Christians and stress (part 2)

Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay 

Dealing with stress

Relaxation techniques, attention to diet and exercise, time-management strategies, voluntary simplicity and community building are all valid and useful ways of reducing the stress in our lives. However, as Christians we must also deal with two underlying issues—fear and lack of focus.

Fear

So much of our busy-ness and sense of overload is due to fear; fear of failure, fear of being rejected, fear of loss, fear of illness and death, fear of losing control. Yet often we don't even recognise the fears that drive us. 

Both Christians and non-Christians may be driven by a subconscious fear of God. In the unbeliever this could even be a positive drive. In a Christian, it can only be due to an inadequate grasp of what salvation means. God may call us to be busy for him, but busy-ness can easily become our own attempt to win God's favour, if we don't understand that we are totally forgiven and accepted already. Jesus has completed that task, with nothing for us to add.

The key to overcoming all of these fears is to know what scripture says about them—really know, with our hearts as well as our heads. We can only do this by reading the bible consistently and prayerfully. Then we need to put what we have read into practice, as a conscious act of will. "God is my salvation, I WILL trust and WILL NOT be afraid, (my emphasis). 

Freedom from fear is not something we are likely to achieve in an instant.  Each time we become fearful again, we need to recognise it, ask for forgiveness and grace, then begin afresh. Other Christians are an invaluable and God-given source of encouragement in this.

Focus

Lack of focus in our lives results in us being pulled this way and that by competing demands and desires. We may have many different goals, all of them apparently good, but often quite contradictory. For instance, “I must spend more time with my family” and “I must work as hard as I can to get the promotion I deserve”. As a result we begin to feel fragmented.

Christians are not immune from this. Often we simply add a few spiritual goals to the rest rather than refocusing our lives.

Fear and lack of focus are obviously related. If I fear something (or someone) one of my goals will be to avoid or overcome the thing I fear. If I have many fears, I will have many different goals, and my mental, physical and emotional energies will be scattered in all directions. 

Jesus had focus

Jesus had only one focus in life; the kingdom of God, for the glory of God. He called his followers to be equally single-minded. "Seek first (God's) kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things (i.e. material needs) will be given you as well", (Matthew 6.33).

"Yes, but Jesus didn't have a job, or mortgage, or a family to worry about. He could afford to be single minded," we might reply. I don't think Jesus was calling us to abandon these things (though sometimes he does.) Rather, we are to look at them all in the light of the kingdom of God. 

The work we do is to contribute to building God's kingdom, whether we preach sermons, design cars or wash dishes. Our house is to be a part of God's kingdom, received with thanks, used for his service and given up if he asks that of us. Our children are to be raised for God's kingdom, not by brow-beating them, but by drawing them into it. If they choose to go another way, our focus is still to be God's kingdom. 

Our hobbies, our clothes, our friendships, our money, our possessions, our relationship with our in-laws, our health, all are to be seen in the light of God's kingdom.

When we look at Jesus' life, as described in the gospels, we can see the effects of being focused. Jesus had compassion on the crowds who followed him about, and healed many who were sick. Yet at times he would walk away from them in order to pray or teach his disciples. He was not driven by a need to be popular, or to (literally) cure all the world's ills. 

Jesus did not try to do everything himself. He taught his disciples, then sent them out in pairs to teach and heal. He shared his concerns with them. He entrusted the future church to them. He was not driven by the need to keep power to himself or to appear super-human.

Jesus had no hesitation in openly criticising or correcting those who were straying from the truth. He continued his ministry despite the growing opposition of the authorities. Fear of man did not come between him and his goal of bringing about the kingdom of God.

In prayer Jesus maintained the same focus. "Father, may your name be hallowed, may your kingdom come, may your will be done," (Matthew 6:9). The needs of the day followed on from this, not as though they were trivial, but placed in their true context. "Give us this day our daily bread." Through prayer, Jesus received the strength and direction he needed to stay focused.

Jesus certainly didn't live a gentle, stress-free life. He experienced tiredness, grief, pressure from the crowds, misunderstanding from his disciples, harassment from the religious authorities and ultimately betrayal, torture and death. Yet always he seemed to be in control, steady in his purpose and sure of where he was going. His resurrection is our assurance that in the end he reached his goal.

Being focused in this way, while it may seem difficult at first sight (and impossible without the help of the Holy Spirit) would surely enable us to simplify our lives and overcome the fragmentation we so often experience.

Perhaps that is what Jesus meant when he said "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11.28-30.)

(Part 1 can be found here)

Fallen and restored

There's a false understanding of the gospel which goes something like this: "Human beings are wretched, worthless creatures, quite useless and valueless to God. But because Jesus died for us, we have become precious to God."

It's false because it begins the gospel in the middle of the story. Fallen human beings truly are wretched creatures. But that isn't how God created us. He made us in his image, "a little lower than the angels". In his original plan, each one of us was to be a magnificent being, living in loving relationship to God, glorifying him and of great value to him. The very word "fallen" suggests this idea.

All that God has ever created is good, in the sense of being excellent, pleasing and valuable. That includes each of us. It’s true that from the moment of conception, we have been marred by others' sins, and corrupted by our own sins. We have done nothing to deserve God's love. Yet even in our sinful, unforgiven state, God loves us because he made us and knows who, and what, we were meant to be.

Yes, our sin arouses his anger, the anger of a good sovereign whose subjects are in revolt against his just laws. But it is also the anger of an artist who sees his precious work being spoiled and destroyed, the anger of a lover who sees his beloved giving herself to worthless suitors and prostituting herself.

