I have a P31 devotion today and want to say hello and “welcome” if you found your way here through it! I’m so glad you stopped by!
I wish we could sit in a coffee shop and chat today.
I’d love to talk with you about things that are weighing you down or worries that are making you weary. They always seem to lighten when shared with a friend.
I’d tell you about the year I let my problems pile up and how all that pressure almost took me down. It’s all in chapter 9 of my book including the story about how I accidentally took my dogs medicine one morning.
In my devotion, I shared how God has been changing me and rearranging me. I also promised to share three steps to overcome worry and a practical way to physically give God your concerns! Since we can’t chat in a coffee shop today, I decided to share my heart in a short video post.
Message Notes: You can download my “Video Message Notes” in a PDF here or in a Word doc here. They include the points of my message, verses and blanks to fill in. {If you’d like to watch more FREE Confident Heart videos based on my book, click here.}
Let’s Connect & A Giveaway: I’d love to hear your thoughts and one thing you want to apply after reading today’s devotion and hearing the video message. Click “share your thoughts” right below this post and do just that. 🙂
Your comment enters you in today’s “Come to Me” stress-relief gift pack giveaway which ncludes a Bath & Body Works Eucalyptus Mint candle, God-iva Dark Chocolate and an Chamomile Lavender scented Anti-Stress Comfort Wrap that can be refrigerated or microwaved depending on your preference – my favorite home spa treatment!!
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Thank you for sharing. Worry can become such a part of our lives and we do not even know it is there. God gives us a sound mind and no room there for worry.
Your message today was truely a God thing. I have been feeling so overwhelmed at work and wondering if I was miserable because he has another plan for my life. This may not be where I belong. I really liked my job until they started adding more tasks to my job. I can’t get my “real” work done for all the interruptions. I admit I have not been in the Word and in pray like I should be. That may REALLY be the cause of my miseralbe mood. I have a tendency to pray about things, lay them at the feett of Jesus then pick them back up again and continue to worry, thinking I can fix them myself. Thank you for letting me vent.
Blessings to all,
Karen
I just cried out to the Lord this morning. There are so many things that I hold on to, and I am coming to realize that they are worry and concerns that I do not need to hold on to. My life has been turned upside down and now going down a path I never dreamed I would be on, but I know that my Lord is in faithful and I need to relinquish my control and surrender to His! All this worry makes me weary. I never looked at it that way. Thank you for your devotional. God has truly used it for me.
Thank you for such an uplifting message. The one thing I am going to do after reading your message is to thank God for what he has done. I am always busy praying and thanking God, but not sure I really thank him for what he has already done, and for what he is currently doing!
Worry is my biggest stumbling block so much so that I developed Anxiety Disorder and mild Agoraphobia (afraid to leave the house.) I fear the unknown which causes me to worry about what I’ll encounter so I just freeze and stay home. However, lately a friend from church has invited me shopping and has come up to my house so I didn’t have to go anywhere and she is also understanding if I cancel on her because of my anxiety.
I have found that if I write down what I am worried about and why, I can put things into perspective and find strength in the Bible showing others who also worried and overcame their fears and doubts.
It seems that once I get out and do things I realize that my fears were unwarranted and actually have fun but the longer I stay in the harder it is to go out.
I guess there’s an analogy here in that the more we resist Jesus, the harder our hearts get. But when we let him in, he shows us that his yoke is light and our worry is the only thing holding us down.
Thank you and God bless you for addressing a very common and unhealthy problem and giving us the tools to overcome it.
Another thing that I do ‘almost’ every day is to put on my armor of God which is in Ephesians 6:10-18. It is a true weapon that we have at our disposal against Satan. So why don’t we use whatever we can get?
Lori, I can so relate to your post! I have had anxiety disorder since I was a child, and at times it goes into panic disorder and mild agoraphobia. After my dad’s death over seven years ago, I became depressed. I think all along I may have had the depression, but it just hadn’t become bad. I used to go to therapy, but have now gotten well enough thanks to great doctors from our Lord Jesus that I no longer need the therapy, but I do still take medication.
I can absolutely identify with the “fear of the unknown”. It used to rob me of vacations, and so many other joys that were right outside my door. However there was one therapist, a really bad therapist, that made me fighting mad. He would ask what I would do for this or that in my anxiety, and I would talk about trying to give my fears to Jesus, or talk about Jesus in relation to my anxiety. Well for some reason that got his dander up. He told me, “Jesus isn’t here right now though, so let’s put Him aside!”. I told him Jesus is always with me, He is my life, I can’t “put Him aside”, and I don’t want to put Him aside. Lol, needless to say that was my last day with that therapist! But it made me realize the passion behind what I had said to the therapist. I thought about how much I believed in what I had said that day, so I decided to try and put some action where my words had been!
