This is a message from leading the way with Dr. Michael Youssef. We pray that it will encourage you in your walk of faith.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Youssef or leading the way, please visit ltw.org.

Every report that I look at, it indicates that the level of stress in our culture is rising fast.

In fact, there is the percentages of people who have been medicated just for stress is an increase literally

every single day. Now, apart from the physical and the psychological consequence of this stress,

there is the toll that it can take on families, on all relationships. And it it appears to me at least, and as my personal

view, that there is a direct correlation between stress and the time spent on our knees in prayer.

That there is a direct correlation between stress and a time spent communing with God.

There is a direct correlation between stress and living our lives in God's priority and by his priority,

between stress and seeking to align our will with his will, between stress and unfaithfulness to God,

between stress and living for self.

Hudson Taylor and a great missionary statesman of the yester years said the following. He said, it doesn't matter how great the

stress is. What really matters is where the stress leads you, whether it comes between you and God,

or whether it crushes you near to the heart of God. And I have seen and observed nearly four decades

in ministry how many people try to cope with stress. And there are a lot of techniques out there

about how to cope with stress. I have heard so many of them, and I am in favor of

everything that helps. I am not here to put down anything, but I also have watched how most of

these mechanisms are only relieved stress very temporary and not ongoing. And I was thinking about this

and thought of a story I read actually a long time ago about a husband and wife. The wife who

was so stressed out that is really affecting her relationship with her husband. I mean,

it was really becoming a huge problem. And she constantly stressed out. And finally,

her husband said, you know what? What you need is to go on a world cruise. Just go around the

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