Stress
Annual Sermons Volume 9 (15-16) – Revised 2022
HOW TO HAVE MORE TIME AND LESS STRESS
“There is a time and a season for everything under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
bmarcaurelle@charter.net
STRESS THE WAY TO A MISERABLE LIFE
I know what you are saying. “Brother Bob, there is no way you can teach us to have MORE time. That’s one place we are all equal. There are just so many hours in a day, twenty-four and no more.” No, I cannot teach you how to have more time but using principles from God’s Word and time management seminars I, hopefully, can show you and myself how to have more time for the things we NEED to do, and lessen our load of guilt, and more time for the things we WANT to do, and lessen our load of weariness.
I don’t know many people like Junior Samples, the character on HEE HAW! The epitome of laziness, he was slowly doing some minor chore. A friend asked him, “Junior, don’t you do anything fast?” “Yep!” said Junior, “I GET TIRED FAST.”
All I know and see are busy people, hustling and hurrying from daylight to dawn. But it seems like most of us are busy going in circles like a dog chasing its tail. We do what we HAVE to do, usually at the last minute, and leave undone things we NEED to do and WANT to do. We substitute GOOD things for the BEST things.
I’ve seen this road sign in the Georgia mountains, “SPEED KILLS.” Whether you mean driving, drugs or the rat race of life - SPEED does kill. We live at a fast pace. We want patience right now. The mail is too slow so we FAX. We buy new cars and gadgets to save time, but spend all our time working to pay for them. Vance Havner said life is a rat race and the rats are winning.
Exhausted at the close of each day, we try to juggle being mother, father, husband, wife and employees. We are involved in community functions, school functions and church functions. Add to this grass to cut, mildew to clean off the house, cars to repair, and relatives to visit and you’ll know why one lady in a cartoon cried, “Stop the world! I want to get off!” We know why we call this the daily GRIND. It just grinds the life and energy right out of us.
This is all new. In 1950's we didn’t like this. I lived in a city but did not have a car or a telephone. We walked most places we went, even pulling our groceries in a wagon. We didn’t need a phone, Mama said, because if people really want you they’ll come see you. We didn’t have a dishwasher, a trash compacter, a washing machine or a calculator. We didn’t have any TIME saving gadgets but what we did have was TIME! Time to sit on the porch - time to walk through the neighborhood; time to laugh and play together. We had more quality time for each other each other back then than we do now.
Feeling Trapped and Out of Control
Stress is not necessarily hard work or long hours on the job. Dr. Selye works 16 hours a day but his work is his life, his hobby, his joy. Stress is the feeling of being out of control, of being manipulated by pressures and bound by our circumstances we do not like; of feeling trapped. A country song puts it:
Right or left at Oak Street
It’s a choice I make every day
And I don’t know which the more courage
The staying or the running away
Talk about being out of control – A new air traffic controller from the sticks was on his first day at the controls. A pilot said on the speaker- “USA Flight coming in East to West on runway seven”. The young man said, “10-4”. Another pilot came on and said, “TBS Flight coming in West to East on runway seven”. The young man said, “10-4, YAW’L BE REAL CAREFUL OUT THERE!”
Most people today feel trapped - by their job; their marriage; their finances; their inadequacies; their problems, etc. Charles Steinbeck traveled all across America with his dog Charlie and talked with people from every walk of life. He said majority of were not happy with their lives. They wanted to be someone else and to be doing something else.
Mothers know stress. A lady took her son to a psychiatrist and said, “This kid is driving me crazy”. The psychiatrist said, “Let me get this straight. You are telling me you have given your mental balance to a three-year-old.” She had and she is one of many.
Stress and Material Possessions
1Timothy 6:9-10
“Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is
the root of all sorts of evil.”
In his book, CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE, Richard Foster says we have a mad attachment to “things.” These things are built to wear out and break down and complicate our lives. Gone is the day of the of the rag doll that lasts. It has been replaced by those that eat, talk, cry, wet and tear up. Arthus Gish, in BEYOND THE RAT RACE, put it in perspective,
“We buy things we do not want, with money we do not have, to impress people we do not like” (p. 21).