Almost every metaphor used to describe Jesus' death involves some sort of return to a state that has been lost and is now regained - atonement, reconciliation, redemption, forgiveness, healing. Jesus' death did not make God love us. Jesus died for us because God loved us and wanted us restored to himself.

In the past, human life and achievement were often over-valued, as if man were the measure of all things. But in recent times, human beings have increasingly been portrayed as a blot on an otherwise perfect and harmonious universe. We need to be careful not to absorb this idea into the gospel. Not only does it lead to a devaluing of human life (as seen in the growing acceptance of abortion and euthanasia) it also robs the gospel of its message of restoration.

We have fallen from glory and deserve condemnation. But through Jesus we are being restored to the glory that God intended us to have, a glory that brings greater glory to him.

Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay 

Confident sinners

Here's a paradox - the longer we've been a Christian, the more we come to realise how sinful we really are. We discover that our antagonism towards God runs very deep.

Does this sound familiar? Before I turned to Christ, I sometimes felt guilty about specific things I'd done, but I didn't know what to do with the guilt. It was a joy to discover that because of Jesus' death on the cross, I'm forgiven and accepted by God.

For a while I was delighted to find that I was overcoming some of my unwanted bad habits. But then the Holy Spirit started to show me things that I'd never seen as sinful before. And worse than that, I sometimes found myself committing sins I thought I'd conquered years ago. I also realised that even the good things I do are often motivated by a need to gain another person's approval, or fear of criticism, or pride in my own skills. And what of the good things I could have done, but failed to do, out of laziness, fear or lack of love?

If you recognise this process, you'll know that at this point it becomes tempting to doubt that God could really love us. It was one thing to believe that God loved us when our sins were all out on the surface - deep down we knew that we were really quite decent people. But how could God love someone who is sinful to the core?

Eventually (by God's grace) we discover that doubting God's love is itself a sin. Perhaps the greatest sin of all. Isn't that what the story of Adam and Eve is all about? Satan, in the form of the serpent, persuaded the pair that God didn't really have their best interest at heart, that he was treating them unfairly, and keeping good things from them. So they chose to doubt God's love. They ignored his warning about what would happen if they tried to judge for themselves what was good and evil. And then, when they realised what they'd done, they shamefacedly hid from God rather than coming to him for forgiveness. They refused to confess, blaming each other, the serpent, even God himself. They didn't recognise God's anguished question, "What have you done?" as the cry of love. They heard it as a rebuke.

Over and over God's Word tells us that Jesus really did die for us "while we were yet sinners". Each new discovery of the depth of our sinfulness serves to grow our understanding of how much Jesus suffered for us on the cross. Instead of being weighed down by our discovery that we aren't just people who sin, but innately sinful, we find new freedom, thankfulness and joy. The more we understand how sinful we are, the more we come to appreciate just how much God loves us.

And then we meet another paradox - the more we recognise our ingrained tendency to sin, the more God can use us in his service. Because we no longer dare trust ourselves, we learn to depend on him. We know we can't overcome our sinfulness by our own efforts, but God's Spirit is working in us to make us more and more like Christ. It's this confidence in Christ, not self-confidence, that turns pew-warmers into witnesses and activists into prayerful, powerful servants of God.

A shorter version of this article originally appeared on "One Candle", my former website. It may be copied (without alteration) for non-commercial use, but please acknowledge its source.

Staying power

Poverty, chastity and obedience are the traditional vows of those entering religious orders. Benedict, however, added a fourth vow for his order - stability. Benedictine monks and nuns are expected to remain within the same community for life.

This might seem strange, even harsh to us. We expect to move house and change jobs several times over a lifetime. Our whole society is hooked on the idea that change is progress. We are enticed and cajoled into changing our clothes, our furniture and our cars, not because the old ones have worn out, but because "new is better".

Current wisdom sees no virtue in staying put. If a relationship is no longer satisfying, leave it and find someone more compatible. If the church you attend is a bit dreary or disagreeable, try the one down the road. After all, wasn't Jesus himself a wandering preacher with nowhere to lay his head?

What Benedict recognised was that neither true community nor growth of the individual Christian is possible without some stability. This may not necessarily mean living a lifetime in one place. But we should be slow to move unless we have a clear call to do so.

When Jesus told Peter that he should forgive his brother “seventy times seven’ (Matt 18:21-22), he was surely implying some sort of long-term relationship between the two. It's relatively easy to forgive a petty offence two or three times. To go on forgiving day after day goes beyond our own resources. Even minor irritations become painful sores if they are constantly renewed. By enduring, we not only learn to forgive as God forgives, but we also learn to rely on God for grace to forgive.

When we first join a community we are often enthusiastic. Our relationship to others is positive but superficial. People are kind to us because we are new. After a while, we begin to feel disillusioned. We're no longer given special attention. We discover that these people have all the usual human faults and weaknesses. Sometimes our relationships with others become quite difficult or painful. It is tempting at this stage to leave.

But by leaving we miss the opportunity to become more Christ-like. Love which is patient, not easily angered, keeps no score of wrongs, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres (1 Cor 13) takes time and adversity to develop. By moving on we also miss the opportunity to become part of a community in which we are accepted as we really are.

(This article originally appeared on "One Candle", my former website. It may be copied (without alteration) for non-commercial use, but please acknowledge its source. Photo copyright Stella Budrikis)