Stress Free

The best things in life are free...
Except when you are talking about stress!


Stress often comes as the free add on to many of the things we do and experience in life. 
And STRESS can be a MONSTER! 

You are more keenly aware of this than anyone else as finals are breathing heavy down your neck.


So, what's a person to do?


It is more than a bit ridiculous to think that someone can live a stress free life. Responsibility brings with it a certain amount of embedded stress. It is part of the deal.  As was said above, it comes free of charge as an added "bonus" to much of what we do and experience in life. 

Because of this, the question shouldn't really be how you can eliminate stress from your life. That is unrealistic. The real question is how can you manage the stress that exists in your life so that it no longer dominates your mind, your body, and your health.


There really is no secret potion or magic arrow for the complete elimination of the STRESS MONSTER because it looks and behaves differently for each of us. Therefore, I won't insult you by providing a list of books to read or exercises to do in order to eradicate stress. What I will provide is a list of questions to consider. As you think about your responses, consider how you might intentionally take action on one or two of them in hopes of managing your stress level as you go into finals (or any other time you feel stressed).


1. What is your favorite genre of music? You know, the songs that immediately take you to that "happy place." Maybe your "guilty pleasure" songs that no one else knows you really like - Spotify can be your friend here.


2. What is your favorite snack? Think back to when you were a kid. What was the snack that made you do your "happy dance"? Go find one!


3. What is the one location, within walking distance, that helps you relax? Take a hike!


4. Whose company do you crave when you are stressed? 

5. What is the fragrance that immediately conjures up fond memories? Take a whiff! 


6. What makes you laugh?


7. Do you have time for a guilt free nap?


Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't share a couple of my favorite passages of Scripture that help keep my sanity in check when I feel the most stressed...


John 14:25-27 
"All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."


Isaiah 43:1-5 
But now, this is what the LORD says-- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid, for I am with you"


Matthew 6:25-34
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."


Oh, and don't forget to breathe!  Every breath can be a prayer uttered to the God who promises to never leave us nor forsake us.


During this stressful time may you discover a way to manage the monster.

"My God, my God..." - Good Friday Reflection

Hope you had a blessed Easter.

Here is a brief sermon from Good Friday on Jesus saying, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" from the cross.

Good Friday – My God, My God

The Fourth Word - 45 From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 46 And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

“I feel so alone,” she said to no one in particular perhaps because no one was there. At least that is the way it seemed to her that afternoon.

“I just feel so alone,” she repeated under her breath.

As she sat there in the uncomfortable pleather chair, waiting for the news, the weight of her solitude began to push in upon her with a ferocity she was not sure she would be able to bear.

“Why,” she thought, or perhaps she said it out loud, not that it really mattered. “Why in this moment when I need comfort the most do I feel so alone?” She buried her heavy head into her hands and began to cry…

Looking toward the sky she said, “Do you hear me? Why? Why do I feel so alone?”

This seemingly familiar scene is difficult to witness. No one wants to see another person struggle with feelings of solitude and abandonment.

If we are honest, we struggle to openly admit that such despair even exists. In fact, we clutter our lives with things and our calendars with appointments just to make sure that we avoid these feelings at all cost.

However, feelings such as this are impossible to outrun.  Awaiting the diagnosis, hearing the sad news, identifying our own feelings of inadequacy…We feel alone. We feel abandoned. These feelings are a part of the human experience. They are impossible to outrun.

On this day, on a dreaded tree, a man hangs to condemned to die. There, this man named Jesus suffers unimaginable pain, cruel indignity, and heart rending sorrow. And as the time of his death approaches he speaks once again. The author of the Gospel of Matthew writes that Jesus cried with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of those gathered at the foot of the cross misunderstood his words. They thought that he was calling upon Elijah, who some traditions held was to reappear to usher in the kingdom of God. It was an honest mistake.  That was event for which many were longing. But that was not the sentiment that came from Jesus’ mouth. Those weren’t the words that spilled from the lips of the crucified Emmanuel.

No, hanging on the cross, Jesus recited the words of the 22^nd Psalm in his mother tongue of Aramaic. “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And we cringe at the words. For as one commentator wrote, “We have been taught to give pat answers in the face of life’s difficult questions, and (saying such a thing), certainly, is not one of (the pat answers we were trained to give). But Jesus knew what he was saying. By uttering these words from Psalm 22, he is challenging, daring, us to consider things we would rather not, notions as sublime as the inseparability of suffering and glory, of incarnation, of eschatological hope from the ashen brink of death.” (Matthews 286)

Jesus knew the pain of separation more powerfully than one could ever imagine. Jesus, the Son of God, Emmanuel, God with us, understood the words of the psalmist deeply and in a manner no one had ever felt before or since.

Marti Steussy, Old Testament professor and Psalm scholar at Christian Theological Seminary here in Indianapolis writes, “Jesus experienced a variety of humiliations representing a whole range of human suffering and alienation, even unto the sense of being forsaken by God. At this point, we see Jesus’ real humanity…”  (Steussy 89)

This muddies the waters of a sanitized faith. It is much easier to consider a swaddled baby in a manger than a naked man hanging on a tree. It is more wonderful to consider the empty tomb than a blood stained cross. These are God forsaken moments.  These are moments of felt-absence not soothing presence.

There on the cross, with the cry of the psalmist on his lips, “Jesus will be left – forsaken – to the forces of evil. He will really suffer, and he will really die… Both the psalmist and Jesus trust God to save, not by magically eliminating all pain and suffering, but by working beyond human knowing in and through pain and suffering.” (Long 318)

In Psalm 22, “the psalmist laments that she feels that God has forsaken her, but to whom does she lament? She laments to the God who does not forsake us. When Jesus cried out on that cross, he was not speaking to existential nothingness, but to the God who hears and delivers the afflicted. His words did not express a lack of faith, but were a revolutionary credo of trust in the only one who could comfort him – and us.” (Matthews 288)

Experience has taught us that life is not sanitary. And neither is our faith.

We struggle with feelings of abandonment as we sit in those uncomfortable pleather chairs of life, waiting for the news.

And on our lips and in our hearts are the words of the psalmist and our Savior, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”

This is not a faithless statement! For in its utterance, we address the one who is never far from us.

Yes, even in the moments of felt-absence, the God incarnate understands. Even in the midst of life’s suffering and the isolation and aloneness that often accompany it, Emmanuel, God with us, has the courage to dwell...with us… even there in the absence. Amen

Prayer

Almighty God, on this Good Friday in the shadow of the cross, may we have the courage to cry out to you even when we feel abandoned. For today, hanging on Golgotha’s cross is Emmanuel, God with us even in our moments of felt absence. It is to you we call. It is to you we pray. Amen.

Works Cited

Long, Thomas G. Matthew - Westminster Bible Companion. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997.

Matthews, Jr., William P. "Matt". "Pastoral Perspective on Psalm 22." Feasting on the Word: Year A, Vol. 2. Ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2010. 284-289.

Steussy, Marti J. Psalms. St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press, 2004.