To pay for all this and have enough money for vacations, which are so hectic they add stress, and for college, we let relationships suffer. We don’t possess our possessions, they possess us. In doing this we feel guilty over what we are not doing as husbands, wives and parents. We are angry and irritable toward those who
make us feel guilty. Add all this up - hurry, guilt, anger and irritability and you have stress with a capital “S”.
Stress and Anger
When material things don’t make us happy and when we are not in control we are furious. Cruising in our cars we get away from the pressure for awhile; turn on a little music; and for a few brief moments feel like we are, “king or queen of the road.” Taking my girls to school I stopped at a busy intersection to let 2-3 cars out. One of my daughters said, “Daddy- the man behind you is shooting you a bird.” I saw him in the rear view mirror- middle finger up against the glass raised high; twisted face full of fury; and a mouth saying all kinds of dirty things about me. This is “road rage” that sometimes gets people killed. He was in his $300 suit; driving his $50,000 car; and going to his six figure job and I ruined his day by making him wait for 45 seconds.
Stress and Sickness
“A merry heart does good like a medicine but
rottenness to bones..”
The result of our fast-paced life is stress and the thousand devils that flow from it. First is illness. God’s warning signals come to us in all kinds of aches, pains and even serious illnesses. Thousands of years ago Plato said,
“The greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind; yet the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately.”
The majority of doctors throughout history tell us half their patients have illnesses caused not by anything physical but by emotional conflicts. Dr. Hans Selye, the recognized expert on stress, may go too far when he says ALL DISEASE is the by-product of stress but a lot is and probably most is.
In the thick fighting of the Civil War, General Grant, in hot pursuit of General Lee’s troops, was half blinded with a sick headache. He stopped at a farmhouse and wrote in his memoirs, “I spend the night in bathing my feet in hot water and mustard and putting mustard plasters on my wrist and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning.” When morning came, he was still sick. But suddenly an officer appeared with the message that General Lee had surrendered. And Grant wrote these words, “I was still suffering with the sick headache, but the instant I saw the contents of the note, I was cured.”
Years ago, when chest pains, high blood pressure, back pain and aching joints sent me to a doctor, he said, “Bob,
if you want to live to see grandchildren, you need to
leave the ministry or take control of your life.”
.
The medical community today has a stress chart that assigns stress points to the crisis events of life – loss of a child or spouse, loss of a job, taking out a loan, vacation, Christmas, divorce, etc. The study showed that people who accumulate 200 stress points in a one year period have an 80 percent chance of being hospitalized.
STRESS THE WAY OUT
To get control of our lives is not easy. It is not a matter of simply adjusting our activities. It involves changing our lifestyles, rethinking our priorities, deciding for ourselves what is and is not important and putting up with all the flak from others.
1. Give God the Controls
Matthew 6:25 / 33
“Do not be anxious (all torn up) / Seek
first the kingdom of God.”
This is Jesus’ remedy for anxiety. A lot of people shy away from putting God in charge because they feel like He will send them to church four times a week; ask them to serve on three committees and teach Sunday School.
Maybe not, remember it was people just like this, the Pharisees, who killed Jesus. Sadly, the modern church which is filled with activities (most of which are designed to create pleasure for its members) is part of the stress problem.
When God controls our calendars we find more freedom.. Matthew 9 and 11 tell us,
“Seeing the multitudes He (Jesus) felt compassion for them because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. / Come to me all of you who are weary and loaded down. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me – You will find rest for your souls because My yoke is easy and my load is light.”
“People” Work
God will put the priority on our relationships- on people. Years ago I bumped into a faithful couple in our church. The husband was slowly dying. They were leaving after Sunday School to ride to the mountains to see the leaves at the peak of color. Embarrassed, she said, “Oh, Preacher Bob, you caught us. ______ has been sick every day this week, we go to the doctor Monday and this is the only day we have to see the leaves.” I called her name and said, “Has it occurred to you that God probably wanted you and _____ to spend today in the mountains? He probably wanted you to skip Sunday School so you could leave early and see the sunrise.
Purposeful Work
Mark 3:20-21
“Such a great crowd gathered that He and His disciples were unable to eat / His family came to take Him (Jesus) away (back home) because they thought he was out of His mind.”
