Mar 23rd: Preventing Your Circuits From Overloading, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski.
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Rev. Dr. Steven Koski
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Preventing Your Circuits From Overloading with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski. Series: Finding Hope in Hard Places A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: Jeremiah 17.7-8.
Feeling overwhelmed? Stressed out? Join us this Sunday as we explore how to stay grounded, connected, and hopeful when life feels like too much. Discover practical ways to protect your heart and find peace. We can’t wait to see you – online or in-person!
Transcript:
Steven: What I’m hearing from so many people right now is how their emotional, spiritual, physical circuits are overloaded, causing power outages. Our collective nervous system is fried. Imagine you’re a 1920s Victorian house with kind of super sketchy electrical wiring, and you’re trying to charge your iPhone, iPad, laptop while plugging in your new espresso machine and the blender to make a smoothie while the television is on, your circuits are overloaded, and your circuit breakers keeps tripping the wiring in your beautiful Victorian 1920s house is drawing too much current and struggling to keep up. It’s a fire hazard. You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about how our emotional, spiritual, physical circuitry isn’t designed to hold, feel, respond to everything that’s coming at us right now, we are exposed to every tragedy, every injustice, sorrow, natural disaster, happening across the entire globe in real time, every minute of Every day, and I’m not sure we’re designed for this. If your circuits are overloaded, you want to shut down. There’s a reason, and the reason isn’t because You’re heartless. It’s because there’s not a human heart on the planet that can absorb and carry all that’s happening in the world, not to mention all that’s happening in your own life. The apostle Paul reminds us, do not lose heart. We need to find a way to take care of our hearts so that we don’t lose heart for the work of love that is ours to do in the world. I was out of red light the other day, and the light turned green, and the car in front of me didn’t move. The woman was looking at her cell phone. I missed the light. I’m actually embarrassed to admit that I was irate, fuming, teeth clenched, ready to blast my horn. Yikes. I took a deep breath. Why was my reaction so disproportionate to the event? It wasn’t missing the light, it was the fact that all my circuits are overloaded, and all it took was missing a light, a green light, to blow a fuse. Do you find yourself short, tempered and patient, overreacting to lighter things? Think of a scale from one to 10, with one being calm, centered, hand being your circuits are blown and you’re about to explode. I suspect we’re living our lives at eight or nine on that scale, bombarded with 24 hour breaking news, breathing in air, saturated with with fear, anxiety, rage, uncertainty, absorbing violence, trauma, loss that our minds and bodies and spirits are not equipped to absorb our circuits are overwhelmed. We’re at eight or nine on that scale, thinking that’s normal, and we fooled ourselves into thinking we’re actually at three or four. So notice, if you’re at eight or nine, it doesn’t take much to be pushed over the edge, and we find ourselves reacting and and overreacting from a place of anxiety, anger, fear, rather than responding from a deeper place of wisdom, patience, love, when we’re in a chronic state of fight, flight, we start seeing everything as a threat, even the things that aren’t our body stops distinguishing between an actual crisis and a perceived one, and we either shut down or we live in a constant state of simmering anxiety. You know, so often we think we think we’re going to feel better. You know, I’m gonna feel better once the crisis is over. I’m gonna feel better once the once, once the problem is overcome, you know, once that conflict is resolved, you know, once, once we clean up the mess, then I’m gonna feel better. But the paradox is, when we focus on prioritizing our mental, emotional, spiritual well being, we actually bring more clarity, confidence, creativity to the crisis at a time when we’re witnessing the we’re witnessing the worst of humanity. It is so imperative that we stay tethered to the very best in us. So today I want to suggest, I want to suggest a few practical ways that we might stay tethered to the best of us and that we might prevent our circuits from becoming overwhelmed. First, plug yourself into your original energy source. God’s love for you. I really, really, really encourage you to begin and end every day, reminding yourself of the one thing that never changes, the one thing that is steadfast and constant when everything around you is changing. The one thing that never changes is that you are God’s beloved. Stay rooted and grounded in your identity as God’s beloved. I mean, trauma experts will tell us that that when you experience trauma, you actually become kind of disconnected from your sense of self. You become disconnected from your identity in a sense of who you really are, your identity is not equivalent to your biography or the circumstances of your life. You know your struggles are real, but you are not your struggles. All of your circuits may be overwhelmed, but it doesn’t diminish the truth that you are God’s beloved. You are created. You’re created in the image of God’s unshakable goodness, when you plant yourself firmly with deep roots in this truth, you’ll