Joyce Meyer - How Do I Beat Stress? (08/18/2019)
This message addresses stress and overload by examining biblical examples like Moses and Elijah. The solution involves admitting when a burden is too heavy, seeking God for a strategy (like delegating), and setting personal borders and boundaries for rest and recovery to avoid burnout.
Ginger: Well, today is definitely a topic for everyone because none of us can completely avoid stress, but there are good ways of dealing with it, reducing it, and making sure it doesn't consume our lives. Recently, we asked you to send in some comments on how you handle stress. And here are a couple that we received. I love these. From Texas, get in the car, turn on the radio, drive out of town, park, cry, scream, pray, go home. At least that was today. And then Chris from Louisville says, I'm dealing with stress right now and can't handle it. I'm praying like crazy for peace. Well, many of you sent in very similar statements. So today, for you, we have practical solutions for dealing with the stress in your life from Joyce and our guest, Marriage and Family Therapist, Dr. Linda Mental. As we tackle that big question, how do I beat stress?
Admitting You’re Overloaded
You're not ever going to have less stress if you don't change something. And I keep hearing kind of the same thing. It's like, "how can I make this go away?" But you know what? A lot of you, you're a lot smarter than what you may think that you are. And I bet I could pull any one of you up here and do a little quiz. And you could tell me what your problem is. And I could say, "now, what do you think might change that?" Come on. Why don't you just do what you would tell somebody else to do if they ask you how to solve a problem that's the same as the problem that you're dealing with? So, I don't have an answer for you if you're not willing to make changes in your life.
And so, tonight, we're going to talk about some people in the Bible that were overloaded and what they did about it. And then, we're going to start talking about borders and boundaries. We have to set borders and boundaries in our life. But first of all, let's look at Moses in Numbers chapter 11, verse 10. "And Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, every man at the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord blazed hotly. And in the eyes of Moses, it was evil. And Moses said to the Lord, 'Why have you dealt ill with your servants? And why have I not found favor in your sight that you lay the burden of all this people on me?'"
"'Have I conceived all these people? Have I brought them forth that you should say to me, Carry them in your bosom as a nursing father carries the suckling child to the land which you swore to their fathers to give them?'" You notice now that Moses has got a problem with the people and he feels that he needs to meet their need. They're not happy and so he feels that it's his responsibility to try to help them get happy. But now he's turning around and saying to God, "Why have you given me all this to do?" And I think a lot of times that's kind of what we say to God too. "How can you expect me to do all this when a lot of times God's not expecting us to do it at all?"
Moses’ Breaking Point and God’s Solution
"'Where am I going to get meat to give all these people?'" Verse 13. "For they weep before me and say, 'Give us meat that we may eat.'" Now watch verse 14. "'I am not able to carry all these people alone because the burden is too heavy for me.'" Now I think that's really the open door to getting help right there—not just saying "I can't do this" in a complaining way, but getting serious with God and saying, "I cannot live like this any longer, and I need to know what you want me to do to bring a change in my life." We cannot just... God is not just going to wave a magic wand over us. We can't just pray and poof, everything goes away. We have to be willing to make changes.
And so Moses came to the point where he said, "'I can't do this anymore. And if this is the way you're going to deal with me, then kill me I pray you at once.'" Anybody been like this? "Well, I would just rather die than keep living like this." Anybody ever said that? I know I did. "If this is the way life is going to be, then what's the point in even living it? And you'll be doing me a favor and let me see my wretchedness in the failure of all my efforts." "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Gather 70 men. I'll put the anointing that's on you on them, they can share the burden with you, and things will become doable.'" So the answer to Moses' problem was: get some help. Hello? "Well, I wish I had help." You've got to do more than wish. You know? To be honest, some of you, you're busy making all kinds of money, and if you're going to do that, then you need to use a little bit of that money to get a little bit of help so you don't drive yourself crazy and have no life. Yes, I'm giving you permission to spend a little money to get a little help. Oh, you're going to make this hard, aren't you? I can see.
