We can greatly reduce the level of stress in our lives if we’ll learn how to let go of certain burdens.
I understand that come circumstances can’t be turned off like a light switch. If you’re struggling with chronic arthritis, you can’t simply tell your joints to stop whining but instead you learn to manage it through therapy, medication and outright determination.
But some of the stress we face in life can be dismissed if we’ll determine that as a goal for improving our sense of well-being.
One of those disposable stress factors is the antagonizing behavior toward you shown by somebody in your corner of the world.
We’ve all faced such and some of you are dealing now with such irritants.
Perhaps it is a jealous co-worker or a control-freak sibling. Perhaps it is a neighbor who doesn’t believe in leash laws when his dog’s need to “go outside” involves your front lawn.
Perhaps it is an ex-spouse who views “payback” toward you as an emotional paycheck.
Whatever the case, please pray for the spiritual and emotional strength to just let the frustration and wounding go.
It won’t help you to stuff all that stress into a closet of your heart and think the festering garbage won’t start rotting.
Deposit it, instead, at the cross.
All the time that you might spend thinking about how to retaliate or even simply how to set them straight is time not spent thinking about how to serve the Lord by serving the many, many other people in your life.
The cost of playing on the antagonist’s turf is far too high.
Ignore the invitation to the spitting match. For even if you win that match, will that lead to a better life? Or a more bitter antagonist?
Solomon wrote these words recorded in today’s reading of the One-Year Bible:
“Stone is heavy and sand a burden, but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both.” (Proverbs 27:3).
Why is the provocation of a fool heavier that a large bucket of rocks or sand? Because with the bucket, once you’ve carried it from here to there, you’re done with it. You get on with your life without stressing your body.
But the emotionally cancerous antagonism of a fool just keeps eating on you and weighing down your spirit, step after step, hour after hour, day after day.
That is, unless you decide to let it go.
Jesus excelled at not picking up the buckets of provocation tossed at Him. And He remained fruitful and loving as a result.
Let’s do the same.
As always, I love you
Martin
