Weed and Feed

Anxiety is the most common mental disorder in the modern society today affecting around 7 percent of the world population. Thanks to our fast paced life and multi-tasking work culture, people are becoming increasingly difficult to relax! More serious case can even lead one to depression.

Picture this scenario: a person gets extremely anxious on the busy highway after driving for long hours without having a good sleep the previous nights. He is physically tense and unable to enjoy the ride. He is tired physically and his brain starts to behave strangely. Negative thoughts start creeping in every now and then while he is driving and that leads to fear of having trapped in that situation. The traffic jam doesn't help and is making him worry that he may stuck in that situation and can't escape. He starts to think that what if he suddenly has an emergency situation and the ambulance can't get to him in time due to the jam. He becomes desperate and wants to get out of that situation ASAP! The fear starts the vicious cycle in his mind that tells him that he is in danger even though we know that isn't true.

Have you experience the above episode before? If you have you most like have anxiety disorder without knowing it. A few simple things you can do to reduce chance of that happening:

• Have enough sleep the night before you going on a road trip.
• Stop more regularly along the way, come out from your car and do some stretching exercises.
• Take deep and slow breaths. This shall calm you down.
• Being mindful, stop your mind from wandering all over the places.
• Listen to soothing music and enjoy the freedom of driving!

One important thing to note is that anxiety is largely caused by the brain. Imagine the brain as the beautiful garden at home. The garden requires constant maintenance and care. If left unattended, weed starts to grow very quickly. There is a product available at the store calls 'Weed and Feed'. When you spray 'Weed and Feed' in your garden, it will kill the weed while providing the much needed nutrition to your Buffalo lawn. The first time I saw this product on the shelf, I thought to myself "What a great idea!?" The same principle applies to our mind, we have to constantly feed our mind with positive information in order to get rid of negative thoughts. This has to be done regularly until we completely kill anxiety and can enjoy modern day driving once more.   

The Lost Envelope

We were on the way home from a visit with family in another state when I found it. I was pumping gas when I noticed a dirty, bulky envelope on the ground. I grabbed it, dirt and all, and looked inside. To my surprise, it contained one hundred dollars.

One hundred dollars that someone had lost and who at that very moment was possibly frantically searching to find. I gave our phone number to the attendants at the gas station in case anyone came back looking for it. But no one ever called. 

Someone had that money and lost it. Earthly treasure is often like that. It can be lost, stolen, or even squandered. It can be lost in bad investments or even in a monetary market over which we have no control. But the heavenly treasure we have in Jesus - a restored relationship with God and the promise of eternal life - isn't like that. We can't lose it at a gas station or anywhere else.

That's why Christ told us to store up "treasure in heaven" (Matthew 6:20). We do that when we become "rich in good deeds" (1 Timothy 6:18) or "rich in faith" (James 2:5) - lovingly helping others and sharing Jesus with them. As God leads and empowers us, may we store up eternal treasure even as we anticipate our eternal future with Him.

Source: Our Daily Bread

Story by Dave Branon

Such a great reminder to all of us to stay away from the temptation of the materialistic world which we find ourselves surrounded by in today's society. It's so true that money comes and go and we will never have possession of it forever. But the good things that we do will be registered in our lives' record forever. Go on and help someone today. It can be as simple as just listening to someone who is encountering personal problems.