Dealing with stress during times of real trouble …

“Stress” is one word you rarely ever have to define for someone.

That’s because we’ve all experienced stress, it’s an experience that comes with life, and it’s also something many of us don’t handle very well. Kind of like these chickens Richard Tow told his congregation about in a sermon:

When I was a kid, we raised chickens for our food. At first, we only had a few in a large pen. It was a fairly natural environment for them with lots of grass to scratch around in for insects and seeds. Those chickens were very healthy in that environment. Then we dramatically increased their numbers. We squeezed more and more chickens in the limited space. We put some in wire cages. We also learned how to feed them in a way that maximized egg production. Those changes put the chickens under more and more stress.

The more we departed from their natural environment, the more stressed they became. And under that stress they began to behave badly. Crammed in together they began to peck one another obsessively. The ones at the bottom of the pecking order had all the feather on their backs plucked out. Their backs and sometimes their heads were bleeding from the abuse they received from the other chickens. None of that obsessive behavior happened when they had plenty of space and grass to scratch around in. It all began when we put them under the stress of close, unnatural conditions and pressed them for maximum production. We’re not chickens, but when we are put in unnatural, high-stress conditions we tend to respond in unhealthy ways. We tend to seek out ways to reduce the tension.

There are times where we create our own stress, or act in ways that amplify the stressors we experience. I’ve written on multiple occasions about stress, and ways to both reduce and manage it. But as Christians, one of the wisest things we can do regarding anything in life is to look to the Bible to see if there’s guidance for us in life’s issues.

There is about stress.

Today, let’s just look at two examples of how some people responded to stress. These two examples are two of the greatest experiences of stress during times of real and serious troubles in human history!

The first example is one of a poor way to respond to stress under troubles, and it comes to us from the first humans to live, Adam and Eve. In Genesis 3, we read the story of how the first couple “broke the world” — and, specifically, their perfect relationship with God — by choosing sin over obeying God. Talk about a trouble that created stress!

How did they handle it?

First, they completely lacked self-awareness. Instead of owning their sin and the trouble it caused, they blamed others (Eve blamed the serpent, Adam blamed Eve) and then isolated themselves from God by hiding from Him. Their behavior only kept them in their trouble and the stress from it, and did nothing to resolve their problem.

If you think “breaking the world” is a stressful situation, another stressful occasion of such monumental proportions was recorded in Matthew 26:36-46 and tells of Jesus, God in the flesh, standing with friends in a garden dealing with facing voluntarily offering His sinless, perfect, holy life as a sacrifice for sinful humanity. Doing this would require the most brutal and shameful kind of deaths of that day, being publicly crucified on a cross.

Jesus was stressed! Luke gives us an idea of just how intensely stressed the Lord was:

“He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood,” Luke 22:44.

That’s stressed!

So, how did Jesus handle being stressed in a time of trouble?

1. He communicated His emotional state both horizontally and vertically so He could be clearly understood in the moment: “He told them, ‘My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me,'” Matthew 26:38.

2. He recruited the support of His closest friends: “Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, ‘Sit here while I go over there to pray.’ He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed,” Matthew 26:36-37.

3. He talked to God about the trouble: “He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, ‘My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine,'” Matthew 26:39, “Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, ‘My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done,'” Matthew 26:42, and “So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again,” Matthew 26:44.

4. Jesus responded with a steadfast commitment to the will of God. While He greatly desired a different route other than the cross, He was wholly willing to go that route to accomplish the will of the Father.

Which example of stress under trouble is more like how you deal with stress?

Scotty