God, I Can’t Handle this Stress!

“Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart.” - Isaiah 7:4

I heard about a man who had recently retired. But his “golden years” weren’t very golden. He was having chest pains, and his blood pressure was through the roof. After prescribing some medications, the doctor asked to speak with the man’s wife. Once the husband left the room, the doctor told her that her husband’s stress level was way too high, and he would be dead in six months if she didn’t help lower his stress at home. The doctor recommended that she cook his favorite meals every day, do all the housework and give him back rubs before bed. On the drive home, the husband asked his wife what the doctor said. She responded, “He said you’re going to die!”

That husband had a lot of stress in his life. But I’m sure his stress levels would pale compared to the stress we’ve been dealing with over the past five months. During the COVID pandemic, our stress level has gone WAY up. Just for a simple trip to the grocery store, we have to make sure we don’t forget our face mask. We search for a cart that’s been sanitized in the past five minutes. We try not to pass strangers too closely in the aisles. We keep our distance from others in the check-out lines. And when family and friends get sick, it’s even worse. Recently it’s been taking upward of 10 days to get the results back on a COVID test, and that 10-day wait can feel like an eternity.

Meanwhile, when we turn on the news, it sounds like our nation is falling apart. Businesses and courthouses are being looted and burned. Police officers and federal agents are being assaulted. And because it’s an election year, our politicians are at each others’ throats. All that to say: This is a very stressful time in which to live. And many of us feel like shouting out: “God, I can’t handle this stress!”

Back in 735 BC, King Ahaz was pretty stressed out, too. This was when the nation of Israel was split in two: the kingdom of Israel to the north, and the kingdom of Judah to the south. Judah was led by King Ahaz, who didn’t fear God or obey His commands. His M.O. was to do whatever he felt like doing without giving a thought to what God thought about it. That seemed to work out all right in the early part of his reign, when times were good. But when a crisis hit, his stress level went through the roof.

King Pekah, the leader of Northern Israel, had teamed up with King Rezin of Aram to conquer Jerusalem. Rezin and Pekah couldn’t break through the city walls—but they were starting to break the people’s spirit. King Ahaz and the citizens of Jerusalem were worried and scared, and they were starting to buckle under the stress of it all. Their hearts “were shaken as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind” (v. 2). But then God spoke to Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah, giving him four commands that God echoes to each of His followers who feel stressed: “Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood” (v4).

When you’re stressed out, remember the four commands of God contained in that great verse:

1. Be careful. When we’re stressed, it’s easy for our minds to wander into dangerous territory.  Be careful!  When we’re stressed, it’s tempting to say, “What the heck!” and do stupid stuff that we normally would never do. Getting stoned … driving recklessly … having an affair … maxing out our credit cards. You see, STRESS and STUPID are kissing cousins. When you’re stressed, you’re more likely to be stupid. And when you’re stupid, it will make your bad situation even worse. It will end up giving you even more to stress out about.

2. “Keep calm.” Take some deep breaths. Go on a nice, long walk. Pet a dog or cat. Spend some meaningful time in prayer. One of the most effective ways to calm down is to meditate on the things of God. Some Christians say, “I don’t know how to meditate.” Yes, you do! If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. Think about it: Worrying is basically just focusing for a long time on your problems. Christian meditation is just focusing for a long time on your blessings. The difference between worry and meditation is a matter of focus.

3. “Don’t be afraid.” This is the most repeated command of God in the Bible. Before Joshua led the people of Israel into the Promised Land, God told him, “Do not be afraid.” Before the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, God told them, “Do not be afraid.” Before the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus, God told her, “Do not be afraid.” God says to you today, “I know this situation you’re in is scary. I know it feels overwhelming. But I have called you to walk by faith and not by sight. So, I need you to trust Me. I’ve got this. Do not be afraid.” 

4. “Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood.” In Ahaz’s mind, those two armies were like a raging inferno. But God told him that Rezin and Pekah were like charred pieces of wood after the fire has already passed by. They might be sending up a little smoke, but they were no real threat. In the same way, God says to you, “Trust Me. It may seem that your problems are about to overpower you and crush you, but I’m actually about to whittle them down to size. Your problems’ best days are behind them, but your best days are still up ahead.”

