Do Not Worry

I was asked a few days ago how a healthy person deals with stress.  This, as opposed to an unhealthy person who tries to beat back stress with bad, self-destructive behavior.   The first question raised is, what is a healthy person?  Seeing as how Jesus is the great physician, a healthy person is one who has been made well by Christ.  Your degree of health may be, to a great deal, measured by the nearness of your walk with Jesus. 

The next definition required is, what is stress?  Stress, as I'm going to be defining it here, is not simply pressure but how you deal with pressure.  Circumstances will impose themselves on your life and there is little you can do to change many of them.   Stress comes when we allow the pressure of circumstances to weigh heavily on our minds and we begin to worry.  And worry, I would say, is one a number of antonyms of faith.  This brings us to lots of scripture.

Matthew 6:
25 ¶  "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26  "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27  "Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28  "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
29  "and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30  "Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31  "Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32  "For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33  "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
34  "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Jesus says we deal with stress by not getting stressed.  I had never really thought of this before, I just assume that stress and worry, doubt and fear are a part of life and we deal with them with the help of the Holy Spirit.  And He will help us when we fall into worry, but the healthy person has faith.  The healthy person "worries" about the kingdom of God and righteousness and lets God give him what he needs to live and helps him out of the messed up circumstances which life throws our way.

This is fairly easy to say having never faced any really large challenges in life, but I believe that the theory holds with the small things which I've been through already as well as the bigger challenges I'll face as an adult.

What of the unsaved person then, the unhealthy, how do they deal with stress?  The cynical part of me says...

Proverbs 31:
6  Give strong drink to him who is perishing, And wine to those who are bitter of heart.
7  Let him drink and forget his poverty, And remember his misery no more.

What more do they have but to do but try to drink away their misery now before eternity comes and its no longer possible.   I don't know, maybe Dr. Phil has some better answers, but apart from Christ any relief from stress is little more than a band-aide which is no good in the long run.

Comments

[chris]

I must say your proverbs reference made me laugh.

Good stuff! The Lord is our hope, what is there to fear? (/worry?)

So... what do ya think of pessimism/optimism/realism? Points of view, or flawed misconceptions? ;)

[Amber]

Thanks for sharing this! It is good to hear during this busy time of year. A good reminder! May you and Brenda (and the baby) have a WONDERFUL Christmas!