There is a psalm people pray when they are most afraid.<\/p>\n
It gets read aloud at deathbeds and over caskets. It has comforted people for thousands of years. Psalm 23.<\/p>\n
We know it as a funeral psalm. But if you read it slowly, you discover something else: it's a manual for living without stress.<\/p>\n
Six short verses. And in them lies the answer to seven of the things that press us hardest.<\/p>\n
Over the next seven Tuesdays I'll take one verse at a time. We begin at the beginning.<\/p>\n
Most of us aren't worn down by the great catastrophes.<\/p>\n
We're worn down by the small things that never let up. The bill. The calendar. The feeling of never quite measuring up.<\/p>\n
It has a name. Worry. And it's the most common form of stress we have.<\/p>\n
There's also more to worry about than there used to be. Nobody lay awake over identity theft thirty years ago. Nobody panicked over a lost mobile phone.<\/p>\n
The world has grown more complicated, and with it the list of things we can fear has grown too.<\/p>\n
Behind nearly all worry lies the same question: Do I have enough? Will I get what I need, when I need it?<\/p>\n
David begins somewhere completely different:<\/p>\n
\"The Lord is my shepherd; he always provides for me.\" (Psalm 23:1)<\/p>\n
Notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say \"my boss.\" Not \"my spouse.\" Not \"my savings.\"<\/p>\n
It says the Lord.<\/p>\n
So much of our unrest comes from asking people for something only God can give.<\/p>\n
We put our security in a job, and then the job is gone. We put it in a marriage, and then we lose the other person. We put it in money, and there are plenty of ways to lose money.<\/p>\n
There isn't a single human being who can carry the weight of all your needs. They were never meant to.<\/p>\n
Paul says it with a logic that's hard to escape:<\/p>\n
\"God sacrificed his own Son for us! When he has given us so great a gift, will he not also give us everything else we need?\" (Romans 8:32)<\/p>\n
Sit with that one. If God gave you the most precious thing he had, do you really think he's holding back the rest?<\/p>\n
That's why the first step away from stress isn't a technique. It's worship.<\/p>\n
I move my eyes off everything I lack and onto him who provides for me. I stop waiting for people to fill a hole only God can fill.<\/p>\n
Try it this week. When the unrest shows up, stop and say it out loud: The Lord is my shepherd. I have what I need.<\/p>\n
Say it again. Not because the words are magic, but because they turn your gaze to the right place.<\/p>\n
Never set your security on something that can be taken from you. You can lose your job, your health, your reputation. But you cannot lose your relationship with Christ.<\/p>\n
Put your security there.<\/p>\n
What is it you usually ask people for, that you really ought to be asking God for?<\/p>\n
What stresses you most these days? Feel free to write in the comments.<\/p>\n
You have a shepherd. He doesn't sleep, and he doesn't forget you.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a psalm people pray when they are most afraid.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2885,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tirsdags-teologi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2919,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902\/revisions\/2919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}