Too proud to accept it?

But as for me, I will sing about your power. Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress. (Psalm 59:16)

Where do you turn when you are in distress? Do you veg out in front of the TV, streaming this or that in the hopes you can take your mind off whatever is causing all the stress? Do you head to the fridge or scour the cupboards to find another snack? Do you go online to buy one more thing you really won't use all that much? What we do in our times of stress and where it is we turn when we need to 'destress' is very important for us to recognize. It could show us just how much we depend upon what 'we' can do rather than what God wants to do.

Things will always be there that give us great pain, anxiety, or sorrow. It is part of life to deal with this kind of stuff. The acute physical or mental anguish the stressful thing causes isn't meant to be dealt with on our own, though. When we are attempting to deal with it all on our own, we are likely to find our 'fix' for the stress is not quite hitting the mark. We might even get to the place where we feel more guilty about having done whatever it is we did to 'destress' than we felt the anguish of the original stress!

Stress is 'natural', but we have been given supernatural strength to overcome it. When we turn to Jesus at the first notice of the distressing thing, we might just find the physical or mental anguish we 'could' experience is already made lighter because he is taking that load off of our minds and hearts and placing it in his. The more we learn to turn to him first, the less guilt and anxiety we will feel over our not so perfect 'fixes' to the stress because we won't be heaping guilt upon guilt on top of all that stress.

Have you ever refused a helping hand? I have, and it wasn't because I didn't need it. It was because I was too proud to accept it. When God reaches out to you in your 'distress', he is asking you to take his hand so he can help you get through it easier. Will the stressful stuff still be there for us to 'go through'? Probably, but we 'go through' together, not alone. We 'go through' in his strength and power, not ours. Just sayin!