Facebook is Stressing Me Out!

     OK, I admit that I used that title to get you to read my blog today, but the truth is that all the changes that have been made to FaceBook have made a LOT of people mad.  I think I know why.

     A wise old Command Sergeant Major once told me, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  What he was expressing was the feeling that most of us have:  Change is hard. I taught stress management for many years.  As a part of the training I provided the participants something called the the Social Readjustment Rating Scale.  This little test measured the amount of change -- both good and bad -- a person had experienced over the last 12 months.  I was teaching this before the age of the internet (read- old guy) so, of course, I handed out a piece of paper.  Now you can take an on-line version of this test.  I found it here.  I would encourage you to take a couple of minutes to take this test...then come back and finish reading my blog.  I will just stand over here and wait for you...    hmmmmmm mmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmm.
   
     What did you discover?  Ah! That explains the way you have been behaving lately.  You are STRESSED.

     So now I am sure you are thinking, "Thanks alot Pastor Dave, now I have one more thing to worry about on top of all the stinking changes FaceBook made."

    Well, I leaarned a long time ago that you don't present a problem unless you can offer a solution.  So here is my solution:

Philippians 4.  Yep that is it.  Philippians 4 is the Apostle Paul's solution to stress.  Here I picked out a few of my favorite verses from that chapter.  I offer them to you from "The Message":

Verses 6&7:  ^6-7Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. 

Here are a few more:  ^10-14I'm glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you're again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don't have a sense of needing anything personally. I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. 

Still want more?   Then here is some advice from Pamela Pettler, The Joy of Stress: It's called.... 

"The Stress Diet"

Breakfast

1/2 grapefruit

1 piece of whole wheat toast

8 oz. skim milk

Lunch

4 oz. lean broiled chicken

1 cup steamed zucchini

1 Oreo cookie

Herbal tea

Mid-afternoon snack

Rest of the package of Oreo cookies

1 qt. rocky road ice cream

1 jar hot fudge

Dinner

2 loaves garlic bread

large mushroom and pepperoni pizza

large pitcher of root beer

3 Milky Ways

Entire frozen cheesecake, eaten directly from the freezer.

I promise after a couple of days of this diet you will completely forget about FaceBook.