Coping with Pressure

We met last night as part of our learn to lead course to look at the issue of coping with pressure and we began by doing a self analysis using a well being survey. It is a helpful self examination tool:
a. How is your relationship with God right now?


b. What have you read in the Bible in the past week? What has God said to you through it?


c. Where do you find yourself resisting God?


d. What specific things are you praying for in regard to yourself?


e. What general reading are you doing?


f. How are you doing with your spouse? Children?


g. Are there any unresolved conflicts in your relationships at the moment?


h. What are your fears/worries?


i. What have you done to play/relax?

Back and tired

Just back from a youth weekend which was great fun if very cold and tiring. How they managed to stay up until 4 in the morning on two consecutive nights I'll never know! Perhaps it's just a sign that I am getting old after all that I was in bed long before they were.

It was a good weekend which raised all sorts of issues that this group felt under pressure about. But fundamentally it raised one issue, though it was present only under the surface - is God good? That may seem like an odd question but it was in the context of why does God give us guidelines about who to date, whether to use drugs or alcohol etc...

It is a world of pressure for those who are trying to stand up for their faith in school or college. Ultimately it is an issue of whether what God says is for our good. Is it because God has my best interests at heart that the Bible says don't date someone who doesn't share your faith? Is it because God is good and loves me and wants what is best for me that the Bible says don't get drunk? And what about the drugs issue, the Bible doesn't clearly say don't, so what does it say?

It struck me that we assume young people will pick up on these things without maybe teaching them so explicitly, or we teach them as divorced from the character of God and they seem like arbitrary rules without the over arching reasons why God says. So the danger is that the question becomes why shouldn't I?

So why does God say date a Christian? Because you can grow together, because you can spur one another on, because it saves you from heartache, because you will be able to share everything. Because ultimately God loves you and he wants you to know what is best and to know him better.

The drink and drugs issues need to be taught in a similar framework? With the why not just what the Bible says.

It was a great weekend and a real encouragement to see young people wrestling with these issues and wanting to live godly lives among their friends.

Pressure

We live in a world full of pressure. Adverts present us with the perfect couples, immaculately dressed and beautiful, yet also with perfectly presented and behaved children complete with colgate smiles. They both have successful careers, fun hobbies, strong family ties and close friendships. Oh yes and both drive fantastic washed and polished cars and live in immaculate houses.

How do we ever attain that? It is a subtle pressure to strive to be more like them, to have the same things, to live the same lifestyle. That is one source of pressure, one set of messages that we are bombarded with day by day.

When our lives don't measure up to the ideal the consequence is guilt or a sense of failure; oh no my children are missing out, shouldn't I be able to do this and that too! There must be something wrong with me I just can't cope. Just look at so and so...

Who puts that pressure on us? The reality is that I do, I put that pressure on myself. I want to be seen as successful, I want to measure up, I want others to think I am coping, no more than that, that I am thriving. That's so often what mitigates against us stepping off the treadmill.

But the remedy to that is that gospel, that tells me I am valued because I am in the image of God and he gave his Son to save me. It tells me that I can never reach God's standard so he sent his son to do it for me and then credits me with the perfect life, whilst he willingly pays for my failure.

Such love frees me from the expectations of the world around me. If God accepts me I am truly accepted. If God loves me I am truly loved. If God promises me a future I have a future worth looking forward too.

Often my problem is that I am too wedded to this world and its definition of success and the future it sets before me. In his book Mere Christianity CS Lewis wrote this; “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”

This world is the hotel room, the new creation will be home, I need to re-orientate my life to live in the light of that reality.