Stress

The Path To Peace

Simon Vibert

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781783591527
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783591541
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

We long for control, but cannot attain it.
We aim for perfection, but it keeps eluding us.
We want to be productive and creative, but if we're honest, we spend too much time on unfocused, mind-numbing activity.No wonder we're stressed. But God is not stressed. He knows the end from the beginning. All things are under his wise and sovereign control. However, the glorious world that he made is in rebellion against him. We desperately long for control, but we were never meant to live that way.It is the author's conviction that it is only by realigning our desires and purposes with God's good plans that we can ultimately know relief from underlying stress.The author writes as a Bible teacher, a caring pastor and also as a fellow sufferer who has road-tested the lessons in this book. He firmly believes that the best way to live the Christian life is by working out the practical implications of good Bible teaching.

1. Stress in perspective and lessons learned

By any standards, 1997 was a stressful year for me. At first, I put it down to the weather. Living in Buxton, in Derbyshire’s beautiful Peak District, we were used to challenging winters. When the church warden had offered me the job as vicar a few years previously, he had warned, ‘Buxton has eleven months of winter and one month of bad weather.’

By March, feeling tired and a little run-down, suffering from cabin fever was not unusual. I continued to drag myself through church meetings and domestic chores, feeling like a wet weekend. So I was little prepared for the crash.

As it transpired, I had been nursing a chest infection for months. What I had put down to excessive central heating during our old folks’ monthly luncheon turned out to be a raging temperature. I went to bed that Thursday afternoon. By the following day, the doctor had been called. At the weekend, I was taken by ambulance to Stepping Hill Hospital in Manchester. Pneumonia put me in hospital for a week and off work for several months.

I do believe that God uses life’s circumstances to teach us Christian lessons. Ironically, I had just finished reading Philip Yancey’s and Dr Paul Brand’s excellent book: Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants.1 Dr Brand had spent years treating leprosy sufferers. As many of you will know, leprosy is a degenerative disease causing damage to the skin, nerves and limbs. Along with this is a loss of the ‘pain sensation’. Dr Brand observed that it was the accidental, self-inflicted injuries of his patients that were often the hardest to address. He had experimented with various ways to help them protect themselves from injury – for example, making them shoes so that they didn’t unwittingly step on nails or glass and cut or infect their feet. But because they could not feel the sensation of a rubbing shoe and adjust accordingly, their feet became calloused or raw, and often infection resulted.

The profound point here is that pain exists for a purpose. Painlessness is debilitating; pain is actually a blessing. Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants is a great book with an obvious message: ‘Pain is a gift from God’, and I was convinced that what the authors said was true. At least, I believed it all in a theoretical way!

The day after I was admitted to hospital, the nurse asked a number of routine questions. She was surprised to learn that I was ordained. I think the main reason was a tacit assumption that, surely, as a clergyman, I didn’t work hard enough to experience the physical vulnerability that was currently mani­festing itself! She had obviously bought into the axiom about the clergy: ‘Six days invisible; one day incomprehensible.’

In practice, the stresses faced by clergy can be intense: unsociable hours (and often working hard at times when most others are relaxing – Sunday, Christmas and Easter, for example); unrealistic expectations from those in your care (or from yourself); loneliness and isolation; lack of support; financial strain...The list of stresses is actually quite long. These things were all factors for me.

But added to these pressures was the fact that Carrie was expecting our third child and, as with the previous two, she was very sick throughout the whole pregnancy, enough to warrant a spell in hospital at one point. So, for me, there were domestic duties to attend to, as well as caring for our two other young children. Plus, although I was part of a loving and caring Christian family, there was a lot to do in the local and wider church. In short, I was experiencing all the symptoms of stress.

Strategies for coping

Family crises and work’s demands can mix into a terribly stressful cocktail. Everyone copes in a different way. My tendency is to keep my head down, stoically fulfil my responsibilities and push myself beyond my natural reserves. The assumption is always that a quieter day is coming, that the strain will ease when I go on holiday/get an assistant/become more financially secure/the children grow up. One day.