There’s no doubt that 2020 has been a stress-filled year. But you and I don’t have to be stressed out. God will give you His peace and strength if you will fix your eyes on Jesus and do these 4 things: Be careful, Keep calm. Don’t be afraid, and do not lose heart.

Dane Davis is the Pastor of Impact Christian Church. Please join us for our live outdoor worship service Sundays at 9 a.m. at 17746 George Blvd. in Victorville. Or, join us online at 10 a.m. on our YouTube channel (Impact Christian Church) or on Facebook.

A Couple of Fish Stories

“Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.

But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” - Luke 5:5

The story goes that when President Grover Cleveland’s second child was born, no scales could be found to weigh the baby. Finally, someone went down to the cellar and found the scales that President Cleveland used to weigh the fish he caught on his trips. And to everyone’s surprise, Grover Cleveland was the father of a 25-pound baby.

Evidently, President Cleveland liked to rig his scales a little bit in order to make his fishing stories more exciting. But Jesus never had that problem, as we discover in the fifth chapter of Luke.

Jesus had boarded Simon Peter’s fishing boat in order to teach a crowd that was filling the beach. This allowed more room for families to spread out across the shoreline, and the offshore breeze and slope of the beach would make the acoustics really good. Jesus asked Simon to “put out a little from the shore,” and Simon obeyed, dropping anchor a few yards from the growing crowd. After Jesus finished teaching from his improvised pulpit, he gave Simon Peter one more simple command: “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). Simon Peter responded, “Master, we’ve worded hard all night and haven’t caught anything” (vs. 5a).

From what I’ve read, it was common for Galilean fishermen to fish at night, when the fish tended to come up from the depths and swim closer to the surface, making them easier to catch in the fishermen’s nets. But Simon and his buddies had fished all night long, and they hadn’t caught bupkis. Undoubtedly they were frustrated and exhausted. So, when Jesus told the weary fishermen to try one more time, that was definitely NOT what Simon Peter wanted to hear. He must have been thinking, “Jesus, with all due respect, you’re a carpenter and I’m a fisherman. If the fish weren’t biting during the cool of the night, they’re certainly not going to be biting during the heat of the morning. And you want us to sail all the way out to deep water? Do you realize that’s, like, a mile away?”

But before Simon Peter said all that, something changed. He probably realized it was best not to argue with Jesus as he added, “But because you say so, I will let down the nets” (vs. 5b). You know what happened next, right? “They caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink” (vs. 6-7).

To say that Simon Peter was blown away would be an understatement. He fell to his knees and cried, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (vs. 8). There on his own fishing boat, holding his own fishing nets, Simon Peter experienced a small taste of the power and glory of Jesus Christ. He felt like a sinful wretch, unworthy to be in the presence of his holy Lord and Savior. But Jesus wasn’t about to “go away.” Instead, he said, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men” (vs. 10). And with that, Simon Peter, Andrew and his fishing partners James and John began to follow Jesus full-time. Not a bad day’s fishing, wouldn’t you say?

There are two important lessons we can learn from this life-changing fishing trip:

1) Regardless of how tired, hungry or uninspired we feel, we must obey Christ’s commands … because Jesus said so. Simon Peter’s tired body didn’t WANT to trust and obey Jesus. His tired body didn’t FEEL like trusting and obeying Jesus. But he chose to trust and obey him anyway. Why? Because Jesus said so! So often, we as Christians make Christianity so complicated. We pick and choose when to obey Christ’s commands and when to disobey them. And when we do obey them, we often don’t obey them completely. Or we procrastinate and don’t obey them until later. But in reality, Christianity is not complicated. It’s quite simple. Following Christ boils down to three simple steps: Trust him. Love him. Obey him.

2) Good intentions and hard work are not enough. Only Jesus can make an otherwise ineffective life productive. Never forget that Peter was the professional fisherman, not Jesus. Peter was the man with all the right equipment—the right kind of boat, the right kind of nets, the right kind of sinkers and floats—not Jesus. Peter had all the necessary training and experience—not Jesus. But before Jesus got involved, Simon Peter’s wonderful equipment and expertise and training got him a whole lot of nothing.

