¡§How to Deal with the Way I feel¡¨ part 1 (Success Over Stress)
Brian A. Moon
On a recent episode of the hit TV sit-com ¡§Everybody Loves Raymond¡¨ there was a situation in which their daughter had this new teacher who loved to dish out the homework. The young grade school aged girl had over 2 hours of homework per night and on this night a tired Raymond comes in from work and is put in charge of helping her. The project was to build an entire ocean Eco-system and Raymond did most of it. At a parent teacher meeting a few days after this Raymond begins to talk with some of the other parents about the large amounts of homework that the teacher assigns. They all agree that the teacher is over loading the kids and causing way to much stress for them and the parents. When the teacher over hears them talking she comes up and ask if everything is OK? The parents all elect Raymond to speak for them and as a result of telling the teacher the concern he gets handed an arm full of curriculum books to take home and evaluate for next weeks school board meeting.
It was a funny episode to me because it just illustrates that today from students to adults we are an ever-increasing nation full of stressed out people.
A recent survey done says that one out of every three people in this room tonight deals with stress every day of their life and, Six out of 10 people in this room experience over whelming stress 2 times a week!
We all have things to do and it never seems like we have enough time to do them, and it keeps piling up until boom, we snap. We seem to always be rushed these days and the stress from all this busyness we think is just a part of life that we have to accept. I mean just think about it, today some family¡¦s even go to vacations at Mount Rush-more¡K All kidding aside stress is a serious problem and tonight as we begin a new series called ¡§How to Deal with the Way I Feel¡¨ I want to help you walk out of here tonight sighing a sigh of relief. Stress is not something that we can avoid. It can be reduced, but never totally avoided. The way we approach stress, and respond to it though is something we can have control over, and that is my goal for us, to discover how to have ¡§Success over Stress¡¨ Before we go on though we need to define just what we are talking about when we talk about stress.
I used to be an Automotive Technician and one time when I was working in a Ford dealership I had a guy come in with a brand new little Ford Ranger pick up truck complaining that his transmission was making a whining noise. I got in the truck and took it for a test drive and sure enough the transmission was making a high pitched whining noise and it was also slipping.
This was very unusual because the truck had only a few thousand miles on it. As I talked with the owner I noticed that it had a trailer hitch on the back. So I asked him if he did any hauling or towing. He said that he towed a boat every weekend 30 miles to a lake. I then asked him how big the boat was, and he told me that it was a 35-foot Sea Ray. This boat weighs thousands of pounds and was way to much of a load for this little truck to be carrying.
And that is what stress is like. When we are carrying too heavy a load we will be stressed! When you pile more stuff on than you can carry the result will always be stress. So what are some of the signs of stress? If you have some of these signs in your life, you may be carrying stress around with you.
ć It becomes difficult to make decisions, both major and minor ones.
ć You have excessive daydreaming or fantasies about getting away from it all.
ć Turn to using things like cigarettes or alcohol to relax.
ć Your thoughts trail off while speaking or writing.
ć You have excessive worry about all things.
ć Sudden outbursts of temper or hostility.
ć Paranoid ideas about friends and family.
ć Forgetfulness about deadlines and due dates.
ć Frequent feelings of inadequacy.
ć Reversal in usual behavior.
Like I said if you are experiencing some of the symptoms of stress than tonight¡¦s message is especially for you. So how do we find ¡§Success over Stress?¡¨ There are a lot of self-help books and articles out there all claiming to give us success over stress, but they all fall short because no amount of human effort will give you complete success.
As human beings we are flawed and fallible. This is why we need a greater power to turn to, a divine source to give us success over stress. In the Bible there is a verse that speaks to this,
1 John 3:20 ¡§But even if we don¡¦t feel at ease, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.¡¨ CEV
Underline the words ¡§God is greater than our feelings¡¨
God is the only true way to find true success over the stress in our lives and the only way to find this power is through a relationship with his Son Jesus Christ who came to earth to show us how this is done.
We will talk more about how to start this relationship later, but the first thing that we must do to find success over stress is:
Identify the Problem
Philippians 4:6-7 ¡§Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.¡¨ NRSV
Before you can come up with a plan of action or as this verse says ¡§let your request be made known to God¡¨ you must first identify the problem. Before the ¡§peace of God¡¨ can be apart of our lives we must first figure out what it is that is causing the problem. In our case what is the source of the stress?
What are the things that are causing you be over loaded and as a result feel this stress all the time.
In some cases it will be something very practical like for me the other day I had gone to work at around 9am and did not get home until 9pm. I had a day full of task and administrative stuff that aggravates me and then I get home and my dear sweet wife had a ¡§Honey do¡¨ list waiting for me on the dry erase board on the refrigerator. That was it, I snapped, the stress had got me, I was carrying a load that was too heavy.
Other times though it is not as practical¡K Say I took the lesson of that day, and came home at a reasonable hour from now on instead of working 12 hours a day then my source of stress is just working to long. But if I keep working long hours and keep snapping because of stress there is probably a deeper problem that I need to look into. And that deeper source of stress might be our hearts.
Proverbs 12:25 ¡§An anxious heart weighs a man down¡K¡¨ NIV
If we have some heart issues that need to be dealt with it will always lead to reoccurring stress. The first issue is the idea that I can do it all, that is pride.
Early on in my ministry I thought I could do it all, I thought I could set everything up, tear everything down, organize the night, do the message and be the pastor that everyone needed. I had to go through a painful process of realizing that it was pride and it was causing me tremendous stress.
When you have a schedule that is so filled with stuff because you think you can do it all that is prideful.
This pride will lead you to stress and destruction.
Proverbs 16:18 ¡§Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall¡¨ NLT
One of the best stress relievers I know of is to simply admit to yourself that I cannot do everything.
