I think I'm Having Stress~~~~~ Time to Apply

Along with all the other difficulties stress creates another hard part of it is dealing with it when it’s caused or created by someone else’s behavior. For example, the spouse of an alcoholic, gambler, drug addict, or controller daily their lives can be filled with all sorts of stress. We can either use those situations as excuses to engage in our own bad behavior or stepping stones to a better behavior on our part.

Just because the spouse is sleeping off their beer on the couch or down gambling the family’s money away doesn’t give the spouse the right to do wrong themselves. In these situations this is exactly what it can make you feel like. “Well if they can do it, I might as well too.” As much as that makes sense in our minds it’s not the way it works in God’s eyes.

These moments are thorns in our flesh that like to dig in deeper and deeper but we need to use these times as a classroom for ourselves to learn what we need to learn. God uses our thorns to teach us what we need to learn, to humble us, to show us what faith, trust, and patience is all about.

Therefore we need to get rid of our desire for revenge or our want for pity and pay attention to our teacher Jesus Christ and what He has to say to us. Not all lessons have to be learnt in the school of hard-knocks, many can come straight from God’s word if we would only take the time to study it and apply it to our daily living. Indeed a good technique and great preparation for future thorns and lessons that may be taught in a much harsher way.