Are you stressed? Unemployed? Lost half of your retirement savings? Grieving the loss of a loved one? Battling a significant health issue? Perhaps you’re distressed over something else in your life. The longer one stays stressed, the more likely the body will eventually pay a price.
In the Bible, a story tells us of a time when the families of David’s army had been captured and taken away. The wives of David himself had been taken. Scripture tells us that David and his men wept until they had no strength. And, all his men were terribly upset with David. The Bible tells us “David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.” 1 Samuel 30:6 Reading further in this story we find that David prayed to God asking for direction, and God answered his prayers. David followed God’s guidance and he and his men were able to rescue their families and belongings. Afterward, David acknowledged that his God protected them as they were in a battle with the enemy forces.
How are you handling your stressful situation? Are you excluding God in your “battle” or distress? Are you attempting to manage on your own by falling back into an unhealthy habit or an addictive behavior to cope? Or, are you turning towards God by asking and relying on His help?
God, the Bible and Strength
The Bible tells us that God wants us to choose Him as our source of strength when times are tough. If you’ve relied on Him in a past difficult situation, and He’s carried you through, remember that and call on Him now. If you’ve never made a choice to turn to Him when you’ve needed strength and guidance, trust in Him now. One way to receive the strength that He provides is by reading the Bible and being reminded of the character of God and of His truths. This is the main way God communicates to us today. He wants each of us to find nuggets of His truth, in the Bible, that speaks to us in our own situation, and then believe and trust that He will carry us through our own “battles.”
Read other entries about God and His strength.
A list of Scriptures on Strength From God
Sadly, I tend to lose my focus on my God a lot but, if most people were to tell the truth, so do they. In these stressful times in the world today, we are living in terrible times. Truthfully, it’s very easy to lose focus even when you know you love your Jesus and you know from experience what a powerful God you serve. I find myself repenting, dusting myself off and pushing a little further quite often. Then, sometimes I feel like i go way backwards and have a lot of repenting and dusting to do all over again. I get up, I keep praying, striving and seeking, over and over. The problems Satan tries to weigh me down with only make me call on my Jesus and rely on my Jesus even more. One thing God has definetely taught me through all these trials and tribulations, is that when in your heart you really want nothing more to be perfectly pleasing to Him, to win the prize, beat the race, to meet Him face to face. He knows and knowing the God I know, He will make sure that you make it and see Him face to face. He knows we don’t always have the strength to carry on, or He would not offer to be our strength. Jesus showed me a vision at a very trying and tough time in my life and spoke gently as He showed me. I had a vision of Him carrying the cross (the heavy burden it was), to be crucified. Also, during the vision; He showed me the point Where He was getting to the point of not able to carry on. Then, someone stepped up and started helping Him carry His cross. He said even I, Jesus, needed help carrying My heavy burden, sorrows and load when I was on earth. It was so rightly timed that My Jesus shared that with me. I thought “wow,”, what makes me think I can do it alone, if My mighty Jesus needed help carrying His burdens while He was here on earth, taking on ALL our burdens ALL the way to the cross, ALL the way to the grave. My Lord God, I need you God, more of you, more of your strength, your power. I need to get my focus of my problems and put my focus on the problem solver. I need to get my focus off my problems, have faith that the problem solver is going to take care of my problems and help carry someone else’s cross, someone else’s burdens and know that God in control of mine.
I just stumbled across this post in search for something to reference in one of mine and I have to say this was incredibly helpful. I have been dealing with so much stress that I didn’t stop to consider that David went through a lot of stress too. I need to refocus my attention to God and off my stresses.