Things I've learned in the past 2 months

#2. Without God, life is overwhelming

I thought it was just the circumstances. I thought I had let people put too much on my plate. I thought things were just getting harder. In reality, the difference was the person carrying the load. I use to let God help me by taking my cares to Him and asking for his strength, but with so much bitterness in my heart I didn't have any desire to call upon God. I knew that if I did so I would first have to humble myself and ask for forgiveness for my bitterness and pride. I didn't want to do that so I thought it better to go on with life by myself. This led me to feel overwhelmed to the point that a few times I didn't think I could take it anymore. I was pressured with decisions to make and no one to help me make them and I doubted every move I made.

Just this week I watched a video by Gary Smalley in which he talked of the same thing. He is a Christian, but there was a time in his life that he let his wealth become his focus and he no longer pursued a relationship with God. It was during this time that his life became so stressful that he had a heart attack and was very sick. When I heard him say this my eyes were opened to the truth that any time we try to go through life without God we are to expect life to get more stressful. One of the verses I am meditating on this week is Philippians 4:6-7. "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplications, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." This is a privilege we have yet when we fail to go to God with our worries we give up the peace that He has promised to give us. In a sense, we have control over the stress in our lives. It's up to us to learn how to give them over to God.