Taking it to the Next Level: Stress Relief

When you write a blog named Christianity 201, you expect each day to post items which will dig a little deeper for devotional or Bible study content.  But taking it to the next level for many people involves digging a little deeper in terms of the work that God wants to do down deep in our hearts; dealing with our own spiritual deficiencies and allowing God to do a work of inner healing in our lives.  Ideally, a blog like this would be a 50-50 split between deeper teaching and encouragement toward a deeper revolution in our hearts.

I was thinking about that tonight when reading Jeff Leake’s piece on Stress at his blog, The Launch Pad, which he called What’s Stressing You Out.

Yesterday, I was asked a question about staying healthy in ministry over the long-haul.  Basically the question was, ‘what have been the keys to dealing with stress and sustaining personal health in ministry over the past 20+ years of your life?’

There are two sources of stress:

EXTERNAL STRESSORS – some of these things can can attempt to control – our schedule, our pace, our priorities.  Some of these things we cannot control – our circumstances, the response of the people around us, the impact of events and happenings in our world.  There are some keys to managing external stressors:

• Learning good time management skills.
• Scheduling in a date nite, exercise, family time.
• Keeping a sabbath (a day set aside unto God every week).
• Developing a consistent devotional habit.
• Learning what and how to delegate & how to manage people and systems.

INTERNAL STRESSORS – my sense is that it is the internals not the externals that stress us out the most –

• What we believe about ourselves and about God
• How we process criticism, failure, perceived rejection
• Learning how to choose joy in the midst of trials
• Giving ourselves time to grieve when loss happens in our life
• Being able to forgive ourselves when we fail and access God’s forgiveness
• Maintaining purity and accountability so that we are not unnecessarily weighed down by guilt and sin

The first ten years of my ministry I worked primarily on trying to master the management of the EXTERNALS – but I never really worked through some of the stress on the inside.  Several years back after the stress in my life caused boughts with migraines – I took the time and did the work to deal with the INTERNAL sources of my stress.

Both are necessary.  But I think my choice to rigorously deal with what was going on – on the inside has produced in me a greater degree of peace and the capacity for sustainability over the long-haul.  I say that with an awareness that this is something that you can never stop paying attention to and must continually depend on God for his sustaining grace.

~Jeff Leake

Healing Power of Forgiveness

As of tomorrow Christianity 201 will complete a full year of daily devotional writing and deeper Bible study.   There has been a mix here of original pieces and “reprints” from across the Christian blogosphere.   There is no shortage of sources for devotional material; anyone with a need simply has to look.  Today I discovered Daily Enounter, a ministry of ACTS International, which you can read by subscription.  This sample devotional appeared there under the title, Forgiveness: The Power to Heal

Some years ago during a visit to Yellowstone Park, one writer observed that the only animal that the grizzly bear would share his food with was a skunk. It wasn’t that the grizzly wanted to share his food but rather that he chose to. With one swing of his powerful paw he could have crushed the skunk. So why did he allow the skunk to eat with him?

Because he knew the high cost of getting even. Smart bear!

Undoubtedly he learned the hard way. Strange that we humans often aren’t as  smart. Sometimes we carry grudges for years, often repressing them from conscious memory, and end up hurting ourselves more than the ones we would like to get even with. We fail to see how damaging an unforgiving spirit is.

In his book, None of These Diseases, Dr. S.I. McMillen says, “Medical science recognizes that emotions such as fear, sorrow, envy, resentment and hatred are responsible for the majority of our sicknesses. Estimates vary from 60 percent to nearly 100 percent.”

I read one report of an astonished patient who was told by his doctor: “If you don’t cut out your resentments, I may have to cut out a part of your intestinal tract.”

Fortunately, the man took the doctor’s advice. He had been nursing a bitter grudge against a former business partner. He went to see this man, resolved their differences, and forgave him. When he returned to the doctor, his physical condition had cleared up.

That advice isn’t new of course. The greatest physician who ever lived, Jesus Christ, pointed out 2,000 years ago the importance of forgiveness. When he encouraged us to “forgive seventy times seven,” he was thinking of our physical as much as our spiritual well-being. As Dr. McMillen says, he knew that a forgiving spirit would save us from “ulcerative colitis, toxic goiters, high blood pressure, and scores of other diseases.” including ulcers, asthma, arthritis, neuro-dermatitis, and heart ailments—all possible effects of resentment.

The Bible’s advice is therefore just as relevant today as it was when written 2,000 years ago: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”¹

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.'”²

“Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you God that you have forgiven me for all my sins, failings and shortcomings. Help me to forgive others as you have forgiven me. Gratefully in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

P.S. “Failure to forgive is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die!”

1. Ephesians 4:32.
2. Matthew 18:21-22, (NIV).