Stress is delivered to our front door every morning. Turn on the television and you'll get a heaping dose of it. Watch people pass you by at the local store and you'll see it written all over their face. Whether it's the rush to get Christmas lists completed, losing a job, keeping up with daily activities or just trying to pack everything you can into the day, it seems we're all stressed up with no where to go!
I Timothy 1:7 says, "For God did not give us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." When you are stressed, you are filled with fear. This drains your emotional power to have peace in your circumstances (a sound mind). In I Peter 1:13, Peter urges us to "Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober...." When a Roman centurion would "gird up the loins", he would pull his robe up to his knees and be ready to run and defend. It made him quick and kept him from tripping on his robe. What Peter is talking about here is the importance of being spiritually mobile or agile in order to protect your weak areas. For many, this is our mind, especially when stress comes in our life. When we wrap our minds around God's truth in knowing He cares for us and will take care of our needs and has plans to "prosper and not harm you" (Jeremiah 29:11), we are able to defend our thoughts from the devil's schemes to bring discouragement and hopelessness.
Through the stressors of the Christmas season, set your mind on being "girded", ready to do battle so when the negativity comes, you know how to bring the One who is victorious into the arena of your mind instead of allowing your thoughts to be controlled by despair.
(Barbie will be signing books Saturday from 11am-1pm at the Indianola Pecan House in Indianola. If your area store has sold out of her books, you can find them at www.barbiebassett.com .)
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