I’ve been thinking about stress. It is both our friend and
our enemy. A manageable amount of stress motivates us and causes us to rise to
the challenge. It’s invigorating. Too much stress only overwhelms us and is
debilitating. When my stress load is manageable, I can actually be funny,
engaging and thoughtful. When I am over-stressed with too many deadlines or insurmountable
tasks, I quite quickly become irritable (read grumpy), inattentive and generally
no fun to be around.
A while back I got this from a friend:
An instructor was teaching a class on stress management.
Raising a glass of water he posed the question, “How heavy do you think this glass of water is?”. Answers ranged from
8 ounces to 20 ounces and after a brief moment he responded to their guesses, “In one sense the absolute weight doesn’t
really matter because the word heavy is a relative term; it depends upon on how
long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it
for an hour, I'll have a serious ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day,
you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case it's the same weight, but the
longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”
Then this comment:
“That’s how it is with
stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden
becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. Just like this glass
of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before picking it up again.
When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. So, as early in the
evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don't carry them through the
evening and into the night. Tomorrow is a new day and you can pick them up
again then, and when you do, they won’t seem as heavy.”
Now, you might be tempted to think that this isn’t very
realistic but it occurs to me that it isn’t too far off the teaching of Jesus
on the matter. Check it out:
“Do not worry about
tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of
its own.” Jesus
Everyone has burdens to bear but not everyone learns to lay
those burdens at the feet of Jesus and go to sleep in peace trusting Him. As
for me, I’m still learning.
Another version says "...sufficient unto to the day is the evil thereof..." Is there anything more "evil" anything that does more harm than hanging on to those things that brought stress into our lives? I can feel it very soon by the tension worsening the arthritis in my neck. Rubbing soothes it, but giving it to God is a much better cure. MarionB
ReplyDeleteI agree Marion but sometimes a neck rub can be nice too!
ReplyDeleteSometimes if you are a perfectionist like myself, no one can do it better than yourself or so it seems. Truth is that it is better to delegate some of the workload which gives the other person the opportunity to learn new methods.
ReplyDeleteSo what you thought may be stress for you, can be a blessing to someone else. The verse that always brings me back home is in Matthew 11:30 - "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light!" So does Christ want us to be under stress or to enjoy the challenge? Old slewfoot would rather us to cave under the pressure.
Good thoughts Bob. Thanks for those.
ReplyDelete