You know those awful anxious feelings you get, in your stomach, when you sweat, and your face feels hot, when you feel like you will be sick, or lose it all together? Everytime before when I had gotten those feelings I let them take me over. But since I had decided to try something new, I allowed myself to feel the feelings, and I told myself, “God created this feeling in me, and it’s nothing to be afraid of, He has only good plans for me, so I trust Him, and I would say, “God I am giving these feelings to you”, then I would breathe my feelings out, as if sending them to Him. I can’t say that has healed me, but wow! I felt so much better, and slowly those feelings had less control over me. I was able to do things I hadn’t done before, and while I can’t do all I want still, I have full confidence that Christ will allow me to one day if it is in His will for me 🙂
I hope you too will be able to go out of your home more and more, know those feeling come from Christ, and He is in control. You are not out of control, He is just in control. Little by little each day try and go a bit further than you used to, that’s what I did it is really working! I would have never thought I could go on a vacation, but I have, and am again this summer! So I went from not wanting to leave my house too much, to not wanting to leave my city, to not wanting to leave my state, and now I can leave my state! I hope one day to be able to do air travel again, and go out of the country! So if it can happen for me my sister in Christ, I know it can for you too! I will be praying for you! Don’t give up! You are doing great with those outings with your friend, and what a blessing to have a friend who understands. (((HUGS)))
A peace that passes all understanding….keep your heart and mind on Jesus Christ. So true!
I think your statement that life IS going to get overwhelming at times is a reminder to me that it’s OK when life IS overwhelming. It’s what we DO when it gets overwhelming that makes the difference. Keeping my eyes on HIM!
Thank you for sharing God’s word!
Yesterday I experienced a panic attack while beginning the planning for homeschool in the fall. I had to quit planning because of the overwhelming weariness. Your topic today spoke to me in that I don’t need to give up, I need to involve God in the planning.
Thank you SO much for your devotional today….it was just what I needed. I’m a homeschool mom looking ahead to the senior year of my son & all that we need to accomplish to get him ready for college next fall (GED, SATS, college application, etc, etc.) & I feel so overwhelmed. Never mind that I’ve already done this twice before with two older kids……I guess some things never change. 😉 I find myself stressing & thinking about how we need to be doing ‘summer school’ & sometimes I just want to run away & cry. But I KNOW I should thank God for his past blessings (which are obvious in my two older kids) & just cast my cares on Him & do what HE wants me to do one day at a time. God IS faithful!!
Thank you for this mornings devotional. It is exactly what I needed. I know that there are people that are much worse off than me but I get so consumed in my own problems. In the past few years I have been through a divorce, foreclosure of my home, health problems with my parents, lost my church family because my ex continuted to go there and now only goes every other weekend when he has the kids, and I’m raising 2 teenage boys. I now have a fiance who loves me like a newborn baby…..honestly he does. Please pray for me that I will turn my worries over to God. I don’t want my worrying to ruin my relationship. My soon to be step-daughter told me the other day that I was scaring her to be an adult.
That REALLY caught my attention. I am 41 years old now and starting completely over with my life. Sometimes I think, will I ever have anything again? Will I ever feel as comfortable in another church as I did my own? And you have to make it your own. I had that and I miss it.
Thanks again and please pray for me and my family and my new marriage.
thanks for the three ideas/steps… simple and to the point….now on a post-it note on my desk at work
Thank for reminding me of God’s promises. I daily, remind myself to surrender to God. Thank you for the practical steps for letting go and letting God.
Thank you for your timely devotion and your three ways to overcome worry. I especially like your suggestion to write your worries down and give them to God! Prayer and thanking God for the many blessings he has given me and my family has kept me going the past few months.
May God continue to bless your ministry!
Renee,
I feel like I have found a kindred spirit in you in so many ways with this devotional. I have been having trouble putting a finger in what I have been going through lately. My situtation is similar to yours as I have felt I have too many commitments, deadlines, etc. This devotion has helped me identify my problem: worry!
Including being obsessed over a very short haircut after 3 years of longer hair!
I know it sounds silly but I have allowed the not so important thingsto muddle my thinking. I am so glad I read your devotion today. I pray God to forgive me of my worry and to trust him to give me the rest I need and the direction to manage my commitments.
Thanks and best regards.
Bing (Ernema)
As I was reading this message today I made me realize for the first time that a decision that my husband and I made back in February, to release worries and give it all to God, has taken so much weight ( literally) off of me! I was working 2 jobs, raising 3 kids ( one of which graduated high school a few weeks ago), being at home to take care of everyone while my husband’s job takes him out of state. I was physically and mentally exhausted, but just knew that if I was to let one of these jobs go that my stress level would only get worse. We prayed about it again and again and God kept revealing to me the healing he gave my body after cancer and that all of this stress was not good for me. I quit one of those jobs in February and gave it all to God, He has provided, as always, and I just realized after reading today’s devotion how very much His promise of peace and guidance if we trusted in Him has been a reality! Thank you for reminding of God’s wonderful promise of everything if we TRUST in Him and let go!
Girl, you hit me today, I just told my daughter I had to find a way to release my stress. Would love to get your book. Thanks for following God’s leadership in your P31.
Thanks for the devotion today. It was exactly what I needed. We’re trying to sell our house and getting ready for vacation – on top of all the normal everyday stress, and I didn’t even realize how much I was allowing it to weigh me down. I’m asking God to help me to put it in His hands.
This post is so right on time for me. I have 4 little girls (my oldest is 8) and I work a 40 hr work week outside of the home. Right now, my drive to work everyday is consumed my prayer that God will somehow rescue me from what has become an overwhelming job. I feel that I have more on my plate than any 5 people could accomplish. Your post has made me realize that maybe part of my problem is the amount of time I spend lamenting over all I have to do instead of actually doing what I need to do.
Thank you for seeking & serving God with faithfulness. It is so clear that he uses Proverbs 31 ministries to speak to my heat & street me to seeking him more in my life.