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Finding Peace when Life Is Stressful

Finding Peace when Life Is Stressful

Do you ever get stressed, worried, tense, keyed-up?

In this world, we cannot avoid moments of stress because stressful events occur. When such events do occur, our bodies have an adaptive response to provide us quick energy and activate our body’s defenses (immune system) to protect us from injury or infection.

This quick reaction to a sudden stressful event is helpful when the stress is real (as opposed to imaginary) and when the problem causing the stress is resolved in a relatively short time.

However, many people today live in an almost continual state of mental stress. They are always worried, always on edge—feeling a sense of urgency as if in crisis mode all the time. This type of unremitting stress is quite damaging to our physical and mental health. The long-term activation of the body’s stress circuitry, with its continuously keyed-up immune system, causes chronic inflammation that damages insulin receptors, contributing to adult-onset diabetes mellitus, increased risk of heart attack and stroke, mood disorders (such as depression), and Alzheimer’s dementia. Additionally, such chronic stress interferes with normal neuronal signaling, causing fatigue, malaise, concentration problems, sleep disturbance, and unhealthy alterations in appetite.

Chronic unremitting stress is unhealthy, but regardless of life’s stressors, there are practical actions you can take to enhance your resilience, reduce stress, calm the body’s systems down, and promote healthier body and mind. Here are some general principles and actions that will help better manage and reduce your stress response:

  • Healthy lifestyle — eat a plant-based or Mediterranean diet, get regular exercise, and sleep eight hours each night (for adults). Good stress management starts with a good physical health foundation, so taking care of the body’s basic physiological needs is the first place to start.
  • Healthy spirituality — develop a trust relationship with a trustworthy God of love. Many people believe in God but have views of God that actually incite fear—this is unhealthy! Neuroscience shows that only the belief in a benevolent God is healthy and reduces our fear and stress. Remember, the Bible says that “perfect love casts out all fear.” If we have views of God that do not reduce or take away our fear, but instead incite it, something is wrong with our view of God. Trusting in a God of love who is our Creator leads to our next principle.
  • Understand reality — embrace design law, learning how reality actually functions, and choose to live in harmony with the laws upon which God built life to operate. Know what your responsibilities are (and what isn’t your responsibility) and choose to fulfill them while trusting God with how things turn out. Finally, give others the freedom to have their own ideas, perspectives, beliefs, including their attitudes toward you. In other words, give people freedom not to like you as long as you are living in harmony with God’s will for your life.
  • Be truthful — don’t deny your life’s problems but address them in the largest context possible; i.e., in a trust relationship with God, allowing for possibilities beyond your current understanding.
  • Get mental rest—God prescribed one day in seven to rest the mind and spirit in a love relationship with Him. Don’t neglect this restoration time!
  • Organize life — establish routines and structure such that most of life’s responsibilities are not new problems to be solved each day but merely duties to be done routinely; e.g., Tuesday is bathroom cleaning day, Friday is laundry, Monday is vacuuming, etc. Making certain things routine will keep your life from piling up stress.
  • Set boundaries — learn how to say no in a firm from respectful manner.
  • Live a little — schedule recreation time, hobbies, and other interests for enjoyment into your regular routine.
  • Avoid toxins — alcohol, drugs, and destructive behaviors designed to alter mood transiently (pornography, impulsive shopping, gambling, excessive gaming, etc.) actually damage and destroy, increase guilt and shame, which increase stress.
  • Build healthy relationships — connect with mature people, join healthy groups, and become involved in helping others.
  • Seek professional help — a trained counselor or psychiatrist can help you manage overwhelming moments and offer specific strategies for dealing with crises.

Life is filled with stressful events. We cannot control what happens around us, but we do have control over the decisions we make in governance of ourselves. It is our responsibility to decide how we will respond to life’s many stressors. I encourage you to make healthy choices in harmony with God’s design for life and then trust God with how things turn out.

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Testimony 54

I had a lot of pressure, as a pastor’s kid, to conform and be “good.” I was good at being “good.” I thought my life was going along well until it all started falling apart and I could not figure out why! In my search for “why is this happening to me, God?” I came across your book, “Could it be this Simple,” and God started revealing to me the many distortions I held about His character, His principles, and how He has designed His universe to operate. I remember thinking, “Wow, I have had this all backwards.” I was happy and angry all at the same time. Happy to have the light of truth break through the darkness, revealing a wonderful, beautiful way of understanding God and His plan for His children, and angry, because I felt deceived and cheated by the church, my family, and myself!

My heart thrills when I listen to your bible study lessons. Literally I have gone from death to life. It is a journey I look forward to every day, as God reveals areas this distortion affects. Praise GOD! I will ever be grateful to God for this ministry and your cooperation with the Spirit!

Karen S., Portal, AZ, USA

 

Testimony 12

I have been really blessed reading your response to the various questions on your site.

K.C., OH, USA

 

Testimony 5

We listen to your bible studies lessons in our class in Montana. You actually were the main reason I decided to get a laptop, so I can go to your site and listen, read, learn, and print the class notes. I am so grateful to learn the correct view of God and his character. Now, to just have others have an interest in knowing, so I can share it with them. Good thoughts your way.

R. N., MT, USA

 

Testimony 2

I continue to enjoy your lessons every week. The more that I research your conclusions, the more I am convinced that the Holy Spirit has lead you to distill out the essence of human redemption. Thank you for your courageous stand for the truth.

