A Plan to Handle Any Problem Without Stressing
Jul 08, 2019
Wouldn’t it be great if you knew exactly what to do when you ran into difficulties in life and need a good idea? Wouldn’t that help eliminate stress? A problem would come but instead of worrying or becoming fearful about it, you would just turn to the things you knew to do and not be ruled by your emotions. Today, I’m sharing a plan for you to turn to when you are in need of a good idea of what to do.
- Stop and quiet yourself. Sounds simple but this is hard to do when you have been hurt, embarrassed or afraid, or when your mind is spinning fast trying to find a solution to your problem. When we approach problems with a boiling over mad or scared to death attitude, we’ll make bad decisions. We’ll want revenge, we’ll make short-sighted decisions, we’ll be ruled by emotions and limited by our
human knowledge of the situation.
- Go to God with the problem. Again sounds simple, but how many of us have thought about our problem from every angle and got advice from everyone we know before we think to go to God and see what He thinks about the matter? I know I did that for years mostly out of habit and because I had a problem-focused attitude instead of being answer-focused and God inside of me focused. I bet we all believe that God is with us and available to us, but how often do we actually practice it?
- Expect to be given the needed answer. Did you know that God is not trying to hide anything from you in life? He isn’t trying to see how much you can do on your own and see how little He can get involved. No, He wants you to succeed and He wants you to have wisdom.
I think one of the reasons I didn’t always immediately turn to God in the past was also because when I had turned to Him with a problem I often heard nothing and so I started to expect nothing. I wondered if I was being heard? Did He care? What I learned much later was that if I ask for wisdom, God will give it but it may not sound like Him and it may not be immediate. Which leads me to the next two points...
- Listen to your own spirit. If you have an active relationship with God, your spirit is communing with His Spirit. Your spirit is being taught and strengthened by His Spirit. Your spirit and His Spirit are one. So, often the idea comes but it sounds like it is your thought and so you discard it as just being you and thinking you still haven’t heard from God. Your intuition is your spirit and it can be trusted if you are in union with God.
- After asking for wisdom, assume you have it and move on. Many times as you go on with your day, God will bring the answer to you while you shower, while you drive, through a friend’s comment, through a preacher on a podcast or during a time of worship or a song on the radio. An idea may just pop into your head. Sitting and worrying about it won’t produce any results. Trying to force an answer won’t work. If you really believe that you got the answer when you asked even though you don’t know it yet, you won’t worry about it. Being relaxed and moving on allows the Spirit to flow and to bring the creative answer.
- Believe there is an answer to any and every problem. In Matthew 17 we find Jesus’ disciples unsuccessful at getting rid of a problem they had. They were trying to cast out a demon that was causing a child to have seizures and they asked God why they couldn’t do it. Verse 20 “Because you’re not yet taking God seriously,” said Jesus. “The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, ‘Move!’ and it would move. There is nothing you wouldn’t be able to tackle.”
So, that problem you’ve got that is causing you great stress, that seems so complicated, so hopeless, that feels like there is no good answer to it. Well, there is an answer for it and you can tackle it with God. Just take God seriously. Take these kingdom principles that God teaches us in His word and start reigning in life. Start moving mountains of problems.
Instead of tackling your problems in a reactionary mode and full of emotion, use this plan to respond to the problem letting your spirit dominate. When you start to follow this plan, your soul starts to experience freedom. It’s like getting released from a prison cell of hopelessness and overwhelm. Your Christian walk starts to become thrilling. You start to experience victory. You get a new outlook on life and a new sense of power.