We can reduce stress in our lives by changing the belief that we have to do everything ourselves. One of the reasons we get stressed out is because we think that everything depends on us. But Jesus didn’t think like this. He called, trained, and empowered twelve others so they could share the load. He delegated His work. He got other people involved. So why don’t we do that? 1) Perfectionism. We think, ‘If I want a job done well, I’ll have to do it myself.’ This often doesn’t work well because there are just too many things to be done. We simply don’t have the time and talent to do everything ourselves. It’s really a pride issue. We think we can do things far better than others can. Jesus could’ve done a better job than His disciples, but He still let them get involved. He was the perfect example of humility. Also, we sometimes we need to let other people make some of the mistakes in order for them to learn, the same way the disciples learned. 2) Insecurity. We can become fearful that by giving someone else a task they may do it better than us, and that would reflect badly on us. We can end up feeling threatened by the gifts and skills of others. But we won’t feel threatened if we know who we are, who we’re trying to please, what we want to accomplish, and the one thing we need to focus on. In order to be effective, and less stressed, we must get other people involved, because we can’t focus on more than one thing at a time and do it well.

What Now?

Is there a task that you could ask someone to help you with, in order to lighten your load? Try delegating and see if it reduces your stress.