Slip, Trip and Fall
Slip, Trip and Fall
“When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; And when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.”
Proverbs 4:12
Ever have one of those days where “stuff” just piles up on top? Stuff is synonymous with stress. Some of the stuff is stressful and some not. But mostly stressful on this day.
Either way, it just compounds and compounds. Today was one of those days. Stub a toe and shout out a curse word, anger flips like a coin and you wonder what in the world is going on. The slippery serpent uses many devices against us as we grow closer to the Lord. The slightest slip turns into a trip which eventually leads to a fall.
Before we get into today, here’s a little bit about the title. A long time ago I spent my first career in big box retail, of the brick and mortar kind. I was a Risk Protection Manager for one retailer and I assessed risk for the company I worked for. This risk included employee and customer accidents that occurred in the store among the many other types.
One type of accident that was categorized were slips, trips and falls. These were mostly customer or “guest” accidents and happened more frequently than any of the other types. These accidents cost companies millions of dollars in liability.
I feel like today I slipped, tripped and fell - a bunch.
Planning a trip out of town can be good, and it can also produce stress, both good and bad. When things go well the stress is good. When it doesn’t, you get the idea.
Today things happened one after the other, which caused stress of all kinds, mostly of the bad kind.
And let’s just say, my responses during each of those stressful events was not very Christ-like.
I’m not proud when I don’t respond well. And as I watch my behavior deteriorate, I’m amazed at the spiritual growth I see in my wife.
My elevated stress brings about her balanced calm. Where we could easily fuel each other in these stressful times, she brings a reminder of what God is doing in our lives and she is a mirror of His grace.
It’s easy to question God’s Will when stress abounds. It’s during these moments when we can show great strength or great weakness.
A lot of accidents that used to occur in the retail environment were preventable, one-hundred percent of the time. We’ve become such a reactive society today. We react to events instead of being proactive. It’s so much easier to respond, it’s the lazy approach and takes less work. Instead of developing tools to fight the battle, we use the tools to respond to the fight.
Our stress and our response to stress can be the same way. We respond to the devil only after he has taken advantage of our slips and falls. After the damage has already been done we focus on the cleanup instead of looking at how to prevent it the next time.
We spend more effort and time on figuring out what happened instead of looking at the why you prevent future occurrences.
We need to put the tools in place before the devil strikes. This is where I’m still growing.
Not only does our relationship with God need to be strong, the relationship with other Christians in our life needs to be just as strong. These relationships are so crucial for our success against the devil. They are our prayer warriors, our iron against iron and our sharpening stones.
We cannot solely rely on what we are doing, we have to look at who is in our lives and rely on them as well for their help.
We don’t need to carry the weight of stress on our own backs when others are willing to help. Build your resources from prayer, reading your Bible and your relationship with other believers for your fight against the devil.
“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
John 14:21
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding.”
Proverbs 3:5
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
Romans 5:1-2