Day 123: Don't Wear Yourself Out

Today’s message ironically is about taking it easy, slowing it down, stopping for a moment and taking a breath. As I am currently in the midst of finals and being an RA at the end of the year, so that means preparing myself and a whole floor of college students to move out. Getting plane tickets and storages. Trying to sleep, which I have not do much of the past two days, in the last 48 hour I’ve slept for 8 of them. It is hard for me to sit down at the moment, everything is so crazy, trying to make sure I stay on top of everything as much as possible. With all this going on I find myself falling apart, losing it.

Genesis 2:2-3

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work.

Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Mark 2:27

Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Exodus 34:21

"You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest, you shall rest.

John 4:3-6

So he left Judea and returned to Galilee. He had to go through Samaria on the way. Eventually, he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime.

Mark 4:38

Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?"

Sometimes we can get so caught in everything we are doing and things we need to do that we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. We forget that sometimes we have to give ourselves a little TLC. There is nothing wrong with sitting down and resting, especially after a lot of hard work.

Our generation gets a lot of slack for being lazy but when it is time to work we are probably the hardest workers in the room. Sometimes we can work a little too hard, and overwork ourselves, and we don’t want to do that. We have to take care of the body God has given we cannot run it into the ground. We have to recuperate and rest when it’s needed.

I’ll take myself for an example, beware I am about to talk a lot about acting so bear with me for a minute. I’ve had times in classes where teachers have made me sit out because I have tried to work when I was sitting or hurt. For those of you who are performers or in the theater you know how hard the craft can be on our bodies. Today I was in stage combat class, I hadn’t eaten all day, it’s five in the evening and my knees have been bothering me the whole day. As I go to start the fight, I raised my sword, lost my balance and fell. From that point on my knees were hurting even worse. In the meantime, I had a paper due by six so I was taking every little break I could to get it finished. My partner asked me if I was okay, not wanting to stop the fight because our big test is coming up, I pushed through it. Eventually, I had to keep stopping because my knee was throbbing. At one point I stopped the fight and just hopped on one leg because I could not take the pain. That is when I decided to sit down. When I tried to get up and do the fight again my teacher would not allow me to out of fear that I would hurt myself more. I wanted to keep going because I did not want to miss out on any practice. It was good for me to sit down and not do anything because if not I would have hurt myself and not be able to take the test coming up.

All this to say, Know your limits. I know we all want to be limitless and superhuman, but our bodies can only take so much. Listen to your body when it’s telling you to stop or rest, most times it’s right.

Take a look at the above scriptures, God rested after creating for six days. The Sabbath is known as the day of rest, the scripture commands the people not to do anything on those days but rest. Jesus rested when He was tired and slept. Jesus was on that boat getting some rest when the disciples were freaking out about the storm.

Take a break when you can, even if it five minutes take the time to check in with yourself and make sure you are okay, Your physical health is just as important as your spiritual health. We have to stay healthy and not run ourselves to the ground.

Reflection/ Prayer Time

Just take a moment to check in with yourself, ask God to help you recognize when you are overworking yourself and rest. Take the time to rest, your physical body.

I love you I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Share this with someone and make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 124!

Day 80: Push Yourself

1 Samuel 30:6

And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.

Sometimes in life, there will be no one there to push us forward, there will be no one there to hold us accountable, or pick us up. It is in these moments that we must learn to strengthen ourselves in the Lord. We must learn to push ourselves, we must learn to hold ourselves accountable.

When I was a youth pastor I would always talk to some of the youth department and they would say something like, “When I want to sin, I just picture your face, or I just talk to you about it.” My response would always be, what about when I’m not there, one day I won’t be able to pick up the phone, what then? I wanted them to learn to depend on God more than me. I wanted them to be able to push themselves, and pray for themselves when no one else was there to do it for them. I did not want to be a crutch to them.

-Dyamond

As we grow in Christ we must make sure that we are dependent solely upon God, so that we do not have to run to anyone to get in contact with Him. Our pastor’s and peers are great, but sometimes we are going to be alone, sometimes they won’t pick up that phone. We have to push ourselves even when we are distressed like David, we have to pray for ourselves. I love that the Scripture says, David strengthened himself in the Lord. We don’t just find that strength on our own. We learn to go to God ourself for ourselves and get an overflow of His strength. Whenever we need it, we know that we can turn to God. No one can do for us what God can. We have the opportunity to have a relationship with God and be intimate with Him same as the next person. We just have to know that we are capable of praying for and pushing ourselves. It doesn’t make us selfish or prideful, it means that we trust and depend on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Philippians 3:12

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.

We also have to push ourselves when we are tired when we are ready to give up, when it’s too painful when everything is telling us to quit. We have to push ourselves. If we want that blessing, if we want that life of eternity with Christ, we must push ourselves to keep going even when we think we can’t take it anymore.

It’s like working out, when we workout we are working towards those summer beach bodies, and we have to push through the pain of the workout if we ever want to get our bodies summer ready. That means we have to run an extra mile even when we’re out of breath, do twenty more crunches when our abs are burning, do a few more chin ups when our arms feel like they can't lift anymore. It hurts, we’re breathing heavy, doing whatever we can to ease the pain, but we still feel it. We even feel it a couple of days after. But we keep going to the gym, we keep running, we keep lifting, because we want that body. We have a goal in mind, and we can’t stop until we reach it.

