With God, We Will Grow Older And Better

Society is filled with television programs, articles, and advertisements telling us how to stay young, lose weight, and be more desirable.

I think sometimes new is equated with better. Maybe that's why the divorce rate is so high. A marriage bound by beauty only lasts as long as the beauty.

If I can just get a new husband things would be better. New things are often used to buy happiness. If I had a new house, or a new body, then I would be happy. New things can't make us happy. Why? Because the new soon becomes old.

Thankfully, God offers us better hope than this. With God, we will grow older and better. Despite the emphasis modern culture places on youth, a person whose self-esteem and self-identity are rooted in a relationship with God is a person who can age with dignity and grace. If we invite God's spirit to live in us, then our spirit will be made brand-new every day.

You're not old unless you get wrinkles in your heart!

Blessings,

Dalinda

Stress Is Dangerous

Stress is dangerous, very dangerous! 

Stress is everywhere. We stress about our finances, we stress over our jobs or potential jobs, we stress over our to-do lists, we even stress over the little things like our internet connection and speeds. 

The thing about stress is that we never react as well to it as we would like. It affects our emotions, our physical health, our pride, our self-possession, and even our self image. Stress attacks our body, mind, and even our soul! Of all the detrimental things that stress does in our lives, the worst is how it affects our relationship to God. 

Stress drives a wedge into our walk with God, first by eating our time that we spend with Him. It takes more of our thought and concentration to deal with stress and we suddenly have less time to spend in prayer and study. Secondly it throws doubt into our minds. “Does God really have everything under control? I don't see anything getting better”. Finally stress tends to drive us to more self-concentration and preservation. We just have to take care of this one issue. We take control back into our own hands and away from God who can see the big picture. Once we have that control back it is even more difficult to give it back to God again.

God tells us to give Him all our burdens, all our worries, all our cares. Let Him deal with everything. He is more than capable, and more than prepared to deal with anything that can stress us. And though sometimes it seems that He is taking His time or not dealing with it, when we look back we can always see His guiding hands working through the problem, and always differently than we would expect Him to.

Blessings,

Dalinda