Opening: A woman took her husband to the doctor's office. After his checkup, the doctor said, "Your husband is suffering from a very serious infection brought on by stress." The husband, who had a hearing problem, asked her, "What did he say?" His wife answered, "He says you're sick." The doctor went on. "But there is hope. You just need to reduce his stress. Each morning, give him a healthy breakfast. Be pleasant, nice, and kind. For lunch and dinner make him his favorite meal. Don't discuss your problems with him, it will only make his stress worse. Don't yell at him or argue with him. And most importantly, make him happy. If you can do this for your husband for the next 6 months to a year, your husband will have a complete recovery." The husband asked again, "What did he say?" His wife said, "He said, 'You're going to die!'"
According to statistics, over 70 percent of Americans regularly experience physical or psychological symptoms caused by stress. Forty-eight percent say stress negatively affects their professional and personal lives. Are you stressed? How do you know if you're stressed?
Here are some signs:
1. Feeling fatigue
2. Becoming very sensitive, irritable, or angry
3. Having difficulty in making decisions.
4. Having excessive daydreaming or fantasizing about "getting away from it all."
5. Experiencing excessive worrying.
6. Having paranoid ideas and mistrust of friends and family.
7. Being forgetful of appointments, deadlines, and dates.
8. Having sleep and eating problems
Last week we learned about eustress and distress and how distress or bad stress causes many problems physically and mentally. Stress affects all people. Having a relationship with Jesus does not mean avoiding all stressful situations, circumstances, and people. It also doesn't mean we will automatically overcome stress or be unaffected by it. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus tells us that we will not be free from stress in our lives, but He shows us how to deal with our stress. Today we will learn how to handle distress rightly. Since many factors can cause stress, we first need to know or find out those factors or stressors to manage our stress. Many times, stress is simply the combination of many minor stressors. But, like this 2.5-pound dumbbell, if I carry it for one month, this light dumbbell can cause a severe problem on my arm. Let's find out the stressors and what we need to do with them.
1. Work - Overwork. According to "Workplace Stress Statistics," 83% of US workers suffer from work-related stress. Work-related stress causes 120,000 deaths and results in $190 billion in healthcare costs yearly. In 2019, 94% of American workers reported experiencing stress at their workplace. So, work is the number one cause of stress or the most significant stressor in the US today. Sadly, our society considers it a good thing. Therefore, some people like to talk about their long work hours or having two or three jobs. I am not talking about some people who need a second job to fulfill because of financial difficulties. That is a particular case. But those who overwork unnecessarily. These are counterproductive because overwork or busyness can cause stress. God created us as humans who need to rest to restore our strengths.
The Bible says God' rested on the seventh day after He created the universe. In Genesis 2:2, we read, "And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done." Does God need to rest? The Bible doesn't say God "needed" to rest; it simply states that He did rest. God did not rest because He was tired. The Bible says He is the Almighty God (Genesis 17:1), He is might in power (Psalm 147:5), and as Isaiah 40:28 says, "The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary." So, God resting on the seventh day means He stopped creating after six days. By 'resting' on the seventh day, God wants humans to do the same.
In Exodus 34:21, God says, "Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest." God wants us to have the proper perspective on work. We have to work to meet our needs, but we do not live to work! There are many other things in our lives that we need to do: to take care of our family, serve the Lord, help others, fulfill our mission on earth, and take care of ourselves. When we are too busy with work, we ignore other important things in our lives. As a result, we are stressed. God teaches us a beautiful lesson of the importance of rest through King David in Psalm 23:2 - "He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters." I like how David puts it, saying that God "makes" us lie down. Someone says," if we don't stop to smell the roses now, God might make us lie down and smell them from a hospital bed."
Illus.: After recovering from the terrible four weeks at the hospital because of COVID-19, Dr. J. Simanjuntak, the co-author of my two books and a prominent counselor in Indonesia, said that God teaches through what happened to him to reduce his activities. Before he got sick, he was too busy, traveling to many places in Indonesia and abroad doing his ministries. Now, he learns to delegate his ministries and take more rest. Illus.: Some time ago, one of you shared with me how you refused to get a job promotion because you knew that if you accepted it, you would get more responsibility and spend more time working, even on Sunday too. You know you already have enough, you are no longer as strong as before, and you want to spend more time with God and serve Him. I salute you; you have made the wise decision!
