Overcoming Overwheming Obstacles

You're tuned into Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Justin Lester is an average guy who refuses to let Mondays control him. Justin is a husband, dad, pastor, student, and Jesus follower. He's done a lot, he's learned a lot, and he wants to see you at your best. Let's win Mondays. Hey, Justin. What's up today?

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Made for Mondays. It's Justin here. So grateful to have all of you guys joined in this Monday. As we continue this journey. I want to talk today about overcoming overwhelming obstacles. Overcoming overwhelming obstacles. One of the great stories in scripture is a story of David and Goliath. David, this little shepherd boy that we are introduced in the book of first and second Samuel is, ends up going up to this big behemoth of a man named Goliath. Now, contextually speaking, David probably was about 4 something feet tall, whereas Goliath probably was 6 or 7ft tall. What makes this story so amazing is that we believe Goliath actually suffered from gigantism. So he wasn't like 10ft or 20ft tall as we portray him. But really he was just a big guy that was probably 6 or 7ft tall. He had a lower voice because of just the simple things that were going on in his body. But the thing about Goliath that makes it so amazing is that his armor would have been bigger than Saul's armor, which made him just a big man because remember, the reason that Saul was king was because Saul was tall. So David goes up to this big man named Goliath, this big shield, this big sword, all of this. Goliath has been talking so much trash about his community. David decides to take smooth stones and the power of God and goes and defeats Goliath. What's so amazing about this is that it was an overwhelming obstacle for everyone else in the community. It was an overwhelming obstacle even for the people that Goliath had behind him. Because even the Philistines were afraid of the people of Israel when they went to go defeat the people. When the people of Israel went to go defeat the Philistines, David ends up confronting an overwhelming obstacle and overcomes it. Now what's amazing to me is I've heard people preach this. I've even preached this myself. David ends up going to this big, huge obstacle without a lot of fear, without a lot of worry because of the ways he prepared himself before he got to a big obstacle to handle big obstacles to. Quiet as his cap. You have everything you possibly need to overcome the biggest obstacle in front of you. The issue and the challenge that we have and I want to give you today is to prepare yourself for this week to overcome any obstacle that comes in this week. One of the challenges I have in my own personal life, in this moment, with everything going on with COVID 19, going on with our life, going on with our world, those of you who are leaders, those of you who are workers, those of you who are followers, all of those different areas our life has us in right now is that we have this overwhelming obstacle that we can't see, trying to fight it with things that we also can't see in faith and prayer. And as we're trying to fight this overwhelming obstacle, I want to challenge you to remember a couple of things. How have you approached big things before? Because remember the biggest thing that you've overcome, the biggest thing that was huge before, you won then and you can still win now. I want you to think back to when maybe you applied for a college and it seemed overwhelming that you may or may not get into that school. You were worried whether or not you were good enough to get into that school, and then you got in. Think about when you were graduating from that school and you worried whether or not you would pass comps or you would finished that thesis and then you completed it. Think about when you applied for that big job and you were wondering whether or not you would get it. Are you doing that project on that job where you were in a relationship and you were pursuing relationships in marriage and you were planning a wedding or you were planning something and all came to pass? I want you to think about how inside of you is an overcomer. Inside of you is someone who doesn't just overcome and get through, but inside of you is someone who defeats anything in front of them. As you go into this week, I want you to call upon that individual. Not the person who's full of worry, not the person who's full of anxiety. But the reason you're made for Mondays is because you have overcoming inside of you. So here's some points of purpose to go in so you can own your purpose and win this week. First of all, number one, I want you to go into this week breathing and then pursuing breathe and then pursue. The thing about deep breaths that. That are so powerful for our bodies is deep breaths end up resetting our bodies. Deep breaths end up coming in and slowing things down, slowing our heart rate down, slowing our blood pressure down so that we can actually see what's in front of us. And too often, I believe we're running so much that we don't take the necessary moments to stop where we are, to see where we are, and then reset our bodies and reset our minds. As we go into the week, I want to challenge you, and you can even do this where you are. We're going to do a deep breathing exercise now. I want you to inhale for the entire time I count. We're going to count for eight long seconds. And I want you to inhale the entire time because I want to reset your body to a point where you inhale so deeply that the inhaling you do almost makes you, like, feel like you're stopping breathing. Right, let's try this. Ready? I want you to take a deep inhale. Put your shoulders back. Put your head up straight. Let's inhale together. Ready? Begin inhaling. