Spirituality

Finding Peace In Your Crazy-Busy World

March 24, 2024 by Vicki Griffin

We live in a topsy-turvy, fast-paced world. It’s easy in the rush of crammed, hectic schedules to neglect life’s most important priorities. There is more to life than increasing its speed.((Mahathma Gandhi)) Our lives can easily become so busy…but oh, so barren. God has a special four-part “peace plan” to guide, strengthen, and inspire you with hope and energy. Let’s explore these vital elements of stress protection, physical and mental health, and spiritual vitality. Daily applying these four principles will help you flourish instead of flounder as you face life’s challenges and demands.

1. A Lifestyle that Promotes Peace

Lifestyle is a major factor that affects mental, physical, social, and spiritual health. Lifestyle choices matter, especially the ones we repeat every day. They have a profound effect on brain function, which is the seat of your thinking, emotions, and decisions. “Many of the fundamental tools for the care and feeding of the brain are everyday matters. Physical and mental exercise, proper nutrition, and adequate sleep will help anyone gain cognitive clarity and emotional stability.”((Ratey, J. User’s Guide to the Brain, p. 356. Vintage Books, 2002.)) Power up your lunch and supper with crunchy, colorful fresh vegetable salads, greens, and beans. Try healthy vegetarian entrees instead of fatty meats and fried food. You won’t crave snacks with this delicious, high-fiber fare. Want real brain energy and body vigor? Water is the beverage of choice between meals instead of soda and coffee!

2. Attitudes that Produce Peace

Your mind, brain, and body are in constant communication through many different systems. Your thoughts and attitudes have a powerful effect on the rest of your body, especially your immune, nervous, and digestive systems. We can literally think ourselves into a frenzy, but God promises His peace, “perfect peace” to the one whose mind is centered upon Him (Isaiah 26:3). He invites us to trust Him with every circumstance of our life. A thankful attitude is associated with better physical and mental health, and even a longer life. “A contented mind, a cheerful spirit, is health to the body and strength to the soul.”((Ellen G. White, Counsels on Health (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1949), 344.))This is an attitudinal discipline that focuses on God’s truth and solutions rather than fear, circumstances, and unreliable emotions.

A woman looking into a mirror with a positive smile

3. Spiritual Principles that Secure Peace

“Spiritual well-being is at the center of a healthy lifestyle.”((Am J Crit Care 1995;4(1):77-81.))To meet our deepest longings, God has provided spiritual principles that bring true life satisfaction. This does not come with wealth, fame, popularity, or even perfect health. It comes through making peace with God—in entering into a saving relationship with Him. Studies confirm that “Religious commitment may play a beneficial role in preventing mental and physical illness, improving how people cope with mental and physical illness, and facilitating recovery.”((Arch Fam Med 1998;7(2):118-24.))Our natural hearts are not drawn to God, but we need Him. We are drawn to God because of our need—and God’s healing love which draws us. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God’s love is the foundation of a relationship with Him and healthy relationships with each other. We connect with God through prayer and learning about Him in His life-giving Word, the Bible. “In the day of my trouble I will call upon You, for You will answer me” (Psalm 86:7).

4. Faith that Preserves Peace

Faith is more than positive thinking—it is connecting with the living God who seeks to restore all that sin has broken and taken away. Jesus never promised an absence of problems. Jesus said: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Faith is the conviction that God will guide you and give you power through both good times and bad. Faith says, “Either make the problem smaller, or me bigger!” God has a plan and He cares for you in a very personal way. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).

God’s Peace Plan can be Yours. Hulda Crooks experienced God’s peace plan in her lifestyle, attitude, trust in God, and faith. She was a sickly, sedentary, overweight woman for many years. She became a vegetarian, which improved her mental and physical health. But when she experienced the loss of her husband and son, she fell into depression. Hulda began walking which not only relieved her depression—it also eliminated more of her physical maladies, including constant fatigue.

Conquering Life’s Mountains. Hulda also began practicing a positive, faith-based attitude that gave her the “altitude” to stay inspired and be an inspiration to others! From aged 63 to well into her 90s, she completed 23 Mt. Whitney climbs, backpacked 212 miles of the John Muir Trail, climbed 86 Southern California peaks, and held 8 world records for seniors over the age of 80. This spunky late-bloomer caught and taught inspiration as a motivational speaker, and was affectionately known as “Grandma Whitney.” A mountain peak of Whitney is named “Crooks Peak” in her honor. God’s peace plan was fulfilled in Hulda’s life—and it can be fulfilled in yours too! Would you like to experience the fullness of Gods power, promise, and plan for your life? His peace plan is for you!

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This article was originally published on the Time to Get Ready website.