The same goes for you and me. At times in life we may have all the right stuff: the right kind of clothes, the right kind of car, the right kind of home, the right kind of job, the right kind of relationships. Then we step back, look at it all, and realize we’re going nowhere fast. We’re hitting a wall, and what’s worked in the past no longer works. We need something else, and that “something” else is “someone” else. That someone is Jesus. Good intentions and hard work are not enough. Only Jesus can make an otherwise ineffective life productive.

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information,

visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com and join us for church Sundays at 10 a.m.

Two Impossible Messages

“For nothing is impossible with God.”

- Luke 1:17

About a year after our first daughter was born, my wife took a pregnancy test and shared the good news: Our second baby was on the way. We were pretty excited. She set up an appointment with her ob-gyn, and he scheduled her for an ultrasound. It was incredible seeing the images of the tiny little baby inside my wife’s womb.

Several weeks passed and when we went in for a follow-up ultrasound, something looked a bit odd. It looked like the baby hadn’t grown since the last ultrasound. The doctor called us into his office and broke the news: The baby wasn’t alive. We were devastated, and we prayed for a miracle. But over the next week as further tests were run, the results were the same: The baby hadn’t made it. And I remember thinking: I wonder if we’ll ever be able to have another baby. At the time, I sure thought the answer was “No!”

Within the next six years, three more beautiful daughters came along, one by one, to prove me wrong. But at the time it sure felt like our baby bearing days were over. We were experiencing a small taste of what Zechariah and Elizabeth had been experiencing for many years … until Zechariah received some startling news in Luke 1.

Elizabeth, you may recall, was cousin to Mary, who would give birth to Jesus. But that comes later. At the beginning of Luke, all Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah knew was that they had prayed year after year to have a child, and year after year Elizabeth remained barren. We’re not told how old they were in Luke 1, but it’s likely that Zechariah and Elizabeth were in their 60s. Perhaps it had been 10 years since they had stopped praying for a child.

So, imagine Zechariah’s response when the angel Gabriel appeared to him in the temple and said, “Your prayer has been heard.” Gabriel told Zechariah that he would have a son who would be a source of joy for his family and for many people in Israel. He would lead many people back to God and pave the way for the Lord’s coming, turning the hearts of fathers to their children and the disobedient to righteousness. What an amazing message to receive from one of God’s most famous angels!

But how did Zechariah respond? In verse 18, he said, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” Or, to translate: “Gabriel, I’m not so sure I believe you. You’ll need to prove it to me. Otherwise, I’m not buying it.” Um … not such a great response. It was the most amazing day in Zechariah’s life: He was in the temple serving the Lord, he was having a conversation with one of God’s greatest angels, he was being told that the prayer he had prayed for decades was finally being answered—and he didn’t believe it. He doubted the goodness and power of God. And since Zechariah responded with unbelief, God chose to discipline him by temporarily taking away his ability to speak. 

Compare that to Mary’s reaction when she had a face-to-face meeting a few months later with that very same angel. In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God dispatched Gabriel to deliver another very important message, this time to a teenage girl in the hills of Nazareth: “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” (Luke 1:31-32a).

Understandably, young Mary was blown away. And at first glance, her response to the angel seems very similar to Zechariah’s. She asked, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (v. 34). But although Mary’s reply sounds similar, it was actually very different. Zechariah said, “How can I be sure of this?” In other words: “I don’t really believe you.”  But Mary said, “How will this be?” In other words, “I believe you. But could you explain to me how God is going to pull this off with me being a virgin and all?” Zechariah’s response was a response of unbelief. Mary’s response was a response of faith.

Remember: Faith is a DECISION, not a FEELING. I imagine that when Gabriel delivered his messages to Zechariah and Mary, they both FELT confused; they both FELT overwhelmed; they both FELT unprepared to handle what God had in store for them. But there was a big difference in how these two handled these feelings. Zechariah allowed his uncomfortable feelings to overrule his faith in God’s goodness and power. But inside Mary’s mind and heart, faith ruled. Mary clung to her faith in God’s goodness and power despite her swirling, confused feelings.

Two very different responses to God’s good news from two different servants of God. One allowed his feelings to rule his faith. The other made a decision that her faith would rule her feelings. When God brings you some good news, which will rule your response: your feelings or your faith? I hope that, like Mary, you will make a decision to trust in the Lord’s power and goodness.

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information,

visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com  and join us for worship Sundays at 10 a.m.