Psalm 68:19 - God's answer to Stress

Psalm 68:19 “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.”

Stress gets to all of us. The best example of the stresses and whatnot in our lives seems to be the Super-Bowl which occurred a couple weeks ago. Imagine you are that one man whom the entire opposing side is waiting to tackle, and tackle hard.  Things tend to come at us from all directions, each one requiring all our thought and ability to try and avoid which makes it difficult for us to see a path through. 

Stress is everywhere.  We stress about our finances, we stress over our jobs or potential jobs, we stress over unaccomplished tasks on our to-do lists, we even stress over the little things like our internet connection and speeds.  There are all sorts of things that weigh our thoughts down, burdening us down and making us struggle for each task. When you think about all of those items which you absolutely need to take care of it can make you just drop down in shock!

The thing about stress is that we never react as well to it as we would like. It affects our emotions, our physical health, our pride, our self-possession, and even our self image. Stress attacks our body, mind, and even our soul! Of all the detrimental things that stress does in our lives, the worst is how it affects our relationship to God.

Stress drives a wedge into our walk with God, first by eating our time that we spend with Him. It takes more of our thought and concentration to deal with stress and we suddenly have less time to spend in prayer and study. Secondly it throws doubt into our minds. “Does God really have everything under control? I don't see anything getting better”. Finally stress tends to drive us to more self-concentration and preservation. We just have to take care of this one issue. We take control back into our own hands and away from God who can see the big picture. Once we have that control back it is even more difficult to give it back to God again.

Stress is dangerous, very dangerous. Though I could go on into detail on how stress and pride seem to go hand in hand, I would rather focus on God's answer. God tells us to give Him all our burdens, all our worries, all our cares. He asks us to hand over each stressor as it comes. He asks us to lay our problems and our issues in His hands. He wants us to treat Him as Father, with us as children. 

We all remember what it was like when we were children, how our parents could fix anything. If we had a scraped knee or a boo-boo mom would kiss it and dad would put a bandage on it and it would be “all better”. If we had trouble with our homework, our parents would patiently help us with it. We never really had to plan anything while the hardest thing we had to do was try and keep our room clean.  God asks us to take that same attitude with Him. Let Him deal with everything. He is more than capable, and more than prepared to deal with anything that can stress us. And though sometimes it seems that He is taking His time or not dealing with it, when we look back we can always see His guiding hands working through the problem, and always differently than we would expect Him to.
This week then, lets hand over each burden and stress – no matter what it is – as it comes and let God be God in our lives!

I must tell Jesus all of my trials;
I cannot bear these burdens alone;
In my distress He kindly will help me;
He ever loves and cares for His own.
                                          Elisha A. Hoffman, 1893.