A Woman Of Significance: Overcoming Stress 预览

Spinning Plates

Women of the twenty-first century are expected to spin a multitude of plates, and as a result, they are stressed-out, worn down, overcommitted, and understaffed! According to a Barna study, 72 percent of all women feel overwhelmed by stress, and for women who still have children at home, this rate increases to 80 percent. In addition to the perpetual spinning of precious plates, there is the enormous challenge of determining how much time and energy should be given to each area of life.

Stress has a way of piling up in a woman’s life until she is unable to make quality decisions, enter into meaningful conversation, or enjoy the life that she has been given.

We have an enemy who wants to take advantage of our vulnerabilities. The goal of our spiritual foe is to cause us to be in a state of exhaustion and weariness every day of our lives. The enemy knows that if he can keep us distracted by stress, he can steal the “abundant” right out of our life. Stress will rob us of our joy, dismantle our peace, and deny us hope. Stress doesn’t have the power to change tomorrow, but it surely does mess up today!

The devil is an expert in trickery and distraction. He does not normally tempt you with obvious compromise, but his beguiling strategy is to offer things that seem good. Satan will use something that momentarily appears good to call you away from God’s eternal best for your life.

You were not created to be an anxious woman whose life is being frittered away at the altar of busyness. You were created for joy, peace, and eternal impact, not temporary distractions. Perhaps it is time for you to make some much-needed changes in your life.

God has an antidote for weariness. He has prescribed the secret of “abiding” in Him to heal your tired and exhausted soul. The spiritual opposite of weariness and stress may be described as the restorative simplicity of abiding in Christ. Strength always comes from rest—never from needless, perpetual activity.

When your permanent residence is the presence of Christ, and when you allow Him to whisper in your ear His wonderful plan for each day and each hour, and even the specific moments of your day, then His glorious fruit will be beautifully and deliciously apparent in your well-watered life. We must find quiet moments in our loud lives to begin to hear the still, small voice of the Father.