Distressed or De-stressed?

My oldest daughter has been on a mission trip for the past month to Greece and this morning left for her next assignment in France. She had to catch an early morning flight from Athens so she got everything ready the night before. She grabbed her bags, left her key to the apartment on the desk, locked the door behind her and headed downstairs to meet her ride. Except her ride was late – 15 minutes, 30 minutes, she started making phone calls, knocking on the door, downloading a taxi app. Here mom and I started reaching out to everyone we could think of through Messenger, Skype, texting, carrier pigeon… 45 minutes late and no word.

Now mind you it is the middle of the night in Greece and everyone is fast asleep. We were all becoming increasingly concerned that she is going to miss her flight. With each passing minute and every failed attempt to contact someone the stress level was swelling. So with our daughter on speaker phone the three of us stopped to pray. I reminded my girl, my wife and myself that God was in control when we weren’t and that the worst case scenario, missing her flight, wasn’t really that big of a deal. We could buy another ticket for later today or tomorrow for less than a hundred bucks. That brought everything into perspective and we were able to collectively exhale. We shot out a quick message to our friends asking them to join us in prayer.

Within a minute or two the phone rang, my friend in Greece was making calls and her ride was 5 minutes away. We started checking travel times, boarding times and when the gate closed and she had JUST enough time to make her flight. Then we checked the flight. Wouldn’t you know that it was delayed by about 30 minutes and she had plenty of time?

God is in control of all things, well almost all things.

See he has given us control of our own perspective and that makes all the difference in the world. We can’t always control what is happening around us but we can control whether we react or respond. In the chaos of life we have the choice to become distressed or de-stressed.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” – Jeremiah 17:9 NIV

Sometimes things don’t go according to our plan, but rest assured they always go according to God’s.

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” – Philippians 4:12-13 NIV