Later, we will look at the results of some surveys that I have undertaken. To accompany one of them, I wrote a booklet entitled Longing for Paradise. For me, this title best encapsulates the ideological hope that keeps many of us going during times of stress. ‘One day, I’ll get that dream holiday and escape from pressure.’ But, as we shall see, it’s not quite that simple. If we don’t find ways to control and manage stress in the ordinary, everyday experiences of life, we will take them with us to our tropical island too!

Suffering is a very personal thing. We may appreciate empathy from other people, but in the end the sufferer tends to feel, ‘This is my pain and it is about me’, and in a very real sense, that is true. The flip side of this observation is that God uses pain and suffering to teach personal lessons to his beloved children.

There were at least three important lessons that I learned while lying on my hospital bed and subsequently through my recovery.

Lessons learned

Cope with being out of control

This might sound strange, but learning to cope with being out of control was one of the hardest lessons to learn. It was a busy period in the life of the church. Events had to be hastily cancelled when I fell ill, and other people had to stand in at short notice. I found this hard to cope with, particularly when I started to get better but still did not have much strength to play an active part in ministry.

But, to my amazement, life went on without me! Surely it is good and appropriate that church leaders should set themselves high standards. It is also good that they work hard, plan well and exercise good leadership. However, the leader is only one member of the body of Christ. Leaders should be accountable and collaborative. They should not make all the decisions in the life of the church, nor should they make the congre­gation overly dependent upon them.

It was not an easy lesson to learn, but it was an important one. If we feel that we carry the weight and burden of leader­ship on our own, we are in trouble. It is a yoke that is too hard to bear and it says more about pride in the human heart than it does about strong leadership. The best contemporary books on leadership are right to emphasize that the ‘John Wayne’ or ‘lone-ranger’ model of leadership is not always helpful. Moreover, such books concentrate on the role of the leader as coach and inspirational team leader, selling a vision and inspiring others to come on board.2

We are not intended to be isolated nor individualistic. This is not the same thing as saying that we are expected not to be ambitious for the kingdom of God nor to work hard (more on this later). But the growth of the kingdom of God is not dependent on me alone! The lesson I learned is in part conveyed by these wonderful words from Jesus:

‘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)

Jesus is the burden bearer, the true leader and shepherd of the people. We are given a burden, but we need to learn from him and take up a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. Stress is reduced when we lay our burdens at the feet of Jesus and take up his easy and light burden.

Look after your body

A second important lesson for me was the need to look after my body. We are indeed ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’, and our bodies are described as ‘temple[s] of the Holy Spirit’ (Psalm 139:14; 1 Corinthians 6:19). While Jesus did warn against an excessive anxiety over food, drink and clothing (Matthew 6:25–33), it would be wrong to infer from this that our bodies do not matter. We are made in the image of God, and God’s creation (while marred by sin) is indeed good (Genesis 1)! Moreover, we look forward to a day when our bodies, as well as our souls, will be redeemed (Romans 8:23; Revelation 21). We will not float around heaven in a dis­embodied existence.

So, we should look after our bodies because God made them. There will be times when, like the apostle Paul, we will be physically weak, sleep-deprived, cold, hungry and exposed to the elements (2 Corinthians 9), and, for the sake of devotion and discipline, we may choose to go without food, sleep or luxuries. But that is not the same thing as saying that it is inherently a sign of godliness permanently to deny ourselves the things our bodies need for healthy survival.

The analogy is often used of a rubber band. When you stretch it, it will usually return to its original shape and springiness. If you stretch it too far, it will snap. Also, if you stretch it and leave it like that for too long, it will become floppy and out of shape. So too will our bodies!

