Amy was at the breaking point. As a single mom, she was raising a three-year-old while working as a caterer. Some evenings she didn’t get home until midnight, and she never had enough energy to love on her son. One night it caught up with her. “I needed to break down,” she said, “but I didn’t want to wake my son. I needed a good old-fashioned bawl-my-eyes-out cry about life, and I couldn’t do it. I was trapped…. I realized I was going to snap.” She wisely visited her doctor, and with his help, Amy managed to qualify for “stress leave” from work. Now she’s trying to figure out how to better manage her impossible days.¹

Do you feel like you’re in line for a “stress leave” from work—or from life? Our days are chock-full of work obligations, family responsibilities, kitchen chores, trips to the grocery store, financial tasks, doctor appointments, church services, schoolwork, emails, texts, dishwashing, exercise, and rush-hour traffic. Now, multiply your stress by the number of children you have. One mom said, “If stress burned calories, I’d be a supermodel.”

Most of us do reasonably well juggling our loads, but we sometimes get into the red zone. When we use up our margins, we feel frazzled, irritable, and overwhelmed. We have too much to do and not enough time to make it happen. Our days seem impossible.

It helps to recall the people in the Bible who felt the same way. They didn’t have to worry about traffic jams, computer hacking, or student loans; but the basic stresses of life are unchanged, and we can learn a great deal by studying their examples. Let me show you four heroes of Scripture who turned impossible days into achievable days.

Make a Cornelius Discovery

Let’s start with Cornelius, the Roman centurion in Acts 10. Talk about an impossible job! He was a Roman military leader (verse 1) occupying a nation that didn’t want him there—Judea (verse 1), trying to raise a family on site (verse 2), wanting to help the poor (verse 2), and concerned about his spiritual condition (verse 2). He was struggling with it all until he heard Peter explain how Jesus was killed on a tree but rose on the third day (verses 39-40). Cornelius, his family, and his friends, found new life in Christ. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and baptized in the name of Jesus (verses 47-48).

When Cornelius came to Christ, it didn’t nullify his circumstances, but it did provide him with a powerful Ally. He now had a spiritual basis for every day. He had the Lord helping him deal with whatever came. Every morning became a day for finding and fulfilling God’s will, a day of new mercies.

If you want help with impossible days, you have to know the God who does the impossible. Without Christ, we’re overwhelmed. With Him, we’re overjoyed. We have a spiritual basis for living productively. We have a Heavenly Father who plans our lives step by step.

Have a Mary Moment

When you meet Christ as Cornelius did, you establish a spiritual foundation for unstoppable days, but you have to work on it. Mary and Martha give us an important lesson along those lines. Martha certainly knew Jesus. She knew Him very well and wanted to serve Him. But she was so busy serving Him that she didn’t have time to listen to Him, and Jesus chided her for that. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things,” He said. “But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part” (Luke 10:41-42). What was Mary doing? She was sitting at His feet and listening to His Word.

Many non-Christians are advocates of the practice of meditation. They’ve learned the importance of pausing at a regular time each day to relax their bodies, breathe deeply, and focus their thoughts. As Christians, we have the opportunity of doing that on a scriptural basis. There’s power in closing your eyes, taking some deep breaths, and quoting the Bible. Prayer and meditation have a calming effect. They bring a “Mary moment” into our “Martha lives.”

The writer of Psalm 77 described himself as “troubled” and “overwhelmed” (verse 3), but he paused to meditate in his heart (verse 6) and to meditate on the works of God (verse 12). His impossibilities melted away as he reassured himself of God’s greatness and guidance (verses 19-20).

When the Lord orders your schedule, He always leaves room in it for Himself, for He knows how we’re refueled. I urge you to plan a daily time for prayer, Bible study, and meditation. Learn to sit at His feet and listen to Him as Mary did, and your impossibilities will become opportunities.

Manage Like Moses

When you’ve given your life to Christ like Cornelius and established a pattern of prayer and meditation each day, you’ve gained a new perspective. Now you can survey your life and better see the clutter and inefficiency of it. Perhaps you’ll even have a Jethro to come alongside with suggestions. Do you remember that story?

In Exodus 18, Moses experienced an impossible day. He was trying to solve everyone’s problems and resolve everyone’s disputes. Long lines formed, and Moses wore himself out. People grew frustrated with him. Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, pulled him aside and said, “The thing that you do is not good. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself” (verses 17-18). Jethro advised Moses to create a system to organize the work.

That’s what we should do too. It’s hard to be productive in a mess. I’m not saying we have to be obsessive about it but bring some organization into your life. Think how efficiently God has organized His heavens, His angels, His Bible, His whole creation. What area of your life needs a bit of organization and tidying up? If you’ll take time to do it today, you’ll have more time and less tension tomorrow. With a little Moses-like leadership, your days will become more managed and manageable.

Simplify With Jesus

Finally, learn to simplify with Jesus. His whole life was simple because He didn’t feel the need to have everything or to do everything. Going back to the story of Cornelius in Acts 10, here’s how Peter described Jesus: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good” (verse 38).

Notice that Jesus didn’t go around doing everything. He went around doing good. When Jesus ascended to heaven after three years of ministry, Israel was still filled with those who were sick, blind, lame, and lost. But He did what He came to do. He did what represented the Father’s will, and at the end of His natural life, He said, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4).

The Lord doesn’t expect you to do everything. We have to establish boundaries and heed the advice of the French theologian François de la Mothe Fénelon, who said:

Cheered by the presence of God, I will do at the moment, without anxiety, according to the strength which he shall give me, the work that his Providence assigns me. I will leave the rest without concern; it is not my affair…. I ought to consider the duty to which I am called each day, as the work that God has given me to do, and to apply myself to it in a manner worthy of his glory, that is to say, with exactness and peace.

God is not only the God of heaven and earth; He’s God of your every day. He’s a God who never faces an impossible task. He can bring order from disorder, efficiency from confusion, and encouragement from despair. There’s no need to feel overwhelmed if we:

• Receive Him as Savior like Cornelius
• Sit at His feet like Mary
• Manage our tasks like Moses
• And align our life to the simplicity of the Son of Man.

Trust God to turn your impossibilities into accomplishments as you turn your days and your duties over to Him. God specializes in handling the day-to-day issues in your life, and our breaking points are often the starting points for His grace. Take charge of your life by letting Him take charge of you, for He’s an expert at handling impossible days.

Sources:

¹“Tired, Busy, Stressed,” CBC News, January 7, 2016, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/tired-busy-stressed-getting-off-the-hamster-wheel-for-healthier-you-1.3392379.