Utilize the Power of Prayer for Stress Relief

February 12, 2023 by Martin Neumann

Stress is sometimes getting us unaware. We are suddenly facing a crisis and do not know how to handle it. Other times it will creep on us in small increments until we feel that life spins out of control. Stress will hit us harder when we are overtired, being sick or passing through tragedies. Few people think about prayer as a stress reliever when the schedule is tight. But a growing body of research shows that it could be a useful tool to get your stress under control.

Utilize the Power of Prayer for Stress Relief

Research on Stress and Spirituality

The link between spirituality and health is starting to get the interest of several researchers. In the forefront is the research of Harald Koenig, MD, associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Duke University, who surveyed more than a thousand studies showing the link between spirituality and health. In his book Handbook of Religion and Health he found that people attending church regularly have 1/3 of the time of hospitalization compared to the non-active group. He also found that religious people have 14 times higher chances to recover after heart surgery compared to the non-religious group. These are just some of the impressive findings of the relationship between spirituality and health.

Dr. Roberta Lee speaks about the relation of prayer and stress relief in her book The Superstress Solution. She says: “Research shows that people who are more religious or spiritual use their spirituality to cope with life,… They’re better able to cope with stress, they heal faster from illness, and they experience increased benefits to their health and well-being. On an intellectual level, spirituality connects you to the world, which in turn enables you to stop trying to control things all by yourself. When you feel part of a greater whole, it’s easy to understand that you aren’t responsible for everything that happens in life.”

Practice Stress Relief Prayer the Effective Way

Not every prayer is equal. Some people just go through the motions without really feeling the liberating effects of genuine prayer. In order to be effective in lifting your load, there are some vital principles to include in your prayer experience.

1. Recognize a Power Higher than You

When you are in a tight spot, it is a liberating thought that there is a higher power taking care of you. Put things into the right perspective. Who are you in comparison to the universe? Do not think it is all your responsibility to save the world, because the world is much bigger than you can grasp. And don´t think your problems are the worst one within the universe either.

When you do not find a way out, you need to trust that you have a heavenly father who is able to take care of you. Some people are believing this religion thing is just for emotionally weak people who need a crutch in order to get something they can hang on to. There are a lot of skeptical people out there. For me, it is as real as it can get. When you are sincerely interested in experience the presence of God, He will have a way to show you how He is acting in Your life. I have experienced it over and over. And it is very reassuring to know that there is somebody bigger than you, who is able to help you out when you are in a tight spot.

2. Be Authentic

When something is bothering you, it is not the moment to recall a prayer you have memorized as a child, or recite 10 times the Lord’s Prayer. It is the moment to speak to God as to a friend. Be honest about what is bothering you. And you do not need to wait for the right moment, present your request to God as soon as you feel a need. Be very specific about what is your problem, if you are formulating it into words, the undefined and abstract is becoming something concrete that you can put a handle on. The Christian Author Ellen White expresses it nicely in her book Steps to Christ:

“Keep your wants, your joys, your sorrows, your cares, and your fears before God. You cannot burden Him; you cannot weary Him. He who numbers the hairs of your head is not indifferent to the wants of His children. “The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” James 5:11. His heart of love is touched by our sorrows and even by our utterances of them. Take to Him everything that perplexes the mind. Nothing is too great for Him to bear, for He holds up worlds, He rules over all the affairs of the universe. Nothing that in any way concerns our peace is too small for Him to notice. There is no chapter in our experience too dark for Him to read; there is no perplexity too difficult for Him to unravel. No calamity can befall the least of His children, no anxiety harass the soul, no joy cheer, no sincere prayer escape the lips, of which our heavenly Father is unobservant, or in which He takes no immediate interest. “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3. The relations between God and each soul are as distinct and full as though there were not another soul upon the earth to share His watchcare, not another soul for whom He gave His beloved Son.”
E. G. White. Steps to Christ, p. 100

3. Pray With and For Others

Nobody is an island. If you can share your concerns with your friends then go for it. But instead of just be sorry and whine, use the moment to present your problems together with your friends to your Heavenly Father. Sometimes the faith of your friend can inspire you to take courage. It can relieve your stress if you can share your challenges and get some upbeat to put you on the right track.

Some other times you can pray for some of your friends, neighbors or even strangers you meet at the road. Praying for the need of others makes you realize, that other people around you may face even larger challenges then you, and your problem may not be that big after all.

4. Take Action

By now you have identified your problem and you have submitted yourself to the care of God. You see some light at the end of the tunnel, you have hope to get your life under control, but there are things that still remain for you to do. Maybe you need some rest, take time to restore your body and mind. Get for real with a stress management plan. Get your priorities right, examine your diet and exercise plan. If you are working through some loss or tragedy, you may need to give you some time to heal and restore.

