The Plumb Line

Stress. There have been so many books written on the topic you could literally fill a library—Amazon offers more than 32,000 books on the sore subject!

There are Christian books, secular self-help books, stress-reduction workbooks—even a Stress Management for Dummies book—all written by the “experts” from just about every angle under the sun.

I’ve read enough of those 32,000-plus books on stress to tell you about what anxiety does to the body. I know the common stress reduction techniques 10 ways from Sunday. I’ve taught on stress from the pulpit. I can parrot the Scriptures we’re supposed to confess when stress comes knocking on our doors. I get it.

And guess what? I still get stressed out some days.

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”—1 Peter 5:6-7

We’ve tried as we might to humble ourselves by responding the right way when folks treat us the wrong way—but if we’re honest we’ll admit that it hasn’t always worked. Indeed, we’ve often left the scene of the offense with a bad attitude, complaining to God about how Sister So and So got it all wrong.

We’ve tried as we might to cast our cares upon the Lord—but if we’re honest we’ll admit that we’ve often attempted the task in our own strength. Indeed, we’ve often cast our cares (or our complaints, in many cases) onto a friend instead of the Lord and walked away still trying to carry the oppressive bundle on our already-aching backs.

What’s the problem? Sometimes we take Scriptures out of context. In doing so we lose the fuller meaning. First Peter 5:6-7 offers a strong case in point. Here, the apostle is exhorting us to humble ourselves. But that exhortation comes with a practical how-to instruction that we often forget to employ because we have memorized verse 6 as an individual command and verse 7 as a separate individual command. But the reality is that we humble ourselves in this context by casting our cares on the Lord.

It’s time for the Davids to arise with prophetic warfare strategies that bring God’s will to the land. That’s what rings in my spirit as I continue my news coverage about the crisis in Egypt from a natural and biblical perspective.

A recent article called for the prophets in the land to step forth and questioned why prophets in Egypt were so silent in such a critical hour. There could be any number of reasons why we’re not hearing much from prophets in Egypt. Maybe they are crying out in travail even now. Maybe fear has gripped their hearts. Or maybe their prophetic utterances just aren’t making it beyond the borders of the nation. 

Whatever the case may be, I believe we should take the crisis in Egypt as a wake-up call. I believe God is more apt to speak to the prophets in the land who are actively praying for their nation in good times and bad. I believe in patriotic prophets who will stand in the gap for their nation and speak forth a prophetic word boldly whether it’s popular or not.