AnxietyIsNotYouridentitiythisone

The speaker discusses the topic of stress and its negative effects on our lives. Chronic stress can lead to unhealthy behaviors such as overeating, smoking, drinking, or using drugs. It can also cause physical, emotional, and spiritual problems, including anxiety, lack of concentration, depression, and even mental illness. Stress can affect our appetite, sleep, and overall well-being. The speaker suggests various ways to cope with stress, such as seeking help, finding hobbies, exercising, joining support groups, and turning to prayer and meditation. They emphasize the importance of relying on God's strength and promises to overcome stress and find peace. Hi, family and friends, this is Robin Anderson from New Generation Christian Family Matters. Today we're going to talk about stress. Many of us can attest to the fact that we've been stressed out with our families, with our children, jobs, our finances, you name it. And right now the world is going through a lot of stress and anxiety. Just everyday life can be stressful. You might ask me, what is the definition of stress? It's a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation. Actually, it's a natural human response that prompts us to address challenges and threats in our lives. And everyone, all of us, experience stress to some degree. Now, what is stress? It's not a good thing. We know there's something called chronic stress. And chronic stress can trigger addictive, unhealthy behavior. And that's what we want to talk about today. It can cause eating disorders. Some people, when they become stressed, they just eat, eat, eat unhealthy stuff, sugars, sodas, a lot of caffeine, heavy smokers. Some people, they run and get a cigarette to calm their nerves down. And we know that cigarettes, according to studies, can cause lap lungs or lung cancer. Or what about those who drink? Every time they feel stressed out or they feel that they can't deal with life or deal with their family members or deal with challenges, what they do is they run and get a drink. You can just kind of drown their, the way they feel, numb their feelings with alcohol. And, of course, we know some people actually use drugs to numb their feelings or to deal with the stress and anxiety in their lives. But we know, according to studies, that stress can be detrimental to us physically, emotionally, and spiritually as well. Chronic stress overload can lead to anxiety, lack of concentration, even memory loss, confusion, depression, and mental illness. That's really sad. It can change your appetite. Some people, instead of eating a lot, they just don't eat at all. Ninety percent of people who are stressed out or have anxiety, they crave energy-boosting, high-carbohydrate foods. That's sugar. And I think we did kind of express that earlier. And then, of course, there's an unwanted weight gain. Sometimes there's a change in sleep, body, and mind, not being able to relax. So this increases acute insomnia. Stress can bring on aches and pains because the muscles are tense. It can cause your heart to beat faster, your digestive system to slow down. Some people that are anxious or full of anxiety, they have headaches. Or maybe there's pain in their shoulders because they're tense. But the thing that I want to bring to your attention today is that long-term anxiety and stress can lead to serious health problems. Anxiety can cause a decline in mental health. Every system of the body can be affected by anxiety and stress. Spiritually, stress and anxiety can strip you of your joy, your peace, and put a strain on your faith. You condemn your Christian life. And we know, according to the scripture in John 10 and 10, the enemy, which is the enemy of our soul, the prince of darkness, comes only to steal, cheat, and destroy. All of us have our little checklist of what makes us uptight or causes us to feel stressed out or full of anxiety. Advice to you, just sit down and think about those things, write them down. Sometimes it's okay to ask for help. We need to take time to relax. Arts, crafts, music, all of us have little hobbies that we can channel our energy and time into. Take sewing or quilting. The enemy is shrewd, and he knows that we can be subdued by our stress and anxiety, and that joy that God promises to his people can be stripped away. Exercising is big. Walking is powerful. Maybe you can find a partner, your husband, your wife, your kids, and just walk around the lake, walk in the community. You can play basketball, volleyball, just a lot of things you can do to keep fit and improve your stress level. Also, exercising is good. It will strengthen your bones. It will help with your blood pressure, lower your risk for diabetes, and also heart disease. You can start off maybe like 10 or 15 minutes a day, and your goal might be up to 60 minutes a couple times a week, two or three times a week. It's okay to join a support group. It might be a support group if you have problems with substance abuse or alcoholism, or maybe you live in a family where there's just family issues. You live with a husband or a wife that, you know, the relationship is strained, and you're feeling the pressure of the relationship that needs help. Pray about it and ask God to lead you and guide you in the direction that you should go. Find a prayer partner, somebody that comes together once a week or a prayer group at my brother's church in Northern California. And every Thursday, we pray for an hour. And it's a beautiful thing. People come and they bring their requests and their petitions and their needs, and we pray for one until we knock on the door, until the burdens are lifted. They pray for healing, and they pray for those who have relational problems or mental problems or maybe financial problems. All these things can cause great stress on your mind, your heart, your soul. Prayer and meditation is a good thing. Reading God's Word is a good thing. The more we read God's Word and meditate on it, the more it becomes real to us, the more hope we have. We can take our burdens to the Lord and just leave them at the altar. We can praise Him with our lips. That will also lift our confidence. It will lift our demeanor. It will lift our mood when we learn how to praise the Lord, even for the small things. And before you know it, your praise will draw you into the presence of the Lord. And He will lift that spirit of anxiety, that spirit of fear, that spirit of stress. We're in this world. This world is not perfect. Our jobs are not perfect. Our families are not perfect. But we have hope. We have an anchor. We can stand on the rock and God will stabilize our natural being. He will stabilize our mind, our heart, our soul. Isaiah 43 says, When you pass through the rivers, they will not overthrow you. Sometimes life can be like a river. Like just rising up and you can feel a panic in your heart and mind that you