Today's devotional reading for: Beside The Still Waters“He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters.” — Psalm 23:2 What is the pace of your life these days? Do you feel as if you speed from one event to the next with barely enough time to catch your breath? Or do you regularly allow yourself time to rest and rejuvenate, to ponder life’s mysteries, to reconnect with God? These days, our lives run at almost terrifying speeds. With the advent of the automobile, then the airplane, and later the jet plane—not to mention the telephone, computer, and many other technological discoveries—life races along like a motion picture played at ten times its normal speed. Our mobility has offered us great opportunities, but it has also cost us dearly. One-third of Americans move every year. People change jobs frequently. Because of our pick-up-andmove mentality, we lack the roots our parents and grandparents once had. We pay for our busy ways in our relationships, and we pay for them physically as well. Stress takes a major toll on our bodies. Today, over one million people die each year from stress-related illnesses such as heart attacks, some forms of cancer, and a multitude of other diseases. Did you know that stress destroys the walls of your arteries? Once the walls begin to deteriorate, your body must respond. So what does it do? It lays down plaque inside the arteries. The plaque builds up until it finally blocks the arteries, and once that happens, you’re in for a stroke. All this talk about the effects of stress can add even more stress to our lives. But the Bible has a time-honored solution to all this. God’s Word calls us to stillness. In Psalm 23 David wrote that God leads us “beside the still waters.” In this hectic, frantic, busy, noisy world, we need to find a calm, quiet place to spend time alone with the Lord. Studies have shown that a regular time of prayer or meditation does, perhaps more than anything else, remove stress and its effects. God wants to lead you beside still waters today. Will you let Him take you there? I urge you drop your responsibilities at God’s feet, come away to a quiet place, and just be still and know that He is God. To overcome stress:
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