Elijah’s Burnout and the Need for Rest
1 Kings 19 verse 4. Elijah, great prophet. So here we see great men of God that were falling apart from stress. "But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a lone broom or a Juniper tree and asked that he might die. 'Lord, it is enough now, take away my life for I am no better than my fathers.'" Now Elijah had just come out of a huge battle. He had dealt with 400 Baal prophets and made a fool out of them. And now the next day, one woman—one woman—is threatening him, and he's so tired and weary and worn out that he's afraid of her. But he had no problem at all confronting these 400 evil prophets. It's amazing what you can do when you're rested up and fired up, and it's amazing what you can't do and how foolish we can all sound if we get worn out and burned out. Amen.
The Simple Cure for Burnout: Rest and Recovery
So somebody asked earlier, "what do I do to keep balance?" Well, I can tell you one thing. When I go home from here, I won't work. And I might eat a biscuit. One of the ways that I recover is I rest. I try to find a good movie to watch. I eat what I want to. And I rest. I'll probably get up Sunday morning and go walk. And then I'll just chill out the rest of the day. And then by Monday, I'll be fit again to do something else. I used to go home and then just work some more and work some more and work some more and go home and work some more and work some more. And then I sounded like these guys did. "Oh, Lord, you might as well just kill me if this is all life is going to be."
But see, here's the thing. God finally got across to me, and I hope somebody gets this here tonight. I was crabbing about my schedule. And God said, *you make your schedule. If you don't like it, change it.* Well, I don't know what to give up. Well, part of the reason why we don't know what to give up is because we want to be involved in everything because we're nosy. And secondly, we want to keep everybody happy so nobody's unhappy with us and everybody loves us and thinks we're wonderful. And so we try to be like super people. And I'm telling you what, it's not unspiritual to say, "I cannot do this anymore. I have to have a change in my life. God, you show me what you want me to do and I will do it." Amen.
Money is not worth killing yourself over. And if the only way that people are going to like you is if you do everything they want you to, then they don't really care anything about you. They're just using you.
God’s Remedy for Elijah
Well, what was God's answer for Elijah? I love this. He sent an angel to cook him a good meal and he told him to take a nap. I mean, that's the truth. If you read the whole thing through and I'm not going to take the time to do it. He sent an angel and he put him to sleep. He gave him a good meal. They put him to sleep. When he woke up, he gave him another good meal. And then they went on with God's plan. And honestly, sometimes all you really need is a good night's sleep, a good healthy meal, and a good laugh. And you'll be back in business. Amen.
Some of you need a laugh right now. So I'm going to stop right in the middle of this preaching and tell you a joke. Well, honey, I've never been in a church like this. Well, two old people were laying in bed side by side. I'm talking really old. Like wrinkled up old. And she said, "honey, why don't you ever hold my hand like you used to at night?" So his little old wrinkled hand came across the bed and he took her little old wrinkled hand. She said, "honey, why don't you ever hold me in your arms like you used to at night?" So he sighed and it took him a little while, but he got over to her side of the bed. Got her in his arms, and she rested a little bit. And then she said, "Honey, why don't you ever nibble on my ear like you used to at night?" And all of a sudden, he jumped up and started across the floor. And she said, "Well, where are you going?" And he said, "Well, I got to get my teeth."
Now, see, you're thinking, "Well, what does that have to do with anything?" Nothing. It has nothing to do with anything. And that's exactly what you need to get through your head: that everything doesn't have to have some big super duper purpose. It's okay to just stop right in the middle of some work and just have a little bit of fun. Matter of fact, you could laugh at yourself and lighten up your life a whole lot. I tell you, my husband's going to have fun no matter what he does. And a lot of times, it's at my expense, but he still has fun.
Going to Jesus for Rest and Guidance
Jesus said, Matthew 11, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden and overburdened, and I will give you rest. I will cause you to rest. I will ease, relieve, and refresh your souls." When we're overloaded, we need to go to Jesus for help. But not just to get him to cause our problem to vanish, but to ask him what we need to do, and then ask him to give us the grace to do it. Am I making that point clear in this seminar? Prayer is not just to get God to make our problems vanish. There are times when he does that, but a large majority of the time, God will guide us and show us what we need to do. He'll give us the grace, the strength, the ability to do it, and then that's what fixes our problem.