might drown. But the Scripture says that this river will not overthrow you like when the enemy comes in as a flood. Even when you pass through the fire, and sometimes some of the trials and tribulations that we go through, it feels like we're going through fire. And fire burns and it hurts and it's hot. But the Scripture says you will not be burned. I was thinking about the three Hebrew boys who made it up in their minds that they weren't going to get stressed out by the king's order to bow down or the king's order to worship him or to do something that God had commanded them not to do. They trusted God and they put their hope in God and they believed God. They had faith in God that they would not be burned. And we know the Scripture, that passage, that story, that when they were thrown in, that when the king went and his men went to check on the condition, I guess they went to see if the bodies were burned up or whatever. And the Bible said when they looked in there, they saw all three of them there. And not only that, they saw a fourth person which was the Son of God. And what an awesome, beautiful story to let us know that no matter what we go through, God is with us. His Son Jesus is with us. He will never leave us or forsake us. And the Scripture of those three brethren said that there was no smell of smoke on them in there. Their hair wasn't even singed. That is the power of God to deliver. That is the power of God to help us in times of trouble. That's the power of God to let us know that He's in control no matter what we go through. And we have to believe that. We have to stand on His Word. In Philippians 4, 6-7, it says, Be anxious for nothing. Don't let nothing cause you to be anxious or fearful or stressed out. Because you are a child of God. And God promises to take care of His own. But the Scripture goes on to say, In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, there's that word again, thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So when we're feeling a little stressed out, when we're feeling a little anxious, we can bring it to God. We can lift up those requests to Him in prayer. And we can thank Him in advance. Now that confuses the enemy. When you start to praise God, you might not see the answer right away. You might not see the power of God work right away. But it's a faith thing. We believe God and we thank Him for it. We lift up His holy name. We thank Him for taking those requests. We thank Him for being with us in the fire. We thank Him for not allowing the flood to overflow us. It's a faith thing, my brother. It's a faith thing, my sister. Praise the Lord. And that scripture goes on to say, And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ. The best of all is the peace of God in our lives. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Your peace, even in the midst of the storm. And sometimes life can be very, very windy and the billows and the waves are very high and you can feel fear. You don't know which direction to turn. But if we give it over to Jesus, let go and let God work it out for you, He will come through every time. The scripture says, Be still and know that I am God. Sometimes in situations, we just have to be still. And if we can't be still, just ask God, help me to be still. Help me to trust you. Help me to believe on your word. Praise the Lord. The Bible says, You will know the truth, the truth of God's word, the truth of his promises, the truth of his power, and the truth will set you free. I know all of us desire to be free from stress, desire to be free from fear and anxiety. But Job was a liar. He uses that. Make you feel like you're not a child of God, he will make you feel that God doesn't love you, God doesn't care, that you can't make it, you can't climb that mountain, you can't run this race. But he's a liar. We stand on the word of God. Our identity of who we are is in Christ Jesus. He promises that he will be with us. He promises that he would guide us and lead us by the Holy Spirit. He promises that he will not put upon us more than what we can bear. He promises that we will be more than conquerors in him. We have to trust God. We have to stand on his word. Yes, we walk by faith and not by what we see. If you have health issues, God is able to hear you. Sometimes we feel stressed out because of the pain in our body or the prayer of faith can heal us. The prayer of faith will restore our mind and our heart. It will make us strong. God will and can heal us mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. God can give us back good health and heal our wounds according to Jeremiah 30 and 18. God can heal our broken hearts and bandage our wounds. Sometimes just being in this world, we go through the battle and maybe our heart has been broken or maybe we feel wounded by others or whatever. God said that he'll heal that. God said he'll bandage our wounds and that he will heal our broken hearts. And that's found in Psalms 147 and 2. The Bible says, Is there any sick among you? Let them call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will heal the sick and that's found in James 5 and 15. So if you're feeling physically sick, God can heal you. If you're feeling stress and anxiety, God can heal you. If you're feeling mental distress, God can heal you. If your soul needs to be saved and healed, God can heal your soul. Praise the Lord. Now at this time, we're going to pray. Dear God in heaven, we thank you, dear God, for your love, for your power, for deliverance. We thank you, dear God, that even though we live in this world of stress and anxiety and so much is going on, we know that we can bring all our requests to you and lay it on the throne of grace. Lord, we ask you to help us to trust you. Help us, Lord, to believe your word. Help us to know that you care and love us. We thank you for the Holy Spirit that illuminates and enlightens us with the word of God and reminds us of who we are in Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you, dear Father. Lord, we ask you to take away the anxiety and fear and stress from those, dear Father, who are suffering. Lord, at a level that they can't seem to go forward, they can't seem, Lord, to get a grip on life. Lord, help them, Lord, to reach out and get the help that they need. Help them to get the prayer that they need, dear Father. Help them, Lord, to exercise and to eat right, dear God, and maybe be a part of a support group, dear Father. They don't have to run this race by themselves, but help them to know that there is help. And God, whatever is accomplished, will praise you, will glorify you, will lift you up, and we will magnify your name. This is Robin from New Generation Christian Family Matters. If you need prayer, please contact us. If you have something to say, I promise we will listen. New Generation Christian Family Matters www.NewGenerationChristianFamilyMatters.org