El and Stress Related Illnesses

 

 

 

 

 

I woke up yesterday and today with the song, Your Name, by Phillips, Craig and Dean in my head. Just the chorus: "Your Name, is a strong and mighty tower. Your Name, is a shelter like no other. Your Name, let the nations sing it louder cause nothing has the power to save, but Your Name."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzviEHyIggI 

  

I can't seem to get past the second phrase of the Lord's Prayer - "May your name be made holy." And this mornings wanderings are taking me back to what that part of the prayer means in my life.

  

This has been a very tough year for me. I just took one of those life stress tests and came up with a score of 362. According to psychologists, a score of 300 or more means that there is a "high or very high risk of becoming ill in the near future."

 

The second name for God used in the Bible is simply El. I means "might, strength, power." I need El.

 

El told the apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9a) And Paul responded, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor. 12:9b-10)

 

I can make God's name holy by the way I handle my struggles. Will I be honest about my weakness? Will I talk about the struggle? Or will I hide behind a false piety, or muscle through it as though I can handle all that life throws at me on my own? Will I run to the "strong and mighty tower?" Will I rest in the "shelter like no other?"

 

If I choose to be honest about my weakness, the power of Christ will rest on me. I don't have to succumb to a stress related illness, no matter what the statistics say.

 

Today I will choose to "handle my stress" by living honestly in community with El and His people as we wander the straight crooked path together.