There are moments we need to take action, and other moments where we need to be just quiet. Reinhold Niebuhr is expressing it quite on the spot in his famous Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

A man at sunset sitting on a stone at a beach, expressing serenity

Elements of a Prayer for Stress Relief

You need no model or script to follow in your prayer life, like you do not need a script to have a chat with your friend. But there are some elements that can make your prayer experience more meaningful.

Take time to talk openly about your life. Talk about the good, the bad, even the things you think are irrelevant to God. How are you talking to a friend? Are you worried that he is bored when you relate what is happening in your life? Probably not. So just take some time to be real.
Analyze your actions. What did you do right, where did you fail? Where did you hurt somebody? What do you have to get straight? Confess your mistake and take responsibility for things you did the wrong way. Decide with whom you need to reconcile. And ask forgiveness for your wrong attitudes. In 1. John 1:9 we have the promise: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You will feel a burden being taken off from your shoulders, and life will get so much easier.
Surrender yourself to God. He is your Heavenly Father and will surely care for you. But sometimes His plans for you may be higher than yours. God says to you in Isaiah 55:9: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Trust that your Heavenly Father has the best intentions for you, and try to understand what He is trying to do in your life.
Ask God for help. Be specific on what is going wrong and what you need. And when you have surrendered it to God, rest assured that He will take good care of you. Maybe the outcome is not always like you expected, but sometimes it is even better than you thought.
Pray with Promises. The Bible is full of promises, and you can claim them within your prayer session. If you find a promise that applies to your situation, it is alright to claim it. If you are burdened with troubles, you can claim Mattew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.”. Or you may like to claim Psalms 4:8: “I will lie down in peace and sleep, for you alone, O LORD, will keep me safe.”
Express your gratitude and praise. When we start to catalog the things we are thankful for, our list of challenges is less intimidating. It gets things into perspective. Life is not all bad, there are a lot of things to be thankful for. Look at the psalms. They are full of sincere talk with God, but they are also full of thanksgiving and praise. And it helps a lot to remember that God still cares for us. Remember how He has brought you through in the past, and you will gain courage to face the future.

Now you have a number of tools to make your moments of prayer an opportunity to release stress from your lives. Once you apply them, you adapt those principles to make them something meaningful for yourself. It is good to create habits. Start out right in the morning, surrendering yourself and your plans in the hands of God. In the evening spend some special moments to reflect on the day, what was good and what needs to change. And whenever you face a problem, make it a habit to turn it over to somebody higher than you, so you have less on your plate to worry about.

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How Confidence Can Control Your Stress

December 6, 2020 by Martin Neumann

Have you noticed that some people are just thriving under stress while others passing through the same circumstances are at the brink of a collapse? Have you seen some people that are successful in everything they do, while others seem to go nowhere, while having the same opportunities? What makes the difference? It is Confidence!

It’s a widely known fact that confident people are often successful in whatever endeavor they strive to accomplish. When you have confidence, you have the self-assurance that you have the ability to take control of your situation or circumstances.

Without confidence, you won’t fare as well in anything that you attempt to do. This is because a lack of confidence can alter the way that you make decisions. Without confidence, you compare yourself to others and you are scared to make the moves that will help you to advance.

If you have confidence, you will be finishing the race, while others are still too scared to pass the starting line. Many people have found success because they made bold moves driven by nothing more than the confidence they had.

You’ll find those stories all around you – how people risked everything they owned because they believed that they could start a business or risked their lives to take a solo sailing trip around the world.

Some people are natural leader personalities. They can influence the crowd, because they have the confidence that they are in charge of the situation.

While you can develop your confidence levels, there are two things that can impact your efforts negatively – those two things are stress and anxiety.

Anxiety

Anxiety is worrying about something that might happen or fretting about the eventual outcome of an event. This can also be defined as nervousness. You are fearful of something bad that could happen in the future. In extreme cases, anxiety can lead to a panic attack.

Besides depression, anxiety is the most common mental disorder. In most metropolitan areas, one in three persons is suffering from anxiety.((A. J. Baxter et al, “Global prevalence of anxiety disorders: a systematic review and meta-regression”. Psychological Medicine (2013): 43(5),
897-910. DOI: 10.1017/S003329171200147X.))

Anxious women - Photo by Ana Bregantin from Pexels

While anxiety is considered an excessive concern with the future, stress is an excessive concern with the present, and depression is often an excessive concern with the past. Many times all three of them tend to be interconnected. And low confidence levels will have a large influence in triggering those manifestations.

If two people both have to deal with the exact same kind of stress, you’ll have one person who will react with anxiety, while the other person won’t. And the reaction depends much on the behavioral actions from past circumstances.

Anxiety can be an emotional platform that stress lands on. The heavier the stress, the shakier the platform can become. But if you have enough confidence, the platform is able to handle the turbulence.

