4 Things to Do at your Breaking Point
Stress is a part of ministry. If you don’t have any stress in your ministry, you’re probably not being very effective. You need a certain amount of stress in your life to accomplish anything.
Stress is what gives you the energy, the effort, and the ability to actually accomplish what God has called you to do.
Stress can be a problem for your ministry. When your so stress, you’re about to snap, it’s not good for your ministry.
The Bible gives four things you need to do when you’re so stressed to the breaking point.
Release your frustrations.
Stress can create all kinds of negative emotions – like anxiety, worry, fear, guilt, shame, and depression. And it can create other frustrations as well. What do pastors do with that frustration? Instead of taking it to God, we push it down deeper inside us. Then we pretend everything is okay. We’re the pastor. We can’t let anyone see that we’re vulnerable.
But is that really what God wants? Does He want you to be a phony? Of course not? God wants you to be real. God understands your emotions. He created you and gave you the ability to feel what you do. So, He wants you to express those emotions.
Psalm 62:8 “Pour your heart to Him for God is our refugee.”
God wants you to just lay it all out to Him. Whatever it is that you’re feeling, tell Him. Don’t repress your feelings of frustration-let them out.
Resist becoming Bitter
Bitterness is often a by-product of finding yourself stressed to the breaking point. You start thinking, “This stress is unfair. It shouldn’t be happening to me.”
You can prevent stress and hurt coming into your life – you can control your response to circumstances. At some point in your life, you have decided whether you’re going to become bitter or be happy. The sooner you make that choice, the better. You can’t have both.
We all know people who have it all and are unhappy. Obviously, happiness is not a matter of circumstances. Happiness is a choice.
Receive help from others.
It’s tempting to isolate yourself when you’re stressed out. But that’s the last thing you should do! When you’re at your breaking point, you need people in your life. You need people who will give you support, strength, and perspective.
Pastor, you need a support system. You may find that kind of support within your church family. You need to find some other pastors who can support you through stressful times.
And you need to set up a support system before a crisis hits. If you wait to find people. until a crisis hits to find people to walk through it with you, it’ll probably too late. One day, you will hit the wall. Count on it. In your life and in your ministry, you will hit the wall many times. And when that happens, you need to have people you can count on.
Refocus on Christ.
When you get overly stressed, your life gets out of focus. You start looking at your problem and stop look at Christ. And all you can see is your pain. That’s when you need to get your focus off yourself and on
That sounds good, but how do you it? You need to do these three things.
Read God’s Word. God’s Word is a great stress reliever. Go through your Bible and underline verses that mean a lot to you.
Remember God’s goodness.
Usually, when we are stressed, we’re focused on what’s wrong. And not only do we focused on the bad things in our life, but we exaggerate them. Those times are exactly when we need to focus on the goodness of God instead. God is good. You need to remember that when you’re stressed out.
Rely on God’s power.
Paul says in II Corinthians 1:9 “In fact, we expect to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely on only God instead, who raises the dead.”
If God can raise a dead person, He can raise a dead marriage, He can raise a dead ministry; He can raise anything. He can turn things around that you think are hopeless. In times of stress, remember you are in good hands with God.
God does about you and He cares about your ministry. Hang in there, release your frustrations, resist becoming bitter, release help from others, and refocus on Christ.
Your most effective ministry may well be ahead of you.