It’s the same when we are pressing towards the goal of perfection, when we are pushing towards whatever it is God has for us. There will be some pain, there will be reasons to quit, but God is bigger. Our faith is bigger than our weakness. Our faith in God surpasses our pain. We have our eye on a greater prize, and with that in mind. WE CANNOT STOP! We have to push, we can’t quit we have to keep going. Even when those muscles are sore from yesterday’s workout, keep going.  Because when all's said and done, all the pain, the heartache, and the tears and sweat will be worth it. It’s like spiritual fitness.

Reflection/Prayer Time

Know that you have the ability to encourage yourself, you have to push yourself when no one else is around. Find your strength in the Lord and keep moving forward. Talk to God about whatever is on your heart today ask Him to strengthen you, look to God first.

I love you, I hope you have an amazing day and start to your week. Share this with someone and make sure you come back tomorrow for day 81!

Day 55: Toxic Waste

As we grow up one of the thing we start to learn how to do is be responsible and take care of ourselves. At one point of that growing up process we will realize that taking care of ourselves is more than just paying bills, putting food on our table, and providing for ourselves. It is so much more than being independent. In our twenties we are going through so many changes, our mindsets change, our bodies start to change, a lot of things go through changes. We have to make sure we stop and take care of ourselves, weed out anything that is harming us and be happy people. We know how to pay bills and work, today we are going to explore what it means to focus on ourselves for a bit and taking out the toxic waste in our life. The things that are poisoning us,: spiritually, emotionally and/or mentally, and physically.

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things

We must learn to focus on the positive things. It’s so easy to focus on everything going wrong and sometimes it seems to outweigh the good. But trust me when I say that there is always something to thank God for. We cannot dwell on the things that are screwed up about life, or we will fall into a black hole of sadness, or depression. Life is better than what we perceive it to be sometimes. We  just have to realize that we are not our issues, we are not our struggles, we are not our bad days, we are not our depression. We are children of God, we must set our mind on the things above and trust that God is bigger than the fears, and anxieties. He is greater than it all.

It starts with us

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

A lot of times when we think about detoxing our lives and getting rid of all the things that are not good for us, we start outside of ourselves. We start eliminating people and things out of our lives that are surface issues, not realizing that it is so much deeper. Did we ever think that maybe we’re the problem? We’re the ones wreaking havoc on our own lives. We have to start with ourselves and work from the inside out, or things will never change. We must realize the flaws within ourselves first. A lot of times we are harboring things in our hearts, holding onto pain. hidden sin, unforgiveness. This is toxic to our spiritual health.  We cannot have a real relationship with God if we are harboring all this baggage that keeps us from getting close to Him. Whatever it is we must let it go. Holding on to all this is not doing anything but hurting us, poisoning our spirit. The more we hold on  the worse it gets.

We must take care of our spiritual body as well, if not more, as we take care of our physical body.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?

Do you think God will dwell in a place that is unclean? If our temple is cluttered with everything that is not of God, and our own mess, is there any room for the true living God? In order to live a righteous life, we must focus on our spiritual wellness and take care of our soul. We must feed it so that it will grow.  Our spirits thrive off of prayer and scripture.

Prayer is essential to having a relationship with God. It is our direct line to Him. prayer is how we communicate with our Heavenly father. We have no relationship without communication. The same way we put in work to make our earthly relationships work is the same amount of time and effort we should be putting in when it comes to our relationship with God.

One the other hand, God gave us this physical body and we must take care of it. A lot of times I feel like many Christians are under the impression that taking care of ourselves physically, i.e. working out and eating healthy is not necessary, because it isn’t about the looks. Taking care of our body isn’t about having a nice six pack or looking good and having glowing skin (Daniel 1:12-15), that’s just a perk(It is okay for Christians to be attractive). It is about taking care of this vessel God has blessed us with and not abusing it. He has given us this body to live in and we only get one so we better take care of it.  

Sometimes we just have to let go

John 8:32

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free

We will come to times in our live when we will realize that the situation we are in is hazardous to our spiritual, mental, and emotional health. We will realize that certain people are not good for us. We will need to remove ourselves from the situation if we want to continue to grow in our spiritual lives, and life in general. Our eyes have been opened and God has revealed the truth, now what are we going to do with it? This is the hard part, letting go of the things that we love, even though we know they are not good for us. This can be anything from friends to relationships or bad habits. We tend to hold on to the things in which we are emotionally invested, even if it’s tearing our souls apart. Once we know the truth it’s very hard to ignore, so what will we do with it?

Once we get ourselves in line with God and get rid of all the things within us that is poisoning our spirits; we will no longer stand for anything or anyone else outside of us causing us harm.

Reflection/Prayer Time

Take the time to reflect on what was talked about today. Which subject spoke to you the most? Respond to God, talk to Him about what resonated with you. And ask Him to remove the toxic waste out of your life. Talk to Him especially about the things you struggle with in secret, confess to HIm all those hidden sins, knowing that He will not judge you. Be an open book with God today, allow him to remove any and everything that is stopping you from growing in you faith.

I love you, I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 56!