“If I’m sleepless at midnight, I spend the hours in grateful reflection. Because you’ve always stood up for me, I’m free to run and play.” Psalm 63.6,7
Being wound up during the day is a common state of being. Without conscious reasons, I approach life with an intensity that does not automatically release itself. As I look around, I see people live with their selves as tightly wound as I am. The spillover of the positive energy this approach brings to life comes in the night. Your mind is buzzing with an ongoing fight between getting the critical issues of the day resolved and exhaustion.
David appears to have the answer to several questions I keep asking myself. Why do I so urgently attack the challenges of life? What is my ongoing motivation? What is the focus of my daily charge?
I am confident that I am not alone. People ask me why they work hard. The quest for life meaning appears universal. The challenge of facing office politics overwhelms the strongest person. The contemporary mind often ignores or separates God. Does God have a role to play?
David’s psalms start with a premise that God is the center. God, in addition to his role, defines the true game and is the motivation because everything we do. In my experience, this is the key to reducing or even eliminating all stress while increasing one’s energy level!
The answer to the questions above are found in our self-worth. When we complete the statement “I am worth _____ because…” how do we finish it? I am not interested in hypothetical answers; I am interested what we know in our hearts. We define self worth in one of three ways. How I view myself, how someone else views me, or how God views me. Unless we look at ourselves through God eyes, our lives are full of stress; our motivation is self-definition, with an urgency of trying to erase a sense of worthlessness.
God places the highest value in the universe on us. God is our worth and motivation.