Since your emotional platform is how you go through life, you want to make sure that you can cope with whatever you have to deal with. If you have a higher anxiety level, it can cause you to have limited ability to cope.

If you have high anxiety, you’ll find that you often struggle to cope with things that someone with low anxiety can handle with ease. For example, in someone with high anxiety, having a financial upheaval could cause a lot of fear and many sleepless nights. In someone with low anxiety, it doesn’t – because they have the self-assurance that they’re going to be able to take care of whatever needs to be done.

High anxiety will sooner or later lead to negative thoughts, and negative thoughts will lead to negative emotions. When you’re caught up in a cycle of negative thinking and negative emotions that stem from anxiety, it impacts your confidence. It will start to erode your beliefs, the self-assurance that you’re as smart as or as capable as the next person of handling a circumstance, a job project, having a great relationship or anything else in life.

Handling Anxiety

When you feel your anxiety levels to rise, take a short break. Breath in deeply through your nose. Then breath out slowly through your mouth. This exercise will have a calming effect on your heart, and will help even to calm down your thoughts.

Deep breathing to control anxiety - Photo by VisionPic .net from Pexels

Exercise can be very helpful as well. Whenever you exercise, your body releases endorphins, the feel good hormones that can lift your mood and calm anxiety. Even just five minutes of exercise can restore calmness.

A cheerful attitude or even laughter can go a long way to keep anxiety under control. You may have heard the saying that laughter is the best medicine. There’s a lot of truth behind that statement.

One way that you can lower your anxiety is by journaling. You can write out what you’re feeling and why. Detail how it makes you feel and take note of any similar circumstances that you may have dealt with in the past.

It can help to look back over what you have gone through and see that you were able to deal with it and move on. Avoid things that trigger a higher anxiety level in you. For some people, this means avoiding things that are shocking or upsetting.

This might be the evening news, or people who always seem to have a doom and gloom outlook on life that ends up bringing you down. If you know a situation is going to make you feel anxious, if you can avoid putting yourself in that situation, then do so.

Positive Stress

With all of the articles and books on combating stress, you might get the idea that any kind of stress was bad for you, and that’s simply not true. Stress can actually help you in many areas of your life.

Let´s think for example about a tailor who needs to deliver a dress by Friday. The day before she is working hard to deliver in time. She is focused, works with precision and efficiency and even forgets to eat her supper. Friday she delivers in time and is able to relax. A healthy level of stress has helped her to finish the task.

Or if you are stressed about your meager finances, you may decide to go after a better job. You push yourself forward, you make an effort and in the end, you reach the desired job you were looking for. In this case, stress acted as a motivator for positive change.

Stress will start to be negative when you feel that you are out of control, and you do not know how to handle the situation. Besides the magnitude of your challenges, your confidence levels will greatly determine whether you experience stress as a motivator or a traumatic mind crippling experience.

Getting Confidence

Our confidence levels and your belief system about our own capabilities is to a large degree formed during childhood. If you were brought up in a safe environment and felt you were encouraged to develop yourself, you have an enormous advantage over others, who may be carrying lots of limiting beliefs about themselves.

We are carrying a baggage of beliefs about ourselves, which can be helpful, undesired or even destructive. Many of those ingrained thoughts are based on our interpretation of past experiences, may they be positive or painful. It is possible to change this belief system about ourselves, but it will take some conscientious effort to do so.

In order to help you to change, you need to find a secure fortress that you can trust. If you feel you are in a protected place, you can develop the confidence level that you are in control and stress will be a motivator for you. This safe haven of trust is created by an atmosphere of genuine love.

Psalm 139 is for me one of the most profound descriptions of this needed environment of trust. The first part describes the all-knowledge of God:

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.
Psalm 139:1-6

It is wonderful to know that there is nobody else who knows us on such an intimate level as God. He knows us and He understands us. There is no need to hide us behind masks, no need to fake something, we can be just the way we are. That gives us a basis for a relationship of trust.

Hiding - Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels

The second part speaks of the all-presence of God:

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me;
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
Psalm 139:7-12

This text assures us, that it does not matter what we have done, no matter where we are or where we go, there is no place in the universe where God´s love is not able to reach us. This assurance, that wherever we are, He is able to take care of us, can give us an incredible confidence boost.

The third part is speaking about our all-powerful God that has created us:

For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
Psalms 139:13-16

It is a great thing to know that God had a purpose for your life and He was seeing your future even before you were born.

If you can fully understand the way that God is taking care of you, then you have a foundation to build your confidence that is solid enough to withstand the trials around you. There may be difficulties all around you, but you can go forward with confidence that God is able to carry you through. What better foundation can you have to build up your confidence?

Do you need a guide to help you understand how to cope with Stress in an all inclusive approach? Learn how to combat stress, mentally, physically, emotionally and strategically in your life.

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