Three Ways to Eliminate Stress // Stress Busters, Part 3

There are all sorts of things in this world that cause us stress. And I’ve heard so many ridiculous ways of relieving it – have a cup of tea. Take a hot shower. Okay – so they might relieve the symptoms for a short while. But what we need are some powerful solutions to the root cause of our stress.

 

Trust in the LORD

When you Google stress relief, mostly what you discover is relaxation techniques. Take a hot bath. Watch some television to get your mind off things. Spend more time with friends. Some will even tell you to go and practise yoga and meditation. Play stress relief games. Identify your stress responses and manage them. Well, it all sounds great, but here’s the problem I have with all of those things. They’re a bit like taking an aspirin for a headache. They may alleviate the symptoms for a short while, but they don’t solve the problem by treating the cause. If your headache is caused by a brain tumour, hey; aspirin just ain’t going to do it. You need something that goes to the root cause.

The same is true with stress and anxiety. You know, a mistake we make when we think about the root cause of our stress is we imagine that the root cause is that thing out there somewhere that’s causing us stress. It’s that difficult person; it’s that difficult relationship; it’s the fact that I’m struggling with my finances or I’ve had a bad medical diagnosis from the doctor. It’s that thing out there that’s causing me the stress. If I can get rid of that, then I won’t have any more stress in my life. That’s our rationale. That’s what we think, but stress is our response to a situation. Stress is something we do to ourselves.

Of course, sometimes scary things happen. Someone we love dies, and the process of grieving is stressful. We lose our job, and the process of dealing with our finances can be stressful, but a lot of what we stress out about is totally manageable, except for the fact that we’re stressing out over it. Stress, anxiety, fear ... Those things immobilise us. They stop us from doing the things we need to do to deal with the situation, so when I’m talking about dealing with the root cause of stress, I’m actually talking about dealing with whatever’s going on inside you that’s causing the stress response, because each and every day of your life and mine pretty much is going to bring along circumstances and situations and people and stuff that have the potential to cause us stress. It’s one thing to have an initial response of fear or shock when something potentially stressful comes our way; it’s another thing entirely to spend the rest of the week, the rest of the year, the rest of your life, stressing out about it.

So let me share my number one, numero uno, stress buster with you right now. Trust in the LORD your God. I know it sounds like a cop-out; it sounds like a platitude, but in a moment, I’m going to tell you why it’s the one solution that decisively deals with stress. Proverbs 3:5-6:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

The thing that causes us stress by and large is when something that has the potential to negatively impact our lives is completely outside our control. Would you agree? The doctor tells you that she’s detected a tumour on your scan, but she doesn’t know yet whether it’s malignant or benign, or whether they’re going to be able to operate on it and get it all out. So much is out of your control in that scenario, and your very life hangs in the balance. Stress!

Now bring God into the picture. There are three key facts that I want you to note about God in this stressful scenario: Here’s the first one. He loves you beyond measure. In fact, He loves you so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die and to pay for your sins, to