Take the Pressure Off

The other day one of my daughters kept snapping at her sister. This was not her normal behavior and I could tell that something was bothering her. My wife talked to her and sure enough she had a test coming up at school that she was worried about. She likes to do well at school and was putting pressure on herself.

After finding out about this I talked with her and told her that even if she got an "F" it wouldn't change the way we feel about her, and reminded her of a lesson we talk about often, which is that everyone does better when relaxed. We talked about how she should study but when it came time for the test she should relax knowing that God put wisdom in her and that he wanted to help 

There are two learning lessons in this story. Number 1 is to take the pressure off yourself. When you take the pressure off yourself you allow God to better flow through you. Just rest in the fact that he wants to help. Lesson number 2 is that if you are interacting with or leading people give them some grace if they are not behaving like themselves. If people are not behaving like themselves there is usually something under the surface going on in the persons life.