2. Guilt. Nothing destroys a soul faster than guilt. We all made mistakes and committed sins in the past. If we do not deal with them, we will carry the guilty feelings that cause us distress. King David said, "My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear." (Psalm 38:4). But after he confessed his sin to God and be forgiven, he wrote in Psalm 103:1-5 - "Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." So, we need to confess our sins and ask God for His forgiveness. Jesus had already paid for our sins when He died upon the cross and rose from the dead. No psychologist can ever remove our guilt. No one! Only God has the power to forgive our sins and take our guilty feelings ("If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9). Illus.: Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor in television, Marghanita Laski, one of our best-known secular humanists and novelists, said, "What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me." (John Stott in The Contemporary Christian). We thank God for His forgiveness! Praise the Lord!
3. Unrealistic expectations. All of us have expectations about different things in our lives. We develop them as we grow up. Many of the expectations we have we don't even know about. They are typically modeled after parents, authority figures, and different life experiences. Some expectations can be reasonable and encourage us to overcome obstacles and chase our dreams. However, when our expectations are unrealistic, they can create friction, misunderstandings, frustration, and stress. As an adult, we have the chance to look at our values and beliefs and decide if we have unrealistic expectations. If we do, that's OK. We can do things to adjust our mindset and gain more happiness in life. Here are two examples of unrealistic expectations: 1) In marriage. Many who got married believe that their spouses are the soulmates that will make them happy all the time, always listen and understand them, and that there will be no conflict in their marriage. The truth is that they and their spouses have different backgrounds and different life experiences, so their outlook on life and the way they do things will vary. It's OK not to agree on everything, to have disagreements, and not to like each other all the time. Couples who have realistic expectations will be less stressed since they are more ready to face challenges in their marriage. 2) In parenting. Because of wanting to see their children be successful in life, many parents push, even force their children to study hard, take various lessons, and be involved in many activities that often cause so much stress on their children. Parents need to know their children well, their strengths, weaknesses, talents, and limitations to have realistic expectations. If their children are weak in math, don't push them to be engineers; if they are weak in Biology, Chemistry, and memorizing things, do not push them to be doctors or pharmacists. If they do, both they and their children will be very distressed.
Though the Bible does not talk specifically about unrealistic expectation, Apostle Paul, in Romans 12:3, gives us a fundamental principle relating to that - "For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you." Paul tells us not to "think of ourselves more highly than we ought. NLT says: "Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us." God wants us not only to know Him well but also to know ourselves well. What do we need to know about ourselves? 1) Our faith (I know I don't have faith like George Muller or Hudson Taylor). 2) Our ability. 3) Our strengths. 4) Our weaknesses (If you have weakness in gambling, don't go to Las Vegas or Reno). 5) Our situation. 6) Our stress tolerance so that we can have realistic expectations. Stress tolerance is our ability to handle stress in a healthy, balanced way. It's determined by genes, personalities, and life experiences. Some people were born having high-stress tolerance like choleric persons. They show determination and not easy to give up. People who used to face or experience difficult situations since they were little usually become more resilient when they grow up. But children whose parents are spoiled, who always get what they want/ask, never learn to wait, postpone their pleasures, and always get help every time they face problems will tend to be fragile and prone to stress when they grow up. Do you know your stress tolerance level? By knowing ourselves accurately or adequately, we can have realistic expectations, accept ourselves and our limitations, and live the best we can.
Illus.: Many of you know Samuel Truett Cathy, the founder and chairman of the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain. He was a successful businessman and one of the country's most generous philanthropists, sharing his fortune primarily with disadvantaged children. Cathy and his wife took in more than 150 foster children. He developed a philosophy early in life, for which he credited his success, to work hard and place his trust in God. Cathy was a Sunday school teacher of thirteen-year-old boys for more than fifty years. By faith, he closed on Chick-fil-A on Sundays so that his employees could rest, be with their families, and go to church. Cathy knew Sunday is usually the best day for restaurants. But He believed that God would bless him enough by working only for six days. He is right. By 2014 Chick-fil-A included more than 1,800 restaurants in the United States. Cathy maintained that his company focused on people rather than profits. Cathy was a Christian who knew God and himself well and God's call for his life. Therefore, he had a proper perspective on work, could serve the Lord for more than fifty years, and enjoyed his life for 93 years.
We all face problems. If you ask me how I feel, I will honestly say I am sad. My daughter-in-law is still at the hospital. She has been suffering for many years. But what can I do? I can only pray for her every day. I pour out my heart to God, ask Him to help her. After that, I surrendered her to God and continued my life. God wants us to rejoice in Him always, which means in all situations. May God help us control our stress so that we can rejoice in the Lord always! Next week we will continue with other stressors.
