October 30th Daily Devotion
Volume XVI Number 48 – May 1, 2025
Stress vs. Serenity This article was written three weeks ago, when I was feeling a bit more stressed than usual. The reasons for this stress included a bunch of relatively minor but nevertheless important details in life:
• The grass in our front yard looks dead, even though we pay a lawn service to apply fertilizer and insecticides. Everyone else’s yard looks green. What’s going on?
• Maybe the grass is not getting enough water. I was warned by the city that I watered on a day other than the one day assigned each week. They say they’re concerned about conservation. But thousands of new homes have been built in our town with uncertain future water supply.
• On my dear wife’s Facebook account, unsavory posts from unknown sources continue to appear. I’ve tried everything. Facebook is not helpful. She’s frustrated. I’m torqued.
• Our home insurance premium for this year is 19.1% higher than last year’s premium for the same coverage. Can’t wait to see what the auto insurance premiums will be.
• In the first 3 ½ months of this year, Terry and I have sent charitable contributions in loving memory of 32 people we’ve known and loved. Many friends are ill and dying these days.
No doubt you have your own list of stressors. It may be similar to mine. Perhaps quite different.
In times of frustration, fatigue, and even depression that results from the stress in our life, serenity seems unattainable. The barrage of stressful stuff never seems to end.
Wouldn’t it be great to experience a season of serenity? That’s a word meaning tranquility, calmness, peacefulness, quietness, stillness. Sounds pretty good to me right now.
In times like these I remember The Serenity Prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971):
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as the pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
Trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will, that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.
A few hours after this article was written, I felt much better. Perhaps if I more frequently prayed that prayer or one like it, my times of stress would be more quickly transformed to moments of serenity. Do you think that remedy might work for you as well?
Dr. Gerald B. "Jerry" Kieschnick
Chief Executive Officer | Legacy Deo | GBJK@LegacyDeo.org | www.legacydeo.org | (512) 646-4909
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