere warm and dry?  Did you eat?  Did you find a parking spot at the mall?  Look back not only on the previous day, but on your previous days, months, years.  Look back at your history book with God.  The last time your electric was about to be shut off but wasn’t, the last time your car was running on fumes and you coasted into the gas station, the last time you were in the drive through and the person in front of you paid for your meal.  When was the last time you did something for someone else?  God, provides for us, not because we give to those we don’t know, not because we deserve it, not because of our actions, not because we are or aren’t “good” enough.  God provides for us, because he loves us.

As we start out this year refocusing on what is actually important, we can make the best out of our lives and situations.  Refocus your life, and check your priorities.  Make sure that you know why you are doing what you are doing, and that you haven’t just become a cold machine, that goes through the motions of life.  Look back on what you have been through, and figure out what you are going to let God do to improve the life’s of those that love you, and those that don’t even know you yet, through you.

Sometimes life is about taking the sourest lemons life has to offer and making something resembling lemonade…

by corymcglone

Don’t worry, it will pass…

It’s a part of life, we all have things that we worry about.  But there are only so many things that we can actually do something about.

Stress and Nail biting

This post has been running around in my head for a few weeks now, but wasn’t ready till last week, and I’m just now finding the time to get this all out.  But we just finished up a series at Church called Courageous.  We touched on the stories of David, Gideon, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Benaiah, and Jonathan.  Bible heros who didn’t go with what everyone else was doing and what was easy.  They went against the grain of what everyone else was doing at the time.

The main point of all of these stories was that these people did not do what was expected of them.  These are my favorite type of bible story, God using the unexpected to do amazing things.  David and GoliathWe all know the stories of David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God using young men to defeat a Giant that had everyone in the nation scared, and to change the mind and direction of a king.  You see these people weren’t worried, because they knew what God was capable of, and what God had done in the past.  It’s not a matter of knowing what God might do, it’s having faith in what you know he can do, and having the mentality to keep on going even if what God does is not in your favor.

One of our pastor’s main points in this series was to look back at your history book with God.  Look back at a time in your life and look at what God did then, and now that your in the same situation, why wouldn’t God do the same for you now.  So many times we get caught up in the situation that we don’t look back, or the situation is disguised as something completely different.

Fighting the giant

It’s these times in our lives that we have to just remember that God is always there and the He will always provide.  There have been a few times in the past few years that I have just felt an absolute peace in my life and my families life.  In all honesty, they were times when conventional wisdom would say, you should be concered, but I knew that God had worked this out this way for some reason.  A few years ago this happened right after I had been laid off from job, and another is right now, when my wife quit her job to do her student teaching.  Both of these times we were down to one income, now we have a child and we are on one income, but at no point have we had issues.  We knew that God has is hand in both of these situations, and even though we couldn’t see it at first, the end results were amazing.

Pray for it

So my advice, to anyone reading this, if you can change the situation to make it better, go for it.  If there is nothing you can do, pray for it.

by corymcglone