When life gets busy it usually gets frustrating. That is how my life goes anyway. Between being the world’s greatest campus minister and the world’s greatest dad, life gets really tense. When it seems that you have finally established a routine and are able to handle things well, more little things pop up that you never saw coming.  In other words, life can be very stressful. Many times you have so much to do you don’t know where to start. Then when you finish you feel like you can’t enjoy the down time because there is the next thing waiting on you. When does it get to the point that you can just coast and not have worries? I think it is called death. We have to realize that while we are here on God’s great Earth, we are going to have strife. We are going to have days and even weeks where it seems life is just too much and we don’t have enough time to do anything and do it well. The big thing we must do in our lives is learn how to handle these stressors and find joy when they come. Here are a few things that might help you be able to smile and get through those days when it just seems impossible to do.

   • Learn how to relax. This doesn’t mean take thirty minutes in between your chores. This means take come substantial time and get away from the daily grind. We don’t give ourselves enough downtime. We live in a fast paced world that requires us to have a fast paced life. This is particularly true in the lives of ministers. We preach “rest and enjoyment” to our people but we don’t seem to know how to follow our own advice. There must be some regularly scheduled time in our calendars for downtime. If we don’t take care of ourselves we will not be able to minister to our folks and we want be able to enjoy our families. Find that activity or hobby that you enjoy and do it. It is ok to give yourself some ministry and enjoyment.
   • Learn how to manage your responsibilities. A huge factor in causing stress in our lives is poor planning. A word that comes to mind is procrastination. We cause a lot of stress in our lives because we put off what needs to be done. There is a word that seems to have been lost in our world today, self-discipline. No one wants to be held to task.  There must be some type of discipline in our lives. If it is not there then our lives get overwhelming. If there is no accountability for us we tend to just muddle through. All of us need to manage our lives better but few actually do it. This is a great tool for helping take some stress out of our lives.
   • Set reasonable goals. Another big reason for stress is unrealistic goals. We must learn who we are and what we are capable of doing. God made us individually but we are always trying to be like or live like someone else. There must be some reality in our lives. You don’t have to keep up with the Joneses. My dad told me a long time ago that God gave each of us different talents and abilities. What that means is some people are going to be able to do things a little easier than us and might even do some things we can’t. We can’t set our goals or ambitions on their strengths; we must set them on our strengths. This is even truer with ministers. If it works in their ministry, it will work in mine. If they can have that attendance, so can we. If they can go on that kind of mission trip, so can we. We put these unrealistic expectations on ourselves and then beat ourselves up when we don’t reach them. God doesn’t want us comparing our ministries; he wants us conducting our ministries. Set goals that you believe God wants for the ministry where He has called you.

God never told us we wouldn’t have stress or frustration. But he did promise that he would never leave us nor forsake us. He has given each of us the ability to do the ministry that he has called us to. We just need to receive that gift and do it. We make life stressful. If we follow these suggestions we can de-stress our lives. That doesn’t mean live stress free, but it can mean living less stressful.

Tracy Reed is the Collegiate Minister at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. He and his wife Candy and their son Nate live in Monticello,AR.