stress on Renewal

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding ways to rest and relax as part of a healthy, balanced life: I once read a book in which the author sa...

If you walk into a woods and select a ten-foot sapling, you can bend that sapling over, let it go, and it will return to its normal height and straightness. However, if you bend it again, this time a ...

We are hyperliving, skimming along on the surface of life.

Everyone: Holy God, we live our lives struggling in our own burdens and failing to trust You with all the things that hold us down. Leader: Your Scripture says, "Come to Me all you who are wear...

All: Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the...

In the story of grace, the lack of hurry makes room for presence.

Although the stresses and burdens of pastoral ministry have been highlighted for some time, recent research and surveys have revealed that the majority of pastors are significantly happy, satisfied, o...

A man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using it and tiring it: but the tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened not merely by rest, but by using other parts… Man...

What is happening to us, we who are the ministers of Jesus Christ? Many of us are professionally, spiritually and financially depressed. The figures produced by studies only serve to quantify what we ...

Too many Christians are broken in a destructive way—so badly broken that they cannot carry out the great commandment of loving God and neighbor. Their inner turmoil prevents them from carrying out God...

When we find worth by our affluence, it promises rest but brings stress, increasing demands, and a greater devotion to a god that will never love us and always forsake us.

Sabbath begins in rest. The Jewish people practice Shabbat sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. It begins and ends in the dark, where rest (not hustle) is the first word.

Make a point of watching quality documentaries: a study by the BBC and the University of California, Berkeley, found that viewing nature programmes increased feelings of awe, amusement and joy while r...

My whole life is a movie. It’s just that there are no dissolves. I have to live every agonizing moment of it. My life needs editing.

We need the interruption of the night To ease attention off when overtight, To break out logic in too long a flight, And ask us if our premises are right.

“Relax, none of us are getting out of here alive.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a best-selling statistician, argues that it is not even mere resilience we need, but what he calls antifragility . He groups things into three categories. First, fragile...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Philippian Joy During Division and Persecution For an in-depth description of the context of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, see last...

In his highly book, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding balance, even as life seems to pull us in different directions: Overextending yourself is stretching your physic...

Would you like a no-stress life? A wise person would not accept that option, no matter how tempting it might sound. A stress-free life would be fatal. If we do not have change, challenge, and novelty ...

There is an optimum level of tension which we require in order to perform well. When stress exceeds that level, exhaustion and burnout are the result.

Unless we can discover ways of staying afloat amidst the surging torrents of information, we may end up drowning in them.

I love going back to the States but was really struck by the fast pace that was everywhere. The lifestyle is slow and relaxing here in Africa. America is years ahead on progress and also years ahead o...

Fear and restlessness kill more than do illnesses.

A Christian's freedom from anxiety is not due to some guaranteed freedom from trouble, but to the folly of worry and especially to the confidence that God is our Father, that even permitted suffer...

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.

According to a December 2014 article in The Economist, there is a “distinct correlation between privilege and pressure.” We may earn more money, but we can never earn more time. And because we’re work...

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

The objects of the present life fill the human eye with a false magnification because of their immediacy.

The truth is that it’s what we say to ourselves [the self-talk of our thought life] in response to any particular situation that mainly determines our mood and feelings.