Jim Martin's Encouragement Note #26
These days, you may find it takes a lot of energy just to carry on with life and work. You might come to the end of a day feeling bone-tired and at times, discouraged.
Hopefully, something in this brief encouragement note will encourage and bless you. Consider the following list of five.
The List of Five
A Helpful Tool For Dealing With Everyday Stress
I love this simple but helpful tool from author Steve Cuss. I once heard him say that one way to give clarity to our stress and anxiety is to ask the following three questions:
What is yours to carry? In other words, what am I responsible for? I know I am responsible for my functioning with others. Also, I am responsible for my actions, what I do with my feelings, and my choices.
This is important because it is easy to take responsibility for what is not mine or yours to carry. Consider, for example, my relationship with one of my children. Perhaps this child is a high school student, a college student, or even an adult child. My responsibility is to love this young man or young woman. I need to treat this person in a way that is God-honoring. I want to display the goodness and grace of God before this son or daughter.
Yet, ultimately, I am not responsible for the happiness of my adult children. I am not responsible for their choices or the outcomes of their choices. Of course, these choices can bring joy or heartbreak to a parent. Yet, I am only responsible for my own functioning with these children. This is important because in our anxiety, we can spend much of our lives trying to “fix” our children, instead of focusing on what is ours alone to carry - our own functioning.
What is theirs to carry? Again, it is so helpful to distinguish between what is yours to carry and what is another person’s load to carry. There is so much that goes on in life, business, and in the church over which you have absolutely no control. People in my business may make choices that I have no control over. In a congregation, some might make choices that you and I have no control over. Your children will grow up and make their own choices. So it can be helpful to distinguish between what is mine to carry and what belongs to another.
What is God’s to carry? Whether we are talking about rearing children, attempting to impact someone for good, or simply desiring to create good results with our work, so much has to simply be left in the hand of God (I Peter 5:7).
I once heard Steve Cuss remark in a sermon, “Anxiety tries to get us to live on our own strength, but God is in control, challenging us to trust God instead of self.”
This simple tool has been very, very helpful to me. As I deal with challenges in my life and work, I often use this tool to sort through the confusion. Numerous times, the tool has helped bring order and clarity to my day.
We Have Learned and Yet Continue to Learn
I love to be with people who continue to learn regardless of their age. I really want to be that kind of person.
Recently, I was thinking about some of my earliest jobs and realized that I actually learned a great deal from these jobs.
At twelve years old, I had a paper route for the Dallas Morning News. That meant getting up at 4:00 AM each morning and not returning home until 6:00 AM. It meant riding my bike from house to house and making sure the newspaper was on the subscriber’s front porch.
I have never forgotten these two lessons from this time period:
I learned that being late or being punctual in delivering a newspaper really might impact others. Decades later, I still think about this. If I have committed to finish a particular aspect of my work by a certain date, it is very possible that being late can be quite inconvenient to another. At the same time, when I am typically late to meetings, it can suggest that I have far too little regard for the time and inconvenience this habit might cost others.
I also learned the importance of being prepared. One afternoon, I went to a home of a subscriber who was supposed to pay me that day for his subscription. He was a Dallas Police officer and was apparently about to leave for work. He came to the door wearing his uniform but also wearing a long yellow raincoat and a rain hat. He looked at me, soaking wet, standing on his front porch in a heavy rain. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. No rain jacket, no rain hat, — no rain gear at all. The officer said, “You know, it is important to be prepared before you go out in weather like this. You could get very sick.”
That day when I stood on his front porch in that heavy rain, this officer was trying to teach me something. He wanted me to think about the importance of being prepared and thinking ahead. It took me a long time but eventually I learned that there was often a correlation between how well I performed or functioned and how well I had prepared.
Like you, I have learned through life, experiences, and relationships. However, I am still learning.
At this point, it might be helpful to ask yourself:
What have you learned from the past that is significant for how you function today?
What are you learning in the present?
What do you need to learn that might help you step into the future?
Better Than the Nicest Resort is the Rest We Find in God
What are you dealing with? A new chapter in your life? A bump in the road that has you discouraged? Or, perhaps you are dealing with pain. Hear these words that can give us direction:
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (Philippians 4:6-7 - The Message)
God’s Provisions Are Greater Than Our Anxiety. Replace Anxiety With These Provisions:
Rejoice in the nearness of God (4:4-6). Celebrate what God is doing in your life.
Do not be anxious about anything but pray with thankfulness (4:6). Behind this is the reality that God is good. Instead of being overcome with anxiety, talk with God.
Focus on the amazing peace of God rather than what is bringing you anxiety and worry (4:7). This peace of God is both vertical (Romans 5:1,10; Eph. 2:13-15) and horizontal.
Ponder the things that are good, lovely, and right (4:8).
Put what you have learned into practice (4:9).
When Your Soul Needs to be Centered
Recently, I read the words of an old hymn. These words blessed me and I have since read them again and again.
Be still, my soul! for God is on your side;
bear patiently the cross of grief or pain:
leave to your God to order and provide,
who through all changes faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul! your best, your heav’nly Friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul! for God will undertake
to guide the future surely as the past.
Your hope, your confidence, let nothing shake;
all now mysterious shall be clear at last.
Be still, my soul! the waves and winds still know
the voice that calmed their fury long ago.
Be still, my soul! the hour is hastening on
when we shall be forever in God's peace;
when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
love’s joys restored, our strivings all shall cease.
Be still my soul! when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.
Resources
Brian Harris (Australia) has written an interesting post entitled “What makes a life worth living? Four lenses to ponder…” The four lenses are “Auto-pilot, Efficiency, Self-Awareness, Self-Transcendence.”
I read Laura Vanderkam because she helps me think about how I use my time. See her article: “7 Life-Changing, Non-Boring Spins on the To-Do List.”
Tom Vanderbilt has written an interesting article which was published in the Guardian. See his article “The joys of being an absolute beginner – for life.” We are never too old to learn.
Right now I am reading Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane C. Ortlund. (A wonderful book recommended to me by Eric Gentry). I am also reading parts of N.T. Wright’s Paul: A Biography. What a fine book! Finally, I have recently begun reading Melinda Gates’ The Moment of Life.
Each Thursday/Friday, I post about ten tweets especially for ministers and other believers as they anticipate Sunday. You can find me @jimmartin.
I serve as Vice President of Harding School of Theology, Memphis, Tennessee. You can find me at God-Hungry.org. You can find me on Facebook - @jim.martin. My e-mail address is: jmartin9669@gmail.com. Feel free to write. I would love to hear what is encouraging or helpful. — Jim Martin
