We know it’s not smart to “sweat the small stuff” but does that mean it’s OK to sweat the big stuff? The truth is that I shouldn’t sweat anything. Well, maybe it is alright for me to sweat being obedient, sweat moving my body members according to a growing picture of God’s principles in action.

Logically there should be no difference between tough tasks and easy tasks. If I am standing doing the dishes and singing, I am using the same body parts as standing singing to a thousand people at a church meeting.

What makes the one situation sweat me more than the other?

• It is if I take responsibility for more than standing, singing, and waving my hands about.
• If I take responsibility for doing things so perfectly that others listen, understand, and choose God.

Sweating that changes small stuff into stressful “big stuff.”

If only I was a logical being!

But there is hope. God would not command me to “Let this mind be in you which was in Jesus, [the one who is named LOGOS ( the beginning and end of all reasoning)]” if he did not stand ready to give me his logic.

Abnormal Health

If I want to figure out what a healthy, positive, godly approach would look like I simply have to ask, “How do I normally mess up this situation? What do I normally see, feel think and do?” I then figure out what the opposite would look like and ask for grace to do the opposite! Should be simple, huh? Yet I am so often too proud to look at how I naturally mess it up.

So, how do I normally sweat the small stuff and thereby burn up my energy and squander the neurotransmitters God has placed in my brain? The neurotransmitters I need to handle stress?

I ask myself which of the following two responses would use up more calming serotonin in my brain:

A. Yes, Lord,

1. I see the trial and I recall to mind that you have helped me deal with many similar issues before.
2. Thanks for placing this challenge in my life but I will need your grace and help while doing my part.
3. Help me remember that my part is always do-able with you and that I have you in me.
4. You will never allow me to be tried so severely that I would have no way to avoid sin. I do not fear discomfort or even dysfunction but Lord, keep me from sin.
5. I realize that everyone struggles, everyone in a victim, and my situation is not specially horrible. The devil intends it for evil but you intend it for good.
6. The results are all yours, and I know enough about you to trust you in the things that I can’t understand.
7. Help me keep in mind all the wonderful things that will still be true no matter how this situation turns out, at the least (and what a least!), I will live forever with Jesus as his beloved bride whom he has cleansed and presented to himself as pure undefiled and without blemish.

B. Oh My God! I could try but there is no point. I couldn’t do enough to make a difference. I’d probably just screw it up. I’d need others to help and no one cares. Ater all, it’s just one problem after another and then we are all going to die!

OK you get the point, choice A makes more sense, but I so often choose choice B.

Some things I do to sweat the small stuff are:

1. Fail to carry a grateful memory of all the things God and I have already faced.
2. Fail to ask for help from those God has gifted me with, because I don’t want to be a burden. Or I ask for help and then beat myself up for asking.
3. Focus on more than obedience, on more than moving my body members. Worry about doing it perfectly or getting perfect results, on getting others’ approval etc. Attach my worth to the outcome.
4. Forget the unlosable good things God has given me.
5. Think that circling round and round on the problem will find solutions and protect me.
6. Imagine all the possible problems that could arise out of this situation in the future.
7. Imagine how others would handle this situation better than I can and beat myself up for my relative incompetence.

Let’s get back to choice A and practice saying and meaning it.