Over the next 7 days, I will be posting seven growth areas for me in 2009.  These aren’t resolutions, they are areas I seriously need to grow in…jump and help me make it happen!

I have never really felt like a stressed person…until this year.  Right now, I am on two blood pressure meds and an anti-anxiety med.  I turned 30 in February and ever since, I have felt the stress.  I used to be great under pressure.  In college, I would procrastinate like a champ and come out the other side unfazed, or so I thought.  Now I am beginning to wonder if all that crunching and pressing and squeezing has left me with longterm issues.  Like I have become a bottle of your favorite soda rolling around in floor of your car.  Eventually, the pressure just became too much?

Now, everything stresses me out.  Worrying about the upcoming weekend services and all that entails.  Worrying about whether my wife made it safely to work.  My kids behavior.  EVERYTHING STRESSES ME OUT.

I know its not PC to say that the reason for my stress is lack of faith, but I think maybe its true.  I have had some time to mull this over and I have drifted.  I have had a rollercoaster of a 2008.  Honestly, I can’t wait for it to be over.  I had massive ministry stress 2/3 of ’08 and then made a huge shift into a church planter.  I love where my ministry is heading right now.  I am excited about the potential for 2009, but it is stressful to have that level stress and then make that shift.  I have been stressing about my health because for some strange reason my doctor can’t figure out what is wrong with me…huh, I wonder why?  In the process of planting a church and buying a house and dealing with health, I have set aside the level of intimacy with God that I KNOW I NEED.  Worry has almost become my idol.

So, in 2009, I am dedicating myself to letting my stress go and exchanging it for a deeper relationship with Christ.  I know He is big enough to handle my worries.  I just have to release the strangle-hold I have on the details of my life to His eternally capable hands.

How do you deal with stress?  Are you like me?  Have you let stress and worry become a god in your life?