Bust Through the Obstacles to Stress-Free Living

Warning: If you want to keep your anxiety and stay in your depression or if you just want some sympathy this video is not for you.  But if you want to bust through the obstacles to stress-free living, here are 4 tips on how to do it. 

I’m about to say something that won’t be too popular.  But I say it out of total love and a desire to see people bust through stress instead of getting stuck in it.  I also say it as a person who understands stress, worry and fear consuming your life. And I say it as a person who found my way out to freedom and want to help you too. 

Okay, here goes...Some people are stuck in their life of anxiety, depression and stress because they see the obstacles in their life and they just lie down and say, “They are too big.  They are too tough. They’ve been around so long. There’s nothing I can do about it. They must be part of God’s plan or He wouldn’t have allowed it. This is just the way life is while we are here on earth.”  

If you want to bust the stress in your life.  You are going to have to get stronger than that.  If you want more than sympathy, if you want real answers of how to get out of anxiety and depression, you’ll need to be able to stand up to the obstacles or the troubles of life and win. 

Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”  The Passion Translation says, “I find that the strength of Christ’s explosive power infuses me to conquer every difficulty.”  Or you could say, “master all things.”

Because God’s word is alive and active, there is power in those words of Scripture - actual power - that you can use to remove any obstacle.  Feel that explosive power infusing you, running through your veins, right now.

The first step to busting through the obstacle is to stand up to it.  Stand up to the thing giving you stress.  Don’t complain about it but attack it. You’ll find that it is like many bullies.  Once you stand up to them, they back right down.

I had a person that I worked with once that everyone else seemed a little scared of and said things like, “You never know what kind of mood she is going to be in.  You might not want to go ask her a question today. She might bite your head off.” Well, for the most part, this person was a wonderful person. When she got stressed though she didn’t handle it very well and yes, she might start swearing or getting angry.  But as soon as I stood up to her and let her know that I would not tolerate that as other people did, she never did it with me again.  Your obstacle is much like that.

1 Peter 5:8-9 “Be sober and watchful, because your adversary the devil walks around as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  Resist him firmly in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” These verses remind us that faith is aggressive.  We aren’t supposed to roll over and play dead when an obstacle to stress-free living comes against us. Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. If you put enough pressure back on the obstacle with the Word of God, it will finally give.  Something has to break and it won’t be you.  

The second step is to talk to yourself.  Give yourself good coaching advice all the time.  Tell yourself that you don’t believe in defeat as a child of the Most High God.  You refuse to give in to the stress. Try telling yourself the verse I gave earlier several times a day, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”  Then tack on “I believe that” to the end. You will grow in power in your mind where the real battle is fought as you do this. 

Someone once told their coach, “But you don’t know my circumstances.  I am in a different situation than anybody else and I am as far down as a human being can get.”  Their coach responded, “In that case, you are fortunate, for if you are as far down as you can get there is no further down you can go!  There is only one direction you can take from this position, and that is up. So your situation is quite encouraging. However, I caution you not to take the attitude that you are in a situation in which nobody has ever been before.  There is no such situation.” We saw that comment backed up by the Scripture we read earlier in 1 Peter also, “knowing that the same afflictions are experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” 

The third step is to build your faith.  Faith is your staying power. It is the power to stick with the pressure on the obstacle until it crumbles. How do you build your faith?  By hearing the Word of God.  Romans 10:17 “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”

This is the suffering we do for Jesus. We labor to enter into His rest through faith. It’s hard work to stay with it all the time.  It's hard to keep the pressure on the obstacle instead of it pressuring us.  Unlike some people teach, we don’t suffer for Jesus with physical afflictions or poverty. So, don’t take those stresses sitting down. Get up and bust through them in the power that God makes available to you in Christ.

The fourth and final step we’ll cover today is to eliminate the defeatist mind attitude by removing negativity from your speech.  Try to find something positive to say about everything and everyone. Retraining your mind to be possibility and answer focused instead of problem and defeat focused will cause your brain juices to flow.  They won’t be met with resistance and this will deliver power because this is the way you were created to respond.

I’m on a mission to help Christians to know that stress is not something we have to put up with until Heaven.  It’s not God’s will for our lives. We are to be reigning in life and spreading the fame of God’s goodness all around the world.  And Just laying down and taking the stress, feeling sorry for ourselves, isn’t going to do it.  

If you found this article helpful, do me a favor please and share it on social media or tag someone that you know needs this information.