S. G., TX, USA

 

Testimony 43

Two years ago I stumbled upon your book, “Could It Be This Simple,” and then found “The God-Shaped Brain” videos on YouTube, your bible study class, and the ‘Come And Reason’ mobile app. I shared your book with a friend and after nine months of showing love, patience, and kindness this person has been changed by the love of God, too. The same love that healed me, I now express to other women in tangible ways, such as to a Baptist woman with high anxiety and childhood trauma. She was extremely happy and relieved when I shared about the so-called “judgment of God” and burning in hell. She had no desire to serve a God that was so harsh. I have repeated the phrase dozens of times to her. “What we believe has power over us, but we have power over what we believe…”

This message that you are sharing has changed my life. I will continue to serve other women and bring this message of God’s healing love to their lives by sharing your books, YouTube videos, and The Remedy Bible app. Keep up the good work. Don’t be discouraged. God is doing a mighty work in and through this ministry!

Jill L., Midwest, USA

 

Testimony 22

I have found your Bible study class lectures to be very inspiring and useful as I prepare to teach class every other week. I subscribe to the podcast and download your notes on the weeks I teach. The audio and notes are such a great help in preparing. My own understanding of God’s character has grown as I teach the class. Commendations on the thought-provoking and well-prepared material Come and Reason provides. Personally, I get excited by the tie you make between the spiritual and mental/physical domains.

A.A. Corrales, NM, USA

 

Testimony 58

I have been watching your videos in The Power of Love seminar and I must say these have liberated me and have improved my relationship with the Lord. I am no longer terrified of him as I was before following your teachings.

Thando N., South Africa

 

Testimony 44

We were given a gift of the DVD set, “God and Your Brain,” and we just finished watching it. The truths in this are so powerful and truly an answer to a prayer. We’re seeing hope where once we thought God wasn’t answering our prayers to be free of certain mindsets. He answered with these DVDs and we are hungry for more. Thank you!

Daniel T., Easley, SC, USA

 

Testimony 51

I Love This Ministry!!!!!!! I see first hand how this message is desperately needed, how erroneous beliefs about God and His Character negatively affect humanity at every level. I thank God for your ministry, as I was searching on my own and was discovering some of your same beliefs and was blown away when I found your ministry. I know you hear it all the time, but it is truly life changing. May God continue to reveal His Will to you and Bless you!

Eric S., Sanford, FL, USA

 

Testimony 56

I cannot thank you enough for opening my understanding to the beautiful truth of God’s Law of Love and how it applies to everything. I have been a Christian for over forty years, but I feel like I am only now seeing with my eyes open. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!

Tammy Cinzio, Australia

 

Testimony 37

Hearing Dr. Jennings’ presentations in person came at a pivotal moment in my spiritual journey that began about nine months ago, when the fault lines inherent in my belief system began to crack under questions that most reasonable people end up asking about God and His nature. These were questions I couldn’t find answers to, and they shook my faith. I was unable let it go any longer and be satisfied. My Christian experience became distant. I was afraid; the fear in me rose like thorns, pushing me away from Jesus. And then someone heard my questions and introduced me to this ministry, and my life has totally changed.

I can tell you that this new, “present truth” message is far grander and life-changing than when I shifted from being an agnostic and then a nominal Christian. It has radically altered my worldview, because it reveals a God that makes sense. It is a revolution. I believe that Dr. Jennings’ message is the final message that must go to the world. If any message could be called “righteousness by faith,” as abused as that term is by the right and the left, this is that message, because Jennings’ biblical message identifies a God who is different, whose character isn’t an impossible contradiction.

I walk this path now without fear. I see people differently, and the Holy Spirit burns in my heart. Many call Dr. Jennings’ message false and compromising, but it isn’t false, because I’ve seen the fruits within my mind and body. It is not compromising, because in this message is the only road to holiness that makes any sense. No longer do I behold a pagan god who is always angry and suspicious. Instead, I behold a God who is freeing and loving, always working for our good, and giving me every reason to love my enemy even to my own death, just as Jesus pleads with us. God is good.

Anthony L., CA, USA

 

Testimony 25

I just want to say thank you so much for your conversations via YouTube. I regularly tune in to your lectures, “Let’s Talk” sessions, and many others. Through these I’ve found greater depth and meaning to God’s word. Thanks for all that you do and please continue. I’m currently working in the middle of Silicon Valley at Stanford University. I feel like God really has me in the right place right now and I’m sensing that your teachings might be part of it.

B. F., Silicon Valley, CA, USA

 

Testimony 23

I would just like to add my voice to the many people who, I believe, must have contacted you to express their appreciation for the “Healing the Mind” DVDs. I’ve been listening to your Bible study class discussions for many years and I’ve been personally blessed by your research and teaching about the character of God.

L. G., Oakland, MI, USA

 

Testimony 38

Since November 2015, when I started studying Gods word from this God Is Love point of view, my life has been transformed. My troubled marriage of 15 years has been healed and my husband and I are truly happy for the first time in 15 years. Now When I read the word of God I understand it so much better and I can’t help but see Gods love radiating through the pages to humanity. Gods word is living and active and I am blessed beyond measure to be having this amazing experience. God has given me a beautiful understanding of Jn 3:16 that amazes me more and more each day. Thank you again for your ministry.

Helen D., London, England

 

Testimony 36

Thank you and may God continue to bless you as you share with others the intricacies of how we are all “fearfully and wonderfully made”. I must share that you have opened a whole new world to me, and I have found tremendous healing through what you have shared in two of your books, “Could It Be This Simple?” and “The God Shaped Brain.” I praise God for what you shared, what I have learned, and how I have grown and healed! My prayer is that My Precious Jesus will be seen by others in the way I live, act, talk, etc. and they may be encouraged to know He is truly a GREAT God of LOVE, desiring that no one should perish! God Bless you in your continued endeavors to present Him as He really is!

Joleen H. GA, USA