All Stressed Up And Nowhere To Go

By John Stallings


Did you know that pilots who fly off aircraft carriers have a higher cholesterol level than their pals who stay on deck though they eat at the same table? It’s true.

 The extra stress they’re under causes their cholesterol to be higher.

Here’s a conundrum; though cholesterol is tagged by experts as the major cause of strokes & heart attacks, a large percentage of people who die suddenly from heart attacks have a surprisingly low cholesterol level? You can check that out on Google.

So what am I saying? I’m saying, though it wouldn’t be wise to eat unhealthy foods, overdo it on the beef, & never exercise, the big killer is stress. Here are a few Biblical answers I offer to us all to stave off the terrible effects of stress, taken from Proverbs 15:13-22;

1. Learn to laugh.—

Never be ashamed of your sense of humor. Studies have shown that people with a well developed sense of humor are almost always highly intelligent. Sounds good huh?

 I came by my zaniness honestly. As my grandmother on my dad’s side lay on her death bed, fading in & out of consciousness, she said (my parents tell me she had a little grin on her face as she spoke) “I see an elevator that has parked at the foot of my bed. The doors have opened & two angels are coming, one on each side of my bed. In a moment they’re going to lift me up & take me to the elevator & push the button & we’re going up.” She paused a few seconds & with the little grin still very evident she said her very last words; “I sure do hope they don’t push the wrong button.”

 The Bible says “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” For those who have a tragic view of life, God bless you, but know that God will forgive you if you forget & laugh once in a while.

By the way, only man can laugh, blush & cry. Animals can have highs & lows but they never do the aforementioned things, that’s reserved for the highest of God’s creatures. You never had to teach a child to laugh, did you?

2. Cultivate contentment.

In Proverbs 15:17 we see two homes depicted. One is eating a veggie meal with smiles & contentment while the other is eating a smoking roast but they’re all mad at each other. I don’t know about you but I’d rather be in Alabama with a banjo on my knee than live in a home where everyone is unhappy. There’s a table filled with nervous people with a lady at the end of the table with a face like a hatchet making cutting remarks to everyone. I don’t think the Bible means to imply that rich people are always miserable but I will say...

I’d rather be with a person worth a million who doesn’t have a cent than to be an individual who has a million dollars & isn’t worth a cent. Read 2 Timothy to find out what God thinks of those who put money above everything else. The next way to eliminate stress is;

3. Eliminate anger. ---V. 18

To be stress free we must have anger under control. Proverbs 15:1 says—

A soft answer turneth away wrath but grievous words stir up anger.

You may say; “I can’t control my anger.” But if you’re in the midst of a tirade, screaming to the top of your voice & the phone rings, what do you do? You answer the phone in the sweetest voice you have, like you’re talking to a furry little kitten. Am I right? O yes, we’ll present ourselves on the phone as harmless little fuzz-balls. So you see, we can control our anger when we want to.

A few years ago I lost perhaps my favorite first cousin. He was only fifty years of age but he had an awful temper. His business was exploding in Atlanta Georgia & the day he died he’d just ordered his wife a Cadillac to match his.

He sat at his swanky desk in his plush new office & conversed with a man who was installing a new sprinkler system in the lawn of his lovely new home. The man told him that his tractor had just run over one of the pipes he had installed so the job would take a little longer. My cousin became so angry that he dropped his head on his desk & died with a massive heart attack. Today his widow has taken that business & made herself a wealthy woman & has since remarried but my cousin is in the graveyard because he couldn’t eliminate his anger. The next way to beat stress is to;

4. Walk in wisdom. V. 21-22

To be deeply stressed is to admit you’ve forsaken God’s wisdom. Why attack people when you can attack problems instead?

A lady told me the other day that she had told her son what she really felt & about some things in his family & she wondered why things weren’t the same with him. As she talked with me, I learned that she had told him in one conversation that he talked too much & that his kids weren’t as respectful to elders as they should be. On & on she went telling her grown son what she thought. I had to be honest so I suggested to her that she’d gone into the conversation right but wrongly broadened it to include too many issues & too much material. She looked at me extremely puzzled & simply couldn’t understand what I meant. I asked her if she’d ever ridden on an elevator & she of course said she had. I asked if she’d read the printed materials that told how much of a load the elevator could safely hold. Of course she had but it still didn’t dawn on her what I was trying to say.

Here is was in a nutshell; didn’t she ever stop to think that in one conversation she was overloading her son? As soon as I used the word “overload” she gasped-“Oh God!!” Why did it take a country preached like me to say something so simple & turn on the lights in this good, highly educated woman’s mind? She hadn’t stopped to think that since she had gotten by O.K with telling her son he talked too much, she shouldn’t push her luck & try to “throw the book at him.” Her pride got all pumped-up with her first success but she didn’t stop to think that human beings have a low tolerance for being criticized. When somebody opens the floodgates on us we get the feeling that nothing is right with us-- so what’s the use? She simply wasn’t walking in wisdom. As she left she retorted, “I’m so glad I spoke to you.” I thought as she left, “lady so am I. Now with a simple little key of wisdom maybe you can go make things better & less stressful for you & your family.”

A guitar string or any stringed instrument needs its strings tuned by putting just the right amount of pressure on them. Without some pressure they can’t bring forth the beautiful music they were designed to produce. But if too much stress is put on the delicate strings, they’ll break. Then there’s no music at all.

 One thing we should all keep in mind about stress where our lives are concerned;-THERE IS A BREAKING POINT!!!


Blessings,


John