Jesus, in His ministry of three and a half years was a busy man. He barely had time to eat or pray (Read Mark 1:32-39. He had a gospel to preach throughout Galilee. He had disciples to train so He could leave His work with them. The crowds pulled to Him to heal them. The Spirit of God pulled on Him to take time to pray. With all this, however, He was not stressed. He did not feel out of control because God was in control. He was doing exactly what He felt like God wanted him to do. His own family upon seeing this came to make Him come home and rest. They thought He was “out of His mind”. They thought stress had gotten to Him and He needed help.
In most of our cases our family would have been right- we do need help. Things we HAVE to do leave us exhausted physically, mentally and spiritually. Using principles from God’s Word and time management principles we all can create more time for the things we NEED to do, and lessen our load of guilt, and more time for the things we WANT to do, and lessen our load of frustration.
One day Jesus was exhausted and sitting by a well in the hill country of Samaria, He led a woman to forgiveness and a changed life. The disciples came back with the food and they looking rested and no longer hungry. They wondered if anyone had given him some food and He said: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work”
2. Set Priorities (Philippians 3:13)
Paul was as busy as Jesus. He did hundreds of things. He was a missionary; a reformer; a church starter; a writer; a teacher of Preachers; and had to make tents for a living. Yet in Philippians 3:13 he said, “This one thing I do!”. George Truett, when he was pastor of the world’s largest Baptist church, said Paul did not say, “These fifty things I dabble in.” When we “dabble” we feel like a rope in a tug of war- pulled in all directions.
The only answer is to set some priority goals, to ask God what He wants from us. That’s what Paul meant by “one thing.” Seven Covey wrote, “. . .have a purpose larger than one’s own situation, a contribution to be made.” Paul’s was to serve God, to help people find Christ and grow them in the faith. This was his “one” thing.
Years ago I read a story in the READER’S DIGEST about a young wife and mother who had a heart to heart talk with her mom. She said something like this, “Mom, when we were young you always seemed to have time to talk with us and be there when we needed you for as long as we needed you. Our house looked nice, you had time for daddy and you never seemed to be in a hurry. Mama, I can’t do this. With cleaning clothes and cooking and cleaning house, I barely have time to wash the kids, much less sit down and talk with them.” Her mother said, “Honey, I was just as busy as you and so I learned when you kids came along that to have time for you I had to let some things go. I would sweep dust under the bed or under the rug when you needed me. I KNEW THAT DUST WOULD BE THERE but I knew YOU KIDS WOULD SOON BE GONE. So I made up my mind if I swept some things under the rug for awhile it wouldn’t be you.” That lady had her priorities right.
If we don’t take control of our calendars, someone else will. We need to take control and give the controls to the Lord. What we need to do is go to God in honest, earnest prayer and find out what He wants from us and how He wants us to spend our time. Before Paul said, “This one thing I do!” in Philippians 3:13, he said, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” at his conversion in Acts 9:6.
Balance
Years ago I read where Dr. Norman Vincent Peale said every person should have a CROSS, with four points, in his life and all the points should be balanced, if we are to have holy, healthy, happy, helpful lives. The four points were: WORSHIP - WORK - PLAY - REST. Under “Play” was quality time for one’s family and friends and for yourself in some hobby or activity. Under “worship” was prayer, church, Bible study and helping our fellow man in Christ’s name. I think most of us would agree that God wants us to give our jobs what they deserve but not let them rule our lives.
When the recession hit a few years ago many executives lost their jobs. One man interviewed on TV was the manager of a K-Mart Store. Fighting back the tears he said, “I don’t understand it – I gave K-Mart my life.” I thought to myself, “That is your problem- nothing deserves our lives but God and those we love.”
We can all make time for what matters. A dear friend of ours in Georgia, “clubbed” to death by church, family, school, civic clubs, etc., was convicted she needed to spend more quality time with her daughters. She looked at her schedule, felt like taking a nap and felt, “No way!” But she found a way. Her girls rode the school bus. So every morning she would drop what she was doing, walk out to the road with them and wait beside them and talk with them.