When you wake up in the morning tell yourself that I cannot do it all today, because when you do this you take a huge load of pride off your heart which goes along way at finding ¡§Success over stress.¡¨ If God¡¦s own Son, Jesus Christ limited himself in this way when he was on this earth then why do we think we can do anything different?
The second heart thing that we must check for is the attitude of I can be it all. That is envy!
There was an eagle one time that was envious of another who could fly higher than he could. One day he saw a sportsman in a field with a bow and arrow and said to him, ¡§I wish you would bring down that eagle up there.¡¨ The man said he would if he had some feathers for his arrows. So the envious eagle pulled out one of his wing feathers. The arrow was shot but came up short of the high flying eagle. So another feather was pulled out by the envious eagle, and another, and another until he had no more and could not fly. The hunter took advantage of the situation and killed the helpless bird and took it home.
Proverbs 14:30 ¡§A heart at peace gives life to the body but envy rots the bones.¡¨ NIV
God has given us just enough time to be the person that he designed us to be, but when we try to be someone else because we envy them, All we do is make more stress for our lives because we wind up trying to be 3 or 4 people at one time; instead of being the person God made us to be. Stress also comes when we realize that no matter how hard we try we will never be like the person we are envious of.
The final heart condition we must check for before we can have success over stress is the attitude of I can have it all. That is greed!
We think that we can have it all: school, a job, a girlfriend or boyfriend, a recreational sport or two, a church life, family time and so on and so on.
Proverbs 25:16 ¡§If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, or else, having too much, you will vomit it.¡¨ NRSV
Don¡¦t cause undo stress by loading up your schedule with the idea that I can have it all or you may wind up in an emotional vomiting fit. If we identify the problem first we now have the needed information to move on to the next key to getting ¡§Success Over Stress.¡¨
Make priorities
As we said before stress comes from carrying to much weight and the only way to limit the load that we are carrying is to set some priorities.
Pretend you are a hunter like old Elmer Fudd and you are out in the forest looking for that prize deer to put over your mantel. You hear a noise and all of a sudden a deer jumps out into the middle of a field and is wide open for a shot. Right as you are about to shoot another deer jumps out 30 yards to the right of the first deer. Logically, you now have to choose which one of those deer you are going to shoot for because we all know that you cannot hit both of them at the same time.
But every day we do what is logically impossible, we try to hit 2 targets at once, or 3 or 4 at once. We fill our days going in 10 different directions and then become stressed out because we did not get any of them done.
Proverbs 17:24 ¡§Anyone with wisdom knows what makes sense, but fools can never make up their minds.¡¨ CEV
Underline the words ¡§never make up their minds¡¨
Most have so much to do that we wind up not getting anything done. The key to finding success over this is to figure out what are the most important things that need to be done. 3 easy things you can do to do prioritize are:
BEGIN WITH THE BASICS
When you are trying to prioritize begin with the things you must do for survival. That might sound like a tip from Survivor, but it works for us too. Make a list of all the things you do in a week and put them in two categories, Survival and Non-Survival. Things like going to school and homework so you can get a good job, or working to make a living, taking time to eat well, getting enough sleep at night, and spending time with God and family are all basics to survive in today¡¦s society. Things like sports, taking on more work for more money, recreational activities, and even dating are all secondary. Another thing you can do is:
DON¡¦T ADD WITHOUT SUBTRACTING
After you have prioritized your schedule make a commitment to yourself that you will not add anything to your non-survival list without removing something first. Don¡¦t add soccer without subtracting dating¡K
It is a tough thing to do, but necessary to find success over stress. Finally,
TRIM THE FAT
Remember from before we cannot have it all, so don¡¦t try to when you schedule. Try to remove something from your Non-Survival list this next week without replacing it with something else. Also when you are prioritizing remember to set aside time for unexpected things. Very seldom do we go through a week without something unexpected popping it¡¦s ugly head up. The final thing we must do though to find ultimate ¡§Success over Stress¡¨ is to:
Give it away
Ecclesiastes 5:3 ¡§¡K being too busy gives you nightmares¡K¡¨ NLT
Stress is not something we have to lose sleep over, and it not something we have to feel defeated by!
God cares about his children and he hates to see us live our lives being a slave to anything that is not necessary like stress. The most important key to true success over stress is to give it away to God. When you feel the pressure mounting, when you are about to snap, stop and take a time out. Take a God time out and give these feelings of stress over to him.
Stop and ask him to give you peace and perspective.
Psalm 62:1 ¡V 2 ¡§For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.¡¨ ESV
Look at those last words, ¡§I shall not be greatly shaken.¡¨ These words can be true for you too if you give your stress over to God. Before I said that a relationship with God¡¦s Son, Jesus Christ is the only way to fully gain success over stress. That is because Jesus came to earth as a human being like you and me and lived a perfect life, a life that had success over stress, and success over sin. He then died for you and me so that all of our sin and shortcomings could be made right in the eyes of God. And now this life is open to you, a life that is free and fulfilled with power over sin, and even power over stress, will you accept it?
Prayer time -----------
God we thank you for giving us a way to have success over stress, we thank you for giving your Son Jesus to come and give us this.
If you have never started a relationship with God through Jesus, and you are in need of some power to deal with stress tonight, and even more important you need a new life, a life that is free and fulfilling; you need God to save you. If this is you then right now between you and God cry out to him the best way you know how and ask him to come and save you from your sin. Ask him to give you a new life that is free and fulfilling. Tell him you are sorrow for your sins and ask him to come and help you. Believe that He can do it, and he will.
God says that if that was just you, then he will give you the power to be saved, and you will spend forever with him someday.
Thank you God for all that you do to make our lives the way you intended for them to be. Amen.
