I was surfing around reading about stress the other day and stumbled into a study from NASA–that’s right, the people that specialize in hurtling stuff into space and spend a whole lot of tax dollars doing it.

The study was interesting enough. It said that a daily routine is a primary source of stress in most people’s lives. Deadlines, traffic, last-minute sermon preperations (I added that last one)–they all take a toll on you, but because they are so common in life, you don’t notice their cumultive effect.

It’s like using a credit card but never paying it off. You use it to buy whatever you want and don’t think about the long-term effect. The same with stress–things happen every day that drain you, but you have to press through and just keep going. There’s never enough time to really deal with it, so you just move on.

Each month, you pay the minimum balance and don’t even think about all the interest building up. With stress, everybody has a way to cope or vent to get by–whether it’s sitting in front of the TV for hours on end or getting frustrated for no reason. This can go on for months and you can try to “managing” things, but when your account dries up, it all catches up with you and things can get much worse. This is burnout can happen and people ask, “Why do I even bother with all this youth ministry stuff?”

Being in youth ministry only intensifies the whole process, especially if you’re part time and hold down another job. With so many expectations from some many different people in the church, it’s unbelieveably easy to experience a little bit of stress every few minutes, every day. And it all builds up.

That’s why it’s so important to have a regular habit of slowing down to focus on the Lord. If He is truely our source of strength, like we always pray about and sing about, then we need to take that time to plug in and charge up. I like working out at the gym, but when I get out of the habit (which happens more often then I’d like), I can tell. The same happens in our relationship with God, but this time it affects every area of our lives.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7, NLT).

Lord, I pray that we would all experience Your peace as we give You all our needs and stress and thank You for all the incredible things You have done. You’re worth everything we have to give, plus so much more. May Your name be lifted high in our lives and in our students. In Jesus name, amen.

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