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Now exhale. We're gonna do that one more time. Ready? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Body is going to reset itself. And what you're doing is you're clearing some things, you're biting some things, and you're clearing some things. And I want you to take that practice with you into your workday. Before you go, between meeting to meeting or person to person, or room to room even, I want you to take a moment and inhale deeply. Pause, see where you are. Take those 16 seconds or those 30 seconds to pause and see where you are before you seize where you feel you have to go. It's amazing the things that don't matter when we take time to ensure that we know we matter ourselves. Number two, not only do I want you to breathe and pause, but secondly, I want you to not forget, but remember. Not forget, but remember. I told you earlier, the necessity to remember who we are, the things to remember, the places you've overcome. I don't want you to forget that you are a winner, but I want you to remember the places where you have been victorious. For me, I think about the simple little victories of completing projects. I also think about the places where I could have improved in the completion of projects. Going all the way back to college, my first job, my second job, and even to where I am now. I want you to think about the areas in your life that you've already won. As we think about Corona, think about COVID 19, think about how we're reacting and we're responding in our homes. I want you to think back to the moments in your life where you were isolated. Yes, you had the freedom to move, but how did you handle the moments where you were isolated? On purpose. Maybe you were in school and you were living alone. Maybe you were on a job and you're working on a project alone. What about you? How did you handle those moments? Well, what are the slingshots that you can remember? Like, David, the simple slingshots you had while you were being a shepherd, that while you're encountering an obstacle you've never seen before, there's practices that you had that you can now apply to this moment. I remember one of the best pieces of advice I ever received was, Justin, I want you to think about the day. Once you think about the situation you're encountering, what's the absolute worst that can happen? Now, Justin, I want you to think about, can you handle it? When I got that advice for the first time, it made me sit back and pause and realize there's nothing that can come my way that I already don't know how to handle. So I want to ask you the same question. Think about the absolute worst thing that can happen this week. How can you handle it? No, the worst thing, what are the slingshots you can grab to remember you can handle it. I want you to breathe so you can pursue. I want you not to forget, but to remember. Then I want you to be bold with your boundaries. Now, we talked about boundaries a couple of weeks ago, and I want to remind you about the necessity to be bold with boundaries. If we're going to overcome overwhelming obstacle, then everything can't be an obstacle. So I want you to be bold with your boundaries. Some things are not allowed into your space to become an obstacle for you to get rid of from your space in your life. So I want to challenge you to think about the places in your life where you need to have boundaries, to say no, to say yes. Maybe it's a time limit on your phone, a time limit on your television, maybe it's the location you place your phone. But some obstacles are obstacles we don't need to actually go through. They're obstacles that we can win before they become an obstacle themselves. So I want you to consider the places you need to be bold with your boundaries so that this week the obstacles that come your way are obstacles you need to overcome to pursue the person that God's calling you to be instead of obstacles you've created that they didn't really need to exist. Listen, I'm praying for you and I pray the best for you this week. And I pray you go into this week knowing you, you were made for this. You were made for Mondays. And Mondays cannot own you because you own your Mondays. Let's say our affirmations together and win our week. Repeat after me. Say, I am me. I can be me. No one can stop me from being me. Because I am me. You're made for this. Now go in your Monday. God bless you.

This has been Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Be sure to follow Justin online at MrJ Lester and online at www.jluster.com. see you next week. Go win. You were made for this.