Why Believers Must Exchange Stress for His Rest

We all have issues. It’s just a fact of life.

And when the issues we are concerned about are beyond our control, we tend to worry and stress over them. Then, we do irrational things, such as eating everything unhealthy in our homes or running to the nearest fast food restaurant to get something even more unhealthy.

In addition to whatever mental and emotional stress we feel regarding the “mini-crisis” in our world, we now have just added physical stress to our bodies in terms of additional pounds.

Why don’t we just give ourselves a break?

Why do we keep obsessing over things we can’t fix?

What if we just made it our goal to put stress to rest?

We can do this by intentionally handing the issues causing us to stress to God and trusting Him enough to take care of them in His time and His way.

What’s Your Problem?

Many times, though, we don’t even realize the root of our stress. We just automatically turn to food to try to soothe us whenever the feeling of overwhelm hits. We use food to mask our stress. And though it may numb us for while, we need more and more to forget about our problems again. We have a learned behavior, and we’ve taught it to ourselves way too well.

For many years, I thought my weight caused me most of my stress. However, I learned that my weight was simply the byproduct of my stress—not the other way around. I would stress over some problem, and then I would eat to try to make the stress go away. Excessive and emotional eating caused weight gain, but the real issue wasn’t the eating. The real issue was that I was trying to fix every problem that came into my line of sight.

This makes us feel like we are going crazy because we weren’t created to handle every single problem that we see in the world, in our friends’ lives, in our family’s lives and even in our own life. We have to stop the insanity of trying to control everything.

If we can just stop and clear our minds, we can see that everything happening to us right now is attributing to our stress because we are living in a state of chronic stress. As a result, everything looks and feels stressful, even good things. I know I’ve been there.

To learn more about how Teresa Shields Parker started to identify and overcome stress God’s way, read the rest of this article at teresashieldsparker.com. Also be sure to listen to Putting Stress to Rest on Sweet Grace for Your Journey on the Charisma Podcast Network. {eoa}

Teresa Shields Parker is the author of six books and two study guides, including her No. 1 bestseller, Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds. Her sixth book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds, is live on Amazon. She blogs at teresashieldsparker.com. She is also a Christian weight loss coach (check out her coaching group at Overcomers Academy) and speaker. Don’t miss her podcast, Sweet Grace for Your Journey, available on CPN.

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