She and her husband both “decreed” that barring emergencies they would sit down together at supper at least four times a week with no TV, no rushing from the table; and no answering of the telephone. Her girls are grown and married, and that mother will tell you some of the most blessed times in her life were those mornings when she made the time to get to know them. To do this you must:
3. Learn to Say “NO” (Nehemiah 6:3)
A new pastor was shaking hands at the back door of the church. One lady said, “I sure feel sorry for you, having to please 500 people!” He answered politely, “Ma’am, I don’t have to please 500 people. I have please only one person.” And pointing upward, he said – “God.”
Put your calendar and your time in God’s hands and ask Him for the courage to tell people “no”. When some high-ranking officials asked Nehemiah to leave the Jerusalem wall he was working on and come to a committee meeting, he said, “I am doing a great work and cannot come down” (Nehemiah 6:3).
This does not mean we are to be selfish and mean spirited and never do things we don’t like. Jesus was always being interrupted and asked to perform healings. What it means is that you don’t let others control your time to the point that you are pulled away constantly from doing the important things that matters to you and the relaxing things you like to do for yourself. If your boy or girl is in a ballgame or play, etc., it should take an emergency to get you away.
Pride
Saying “no” is extremely difficult, because of our PRIDE. In our pragmatic society of grades and paychecks based on performance, we get our self image and self worth, not from what we ARE, but from what we DO. We desperately want people to like us and admire us, so we don’t say “No!” to them.
Moms won’t say “No” to their kids. Dads won’t say “No” to friends. Moms and days won’t way no to civic clubs, PTA, charities or church. We are ashamed to say, “I don’t have the time” because we are afraid people will see us as weak, undisciplined or selfish. They feel like telling us, “You have as much time as I do; don’t use that excuse.” We’ll never learn to say “No” until we care more about what God thinks of us and our loved ones thing of us than what others think.
4. Common Sense Suggestions
Have a “To Do” List (Eccl. 3:1)
Our text says there IS A TIME AND A SEASON FOR EVERYTHING and then it gives a long list. To say “Yes!” to God’s priorities we need a simple plan whereby we put it all into practice, day by day and week by week. It’s not enough to INTEND to do it. We need to do it.
One of the worst time wasters is PROCRASTINATION.
They wanted to have an annual meeting of procrastinators but couldn’t do it. Nobody got around to coming.
A good answer for this is a “To Do List.”
Now most time management courses will tell you to sit down every morning or every night and plan the details of your next day, leaving time for unexpected events.
That sounds good and probably is good, BUT I CAN’T DO IT. If you can, fine! But if you’re like me, try a SHORTCUT. With red ink, plan your week and write into a weekly calendar the things you HAVE to do. With another color write down the things you NEED to do and prioritize them. With a third color, schedule in what you WANT to do. Have the courage to stick to this and it’s amazing how much you can put in.
Dr. Criswell, who pastored the largest Baptist church in America, wrote dozens of books and spoke in many conferences, helped me here. Attending his School of Prophets, he told us how he would write into his weekly schedule the morning hours for prayer, Bible study and sermon preparation. When he was asked to be in some prayer breakfast, attend some committee or speak at some club, he would say, “Thank you for asking. Let me check my calendar.” He would look; see, “Prayer, Bible study and sermon preparation,” and say, “I’m sorry but I already have an appointment that morning!” Then, with his booming voice, he said to us, “I’m not lying! I have an appointment with God. Is there anyone more important?
This does not mean we are to be inaccessible and not there when people need us. A young pastor in our association who told people, “Make an appointment!” when they came up to talk with him, didn’t last long at that church. And he shouldn’t have. The current model of a preacher as the busy head of a corporation is about as far away from the Biblical model as one can get.
Tackle Big Jobs Slowly
In your “To do!” list will be some big, time consuming jobs you hate and have been putting off for a long time- putting your pictures in an album, re-writing your scribbled recipes, cleaning up your tool shop, etc. For me, it is filing illustrations and thoughts.
We preachers read everything with a pair of scissors. I get jokes, quotes, thoughts, outlines and sermons all the time. And what do I do? I stack them on top of my filing cabinet. In 1993 that stack was 3'5" high and grinned at me every time I walked in. I had no idea what was in it. I knew I needed to go through it, file each piece, and thus make it available in my sermon preparation. I just couldn’t find the time, so it just stood there and kept growing and grinning, a source of frustration. I wanted to deep six it in the garbage.
