Why Guardrails Protect Your Faith During Stress | Ep. 111

Stress doesn’t wait for a good time—but you can meet it with wisdom. In this episode, discover how Bible study guardrails protect your focus and faith when emotions run high. Learn why “Scripture interprets Scripture” also helps with decision-making, how to pause before reacting, and how prayer and community keep you steady under pressure. Guardrails aren’t rigid rules; they’re guides that anchor you in peace, not panic.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Holiday Setup
• 1:01 Thanksgiving Traditions And Rest
• 2:19 Why Guardrails Matter In Stress
• 3:45 Stress Clouds Judgment
• 5:20 Scripture Interprets Scripture
• 7:00 Pause Before You React
• 8:40 Community Prayer And Wisdom
• 10:35 Applying Guardrails Practically
• 12:10 Challenge Recap And Free Guide

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is episode 111, and this is your host, Latoya. And this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. Stress knocking at your door? Maybe these guardrails can help. You don't want to miss this? Sometime when we have a live, just to say hey. Anywho, let's dive right on in as we approach the holiday. I believe by the time you hear this in America, we will be having Thanksgiving tomorrow. So that should be fun. I used to cook really big meals for Thanksgiving. I don't do that now. I I just I'm I relax. And I think the main reason why I do that is because I already cook all the time anyway. So to me, it's like, no. No. I I used to. I'm going to have a nice meal, but it's not going to be really, really, really big because I don't want to do it. There's really nothing else to say. I just I just want to take it easy and just rest. Um, and so I I but I love this time. I love Thanksgiving. Now, Christmas, I hibernate. Only because I live in the Midwest and it is cold. So I act a little, a little scroogey because of the weather. If I was somewhere in California or somewhere where it's warm, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't act like that. But it gets cold, y'all, um, here in um the Midwest. Illinois is where I am. And yeah, it gets cold. So anyway, enough of that. We are going to be talking about why guardrails protect your faith during stress. If you haven't already, I pray that you have, downloaded your freebie, the five Bible study guardrails for confidence. I'm going to be pulling out one of those today, but I'm also going to share a little practical taste on it when it comes to stress as a whole. But I wanted to share, you know, stress that you have good stress, you got bad stress. Um, we don't want the bad stress. And it it happens to all of us. We all sometimes will deal with stress at some point in our lives. It's just what it is. We're human. But why are we more vulnerable in stress? It seems like that, right? When we have stress, we we tend to be more vulnerable. And guess what? The enemy likes us like that because he doesn't play fair. He's not fair. He wants you to be down, he wants you to be busted and disgusted, so then he can just make matters worse. And sometimes we put on unnecessary weights that we can't even blame on him. And so I think that guardrails doesn't it's it's not meant to um put boundaries or anything like that necessarily. It's just meant to keep you focused on him and not so much on yourself when you have issues like this, because sometimes we can throw a pity party and feel bad for ourselves and we can just go down this hole. And so having some guardrails there keeps you focused. And of course, there's more guardrails of I just share five, but you know, I I look at it like stress clouds our judgment a lot of times in just regular manners. And I'm really gonna share more practical things here today, but um, so I'm gonna take the guardrails that are on the guardrail sheep, but I'm gonna apply a practical approach to it. But it tends to cloud your judgment. When you're stressed out, you're not thinking clearly, you're not making the best decisions. That's just how life is, which is why we have to use wisdom. Um, because if we if we don't, and if we don't have a community of people around us who can spiritually shake us up and be like, wake up, we can leave room for worry to come in. When you're stressed out, you you're worried. I always have this this motto or whatever you want to call it, where it's like, if I can't change it, I'm not worrying about it. Like if it's I if I can't do anything about it, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna stress myself out about it. I'm just not gonna happen. And that has been a game changer for me to help me um to at least eliminate that part when it comes to stress. Yes, I do have, you know, there's times where I've been stressed out. Like I said, that's something we've all fallen victim to. Okay. We are here on this earth, and at some point we are going to feel stressed out, and that's why community, I think, is important. Prayer fellowship is important because it helps you to know that you're not alone. Sometimes you just need someone to talk to, sometimes you just need someone to listen to what is going on, and then they are outside of it, so they can give you hopefully some practical um wisdom. So when we look at the guardrails on the um on the five, the five guardrails, I talk about number four, which is let the Bible talk to the Bible. Essentially, scripture can interpret scripture. I and I I mentioned that if something feels unclear, try to cross-reference it from another part of the Bible or read in a different translation. Remembering that scripture again interprets scripture. Now, when I apply that practically, when I'm looking at stress, it's important that we don't jump to conclusions. Just like with this garrail. And see, that's why I love the about the garrails because you you apply it to studying the Bible with confidence, but you can also apply it to just practical life situations. And so sometimes when we're remember, I said sometimes when we're stressed out, we can cloud, we have cloudy judgments. Some people do impulsive things, like some people go and spend too much, some people might eat too much, you know, um, comfort eating or whatever. It's important that we assess, we just take a break and breathe. And maybe this podcast is for you. Maybe you'll you feel stressed out. Don't jump to conclusions. Take your time to assess the situation before responding. I was teaching my son the other, well, not the other day, by the time I'm by the time I'm recording this, a couple weeks ago, I was teaching my son about you have to be careful, and we've heard this, but you have to be careful with what you say when you're angry. You really shouldn't say a lot when you're angry, because you can't take those words back. And stress is kind of like that as well. You gotta be careful what you say, what you do, when you have this bad stress on you, because you can't take back what you do. There's no do over, there's no um rewind button. And so it's important that we don't jump to conclusions. I think I also shared in one um episode about how um depending on the lens you you you're viewing things, you you could be going through a season of rejection. Maybe you you're still struggling with rejection. If somebody doesn't talk to you, you think they're not speaking to you on purpose when they probably didn't see you. Well, add stress to that. Now it's it's it's inflated, and we don't want to walk in that. Like if you're stressed out, that's one thing. Again, it happens. Who are you surrounding yourself around? Do you have someone that you can talk to? Maybe a counselor, maybe a therapist, maybe just a friend? Do you journal? And have you remembered or do you remember that some things are out of your control? Now, if you've done something and then the result is not what you thought it would be, and that's stressing you out. And if it's something that maybe was a mistake, apologize. And what can you do if you can do something to at least minimize the um the uh uh cause or the effect, sorry, the the effect? Can you do something? If you can, ask the Lord, have him lead you. Remember, we talked about in James, pray and ask him for wisdom in that situation, and he will give it to you. But it's important that we don't allow stress to isolate us, we don't allow stress to weigh us down, and we don't allow stress to grow and fester and be even uh heavier than it was supposed to be in the first place. So what I challenge you to do this week is if you have had a stressful moment this week, or maybe in the weeks that passed, I want you to pause and see if you could have applied a guardrail. If you are in a having a stressful moment right now, this week, pause, take a break, and see if you can. Hopefully, you've downloaded the five Bible study guardrails for confidence, but see if you can then use some of these practically, like from a practical standpoint. So can you use any of those and apply them to what's going on right now? Maybe there's a verse that stands out to you in your Bible study reading. And after you've gotten the context and you know exactly what the what everything was about, how can you then um have the application and apply this in light of who God is? See if you can do that. So listen, again, I want to thank you for listening to Equip the Next. And if you would like to grab your free guide, you know where to go. Equipthenext.com forward slash freebie. I want to hear from you. Go to hello at equipthenext.com and remember grow in God's word and lead boldly.