Stress affects us all in various ways. Many stressful events are beyond our control. However, we can set ourselves up for failure or success by the way we habitually think and act. Here are a few common vices that tend to poison our mind: criticism, complaining, and worry. Harboring these vices weakens our family, church, and society. By eliminating these traits, our emotional intelligence improves and so does our temporal and eternal success.
When Claudia was returning home after a missionary trip to the Philipines, her trip home seemed to have gone terribly wrong. Yet, God showed He was working through the difficulties that arose. Part one here.
"Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ: but they had heard only, that he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God in me," Galatians 1:20-24.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines stress as “bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium.” In any language, 'stress' carries a negative connotation linked to negative experiences like losing a job or a loved one, or your car breaking down in traffic. But did you know that stress can also have positive effects?
"But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus," Galatians 1:15-17.