be surprised at your resilience. You know a tree’s beauty lies in its branches, but its strength lies in its roots. There’s an ancient proverb that says, When the roots of a tree are deep, there’s no reason to fear the storm. There’s this beautiful image in the Hebrew Bible in Jeremiah 17, where it says, Blessed are those who turn away from fear and place their trust in in God’s love for them. They are like a tree planted by water, sending its roots deep into the soil by the stream. This tree does not fear when the winds blow or when the heat comes. Its leaves stay green in the year of drought, it’s not anxious, no matter the weather, the tree, firmly planted in God’s love, will never cease to bear fruit. You know, the season of Lent, the season that we’re in leading up to Easter, is actually an invitation to return, to return to our roots, to return to who we are as God’s beloved. Right before Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tested, right before he began his ministry, he heard God’s voice in the River Jordan saying to him, You, you, you are my beloved. And Jesus kept returning and returning and returning to this truth. And it sustained him. It sustained him when he needed it the most. No doubt we first certainly find ourselves right now in our own wilderness, we need to be reminded that beloved is our name too friends to prevent your circuit. From becoming overwhelmed, plug yourself into the one surge protector you can rely on the deep, abiding, never changing truth. You, you, yeah, I mean you, you are God’s beloved. Here’s a spiritual practice to try write the word beloved on several slips of paper. Place these slips, slips of paper throughout your house, in your car at work, and every time you happen upon and see the word beloved, just pause. Take a few deep deep breaths. You know, deep breaths signal to your brain that that you’re not in immediate danger, and your fight flight response can actually go, take a coffee break, breathe and absorb the truth that you are God’s beloved, and imagine, imagine your heart smiling, another important strategy to prevent your circuits from overloading, find your people. Find your people, lean on them, root each other and let someone know that they can lean on you when we’re stressed, we tend to isolate. You know, isolation then fuels despair. Even the science is absolutely clear, humans are happier, healthier, more resilient when they feel connected and a sense of belonging. Think about Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing what is to come. Jesus doesn’t walk into suffering alone. He doesn’t retreat into isolation, bearing his burden quietly, not wanting to bother anyone. Instead, Jesus brings his friends with him, and Jesus says to his friends, stay with me. Stay with me. It’s not a command, but a plea, you know, a longing for nearness, presence, for the kind of companionship that that doesn’t erase the suffering, but makes it bearable. Do you remember the image of the sea otters when night falls? Otters actually hold hands as they fall asleep, so they won’t drift away from one another, one another and get lost in the in the darkness of the sea, holding on to one another, holding on to one another so no one drifts away. That just may be our most important work right now. Make it a practice check in on at least one person every day and finally, finally, to prevent our circuits from overloading, it’s really important to turn our anxiety into action, however small I was sharing with a friend that that I was feeling really, really overwhelmed. And she said, you know, Stephen, it’s not your job. It’s not your job to feed the 5000 it’s your job to bring your five loaves and two fish and trust in God’s hand, that’s enough, friends. What are your five loaves and two fish? What’s the work of love that is yours, yours alone to do. I just read about a Brazilian priest who takes abandoned dogs off the streets. He feeds them, he bathes them, then he presents a dog at each mass to be adopted. I mean, hundreds of stray dogs have found a forever home thanks to Father Juan Paulo Nicholas Kristof, author, editorial writer for the New York Times. You know, he’s reported from some of the most, most desperate places on the planet. I mean, he’s witnessed suffering that that most of us can’t fathom, and yet, he says he doesn’t fall into despair. Quite the opposite. He finds inspiration. I mean, why? Because when the worst happens. Yes, it often brings out the best in people. He says he’s witnessed so many people bringing bringing their five loaves and two fish to a hungry crowd of 1000s, with selfless compassion, refusing to give up, refusing to give in to despair. Christoph says it inspires him, fills him with a sense of awe, inspires him to bring his five loaves and two fish to a world starving for hope. What is the work of love that is yours to do? Ask yourself that question every day. Ask yourself that question tomorrow and the next day. So friends, when your circuits are overwhelmed, stay grounded. Stay grounded and rooted in the truth that you are God’s beloved. Find and stay connected to your people. Check in on at least one person every day, and don’t worry about saving the world. Just simply be faithful in bringing your five loaves and two fish and trust that in God’s hands that’s enough. Do not lose heart. Please, please, please, do not lose heart. Poet Nikita Gale wrote, I will not give up the flowers in my heart just because the world is a hard place. The world’s only a hard place because it needs more flower hearted people. May it be so i.
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