Stress

“It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

Deuteronomy 31:8

For many of us, our faith is our most important anchor during tough times. 

Being reminded that there is something greater than ourselves and that we can give up our fears and troubles to God when things get rough is especially appealing in times of uncertainty. 

We want to encourage everyone not to wait until things get rough to give it all to God.  

As humans, we cause ourselves way too much stress and pain before we ask for help.  

Have you ever been in a place where you really needed help? 

Then you never asked for it!

This happens to me almost every day. 

At one point in my life, we were struggling just to survive. 

Then something clicked and we gave it all to God.  

Almost immediately our stress was relieved.  Until we decided to take it back from him again.  

You see God is there for us, every day in every way.  

He loves so much.

We just need to be reminded of that.

But boy, there are days when we need an extra reminder (or two or three, or in my case about 100) of God’s love for us. 

That’s when we break out the Good Book and soothe our souls.

Throughout the bible, God teaches us to give him everything.  Much the same way as Daniel, Joseph, Jacob, Abraham, Saul, Solomon, Joana, Paul, Peter, John the Baptist, Esther, Zephina, Moses, and yes JESUS.  

It doesn’t matter which book you open the bible to, God is teaching us to give him our stress.  

So why do we wait until we are about to break before we give all to him?  

We have all heard of the business person who doesn’t come to God until they have a heart attack and are laying in a hospital bed.  Or the person who gives into satan and robs someone to get money to pay bills.  

Why is it that we DON’T give it all to God before we break?

Today we want to encourage everyone to not only give all of their stresses to God but also to pray for the world!  

Pray that God uses you to help someone else give their stress to God before they break.

Prayer

God, it’s _________ (your name) here.  I know that you are amazing.  You show me every day.  Even when I don’t deserve to see just how great you are you still show me.  I am so thankful, but sometimes I forget that you, the same God who created the vast oceans, rugged mountains, scorching deserts, and raging rivers, also created me.  You made me uniquely me.  Thank you for that. God today I want to give you everything in my life. But God I especially want to give you my stresses and worries.  I know that I can’t help but worry because it’s the way you designed me. But God I really do want to give them all to you.  So God, Lord, here they are.  Here is the stress that I have right now.  They are all yours.  God thank you for being so perfect!

Amen

Will you pray with us?

Mankind throughout the world throughout our current situation

All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel

For all military personal serving our country and their families

Those in Leadership positions throughout the world

Prayer

Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts.  We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us.  We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us.  And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.

We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name

Amen

A Little More

 The other day I got a call from one of our clients.

I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.

“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”

My smile immediately vanished.

I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.

So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?” 

To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.

They gave me the details.

My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.

But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.

My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.

I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.

so……

I made sure not to smile when I made the call.  I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!

That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.

Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!

Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal.  I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad. 

Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.

The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.

No problem.  Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.

Well……..

After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.

Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.

I told him that I would NOT make any promises.

But my team went to work!

Guess what????

We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.

My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.

Here’s the point of all this.

When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.

That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.

Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol

Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!

Dan Greer