The Big Diehl

My second year of college was the busiest year of my life. I was a full time university student studying music (which meant a lot of practice time). I led and directed a midweek evangelistic children’s program at my church. I worked a significant amount empowering the worship teams and choirs to serve more effectively. I took Bible college courses in the evenings. I had never been so stressed in all my life. I actually wrote out my schedule to help me organize my time and realized that I had a grand total of something like 4 hours PER WEEK of non-committed time. That means for every week, I had a grand total of 4 hours to hang with friends, watch T.V., take showers, or just whatever I wanted to do. I was about that busy all four years of college, but my second year was the worst. It nearly killed me.

During that crazy busy time, I grew 3 gray hairs. I knew exactly what they were from: stress.

Yesterday when I was getting ready in the bathroom, I realized that my gray hairs were gone. (Don’t even start with the, “You’re going bald” crap. I’m not going bald - the gray hairs are gone). It was quite cool - I mean do I have less stress? Maybe. But more than that, I think I’m handling the high levels of mental stress much better now that I’m doing a better job at living a LIFE of renewal.

Now of course I’m not equating no gray hairs with good spirituality. That’s not the point. I’m talking about what the gray hairs represented in my life. Good spirituality will eliminate the “gray hairs” (ignored stress). “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” That means if we’re spending time with God, eagerly anticipating Him, our strength will be RENEWED. We’ve heard that scripture in Isiah a million times, but seldom do we live like it.

When crazy busy times come our way, I think we go into a “focus” mode and we only do the things that MUST be done — which ignores our time with God. That thinking is killing Christians! When we have more work to do than ever before, we should pray twice as much! God will make up the difference, he never lies: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”