I decided to do something about it. When I entered my study in the morning I filed five pieces. It took about five minutes. That’s five per day, twenty-five her week and 1,250 per year. I didn’t go to my study every week or every day, but when I did I filed five pieces and I’m here to tell you, PRAISE GOD! THAT PILE IS GONE AND EVERYTHING IN IT IS WHERE I CAN LAY MY HANDS ON IT. (Problem is, now I have another pile started.)
Use Loose Change Time
We don’t need to fill every minute of every day with busy-ness. My wife is programmed that way. God made rocking chairs for her, so she could have something to do while she’s sitting down. Most of us aren’t like that, and don’t need to be. But there are some blocks of empty time we can learn to use productively without becoming workaholics.
One man wanted to write and in the time he spent waiting on his wife, he wrote TWELVE articles for magazines. Nolan Ryan felt the need to personally write many autographs to people, especially boys and girls who asked him. So while reporters interviewed him, he had a bucket of baseballs between his feet, and while he talked he would sign them.
Pass the Monkey (2 Tim. 2:2)
“Take the things you heard from me and ENTRUST
them to reliable men who will teach others.”
An executive in our church, when he saw me frayed and frustrated, said, “Bob, you need to learn to pass the monkey.” Every time someone comes up to us we need to see a monkey sitting on their shoulder grinning at us. We need to realize they want to put that monkey on our back or on our desk to deal with later. What we need to do is be sure, when that person leaves that we see that monkey on his shoulder waving back at us. Don’t tell someone, “I’ll call you.” Tell them, “Call me.”
If someone says, “Pastor, we need a ministry to college students,” that pastor should say, “I agree. It seems that God has put this on your heart. Why don’t you head this up for us?” Nine times out of ten they won’t do it.
Take Some Time Off (Mark 6:31)
Jesus told His disciples, “Come apart and rest awhile” (Mk. 6:31). Wise old Vance Havner said,
“If we don’t come apart, we will come apart! There are those who remind us that “The devil never takes a vacation. Well, we aren’t supposed to follow the devil, but the Lord, who said come and rest.”
Every night I watch television and “piddle” around with unimportant things. If I study or work before I go to bed, I cannot get it off my mind when I try to sleep. For three hours every night I do nothing constructive. I turn my motor off. In seminary I never watched television, but every year a group of us would gather in the TV room, watch the World Series and yell our silly heads off. One super spiritual brother would sneak in every day and tape notes on the screen. One I remember was, “If you cared as much about witnessing as you do about baseball, we’d will this world to Jesus.”
I know we can, and many do, make recreation our god. But it can be one of God’s great blessings if we keep it in perspective. The doctor I went to asked me what I did for fun. When I told him nothing, he said GET A HOBBY. That’s when golf came into my life. (You know why they call it GOLF? All the other four-letter words are already used.) On Saturday mornings, if it’s sunny, if it’s raining, if there’s a hurricane, if it’s snowing, you’ll find me and four other intelligent gentlemen from our church, at Pine Lake Golf Course from 7:00 to 11:00. Many may not agree with this, but I need, as pastor of this church, time on the golf course, every bit as much as I need time in Bible study and prayer. I love these lines:
If you keep your nose to the grindstone rough,
And leave it down there long enough,
These three, will your world compose,
You, the stone, and your ground-down-nose!
- Author Unknown
All this has a serious side. One of the best friends I have in this world is a pastor who has always been able to build super large churches. His son, somewhere around age 20, was instantly killed in a freak hunting accident. A couple of years after it happened I did a Bible study in his church. One evening he took me out to the high school field where his boy ran track. With tears in his eyes he said, “Bob, I remember all the times I was here to watch my boy run. But I remember that most of the time I was not here. I was taking care of somebody else or somebody else’s boy. The greatest regret I have in life is that I didn’t take the time to get to know my boy
son.”
Let’s all make the time and take the time to do what we need and want to do, not just to lessen stress, but to give and receive love, and to please God.
