Award Winning GENESIS SCHOOL OF MUSIC

➡️According to the American Psychological Association, around 75% of adults are stressed out – causing headaches, tiredness, failed relationships, loneliness and depression.  According to best selling author and psychologist Dr. James Dobson, the most stressed out group in society are actually kids in middle school.  Everything is changing, and they have no control – which sounds like a lot of us – things are changing, and we feel out of control. There was a song by the band Twenty-One Pilots about ten years ago, it says, “Wish we could turn back time to the good old days when our mama sang us to sleep, but now we’re stressed out”.  However, according to Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened (which is a perfect definition of stress – weary and burdened), and I will give you rest”. 

Here’s five ways to go from stress, weary and burdened, to rest:

1. Keep the sabbath.  Exodus 20:8, says “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God.”  The sabbath is a gift from God – but it’s also a command. God knows all of us need one day of vacation every week.  In Mark 2, Jesus said that the sabbath was actually made for us – to give us a break. 
2. Take care of our bodies – eat, sleep, drink water, exercise.  I Corinthians 6:19 says that our bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God. You are not your own.”  In the same way that the people of God took care of the temple, God says that we are to take care of our temple, our bodies.  I love the story in First Kings 19 when the prophet Elijah defeated the false prophets of Baal – but then the evil queen Jezebel threatened his life, so he ran away and wanted to die.  He was stressed out…even wanting to die because of the pressure.  An angel ended up meeting him, fixing him dinner and told him to take a nap.  The angel did not encourage him, did not council him, did not have a message from God for him.  He fed him and told him to take a nap.  
3. Keep a schedule.  Ecclesiastes 3:1 says “There is a time for every matter under heaven”.  According to I Corinthians 14:40, “All things should be done decently and in order”.   Proverbs 21:5 says “The plans of the diligent lead to abundance.”  Schedules help us to keep what’s important important.  
4. Read the Bible and obey the it.  James 1:25 says “The man who looks intently into the perfect law (the Bible)…not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it – they will be blessed in whatever they do.”  We will be blessed, not stressed.  What happens when we get into the Word of God we find out what God says about us, and that protects us from keeping up with the opinions of others, which is probably the number one reason for stress.  Back to James 1, verses 23-25, knowing and obeying the Word is like looking into a mirror and seeing who you really are. It changes everything.
5. Know God.  Before Jesus left the disciples in John 14:27, he said, “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”  Let that sink in – if you know God, you know peace. One of his names is peace, Jehovah Shalom, it comes from Judges 6:24.  Stress is not Gods will for you.  God loves you, he’s for you, he has everything under control. Trust in that, rest in that. He is your Peace.

That’s in the Bible and the Bible is always right.