We will explore the distinction between ‘good stress’ and ‘bad stress’ in chapter 4. What is obvious is that a certain amount of adrenaline and motivation is needed in order for us to be productive. Equally obvious is the fact that we can only sustain high stress for a short period of time before we dry up, burn out or collapse. Rest is partly about sleep. But it is also about finding a rhythm for relaxation and enjoyment.

After my hospital stay, although I was slow to recognize it, I eventually realized that I had been living at full stretch for too long, and something needed to give. Many years later, I need to remember to book cardiovascular exercise into my week. (Among other benefits, it helps keep my lungs healthy.) I need to ensure, wherever possible, that I schedule a day when I am not doing my normal routine of work, keeping a ‘Sabbath’. And I need to spend time enjoying God’s creation and the fruit of my labour. For sure, there is an idealism articulated here, but just because it is hard to achieve does not mean that I should not keep seeking a balance in life. Stress will only be reduced if, after times of stretch and strain, the body is allowed to return to equilibrium.

Be in touch with your emotions

Physical health is one thing. But how much thought had I given to my emotional health? The third main lesson was a growing awareness of my emotional wiring or make-up. By nature, I am quite calm and stoical. But it is easy for this to slip into being impervious to circumstances.

Understanding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was a helpful place to start. I am an INTJ (which stands for ‘introversion’, ‘intuition’, ‘thinking’ and ‘judgment’).3 Academics and clergy often turn out to be more introvert than extrovert, according to the Myers-Briggs test. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that they are withdrawn or unsociable. In fact, without an interest in people and good social skills, it is hard to believe that church leaders could survive in their job. This type indicator refers to the way in which you recharge your batteries and how you regain your equi­librium. For me, taking this test (several times over the years and always scoring the same result) made me realize that while I find great stimulation through being with people, I need to carve out time to be on my own, read my books, walk in the woods, or chat/pray with a close friend or my wife. Those are the things that build me up. Finding space for these things is not a selfish luxury, but rather a necessity if I am to retain emotional health. Isaiah 30:15 seems to allude to this: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” ’

Perfection and balance

We will return to these three things later and in particular consider how we might help Thomas, Susan, Jack and Anna. For me, the principal lesson that came out of my hospital­ization was a growing self-awareness. Jesus said, ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48). He knows that he has set us an impossible ideal – he does not want us to compromise with a lesser standard. So, yes, perfection is the goal. But generous provision is made for failures!

Similarly, we are encouraged to live a balanced Christian life, one which is in harmony with the Creator and his creation, one where we allow ourselves to be stretched for the kingdom’s sake though without being burned out in the process, and one where we pay proper attention to the Lord’s demand for wholeness and holiness. But this is an ideal that we keep working towards. Balance in this life is unattainable, but never­theless it is the goal to motivate us. I am not suggesting an isolated monastic existence. In fact, the reason why this rhythm of life is so important is because it actually makes us more productive. How often have I been reading, writing and thinking hard at my desk but unable to ‘think myself clear’. Then, in a twenty-minute walk around the wonderful University Parks (right next to my office), it all falls into place. The clarity found in the park would not happen without the slog at the desk. But, I also believe, the time at the desk will often not produce the clarity needed without the break to allow mind and body to refresh themselves.

My left lung continues to carry some damage. It is my weak spot. Paul had a ‘thorn in the flesh’. Some think that it may have been an ophthalmic problem (suggested by Galatians 6:11). But actually, we don’t know. What we do know is that pain and frustration dogged him throughout his life. He pleaded for the ‘thorn’ to be removed. But he heard from the Lord that it was better that it remained: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Corinth­ians 12:9). Indeed, Paul was able to boast in his weaknesses because it was this that made him humble, dependent and better enabled for the Lord to work through him.

In this chapter, I have shared my personal story. You will have your own ‘thorn in the flesh’, that area of weakness that will manifest itself when you are most vulnerable. As we continue to explore how to live a Christian life in a stressful world, we will need to remember that dealing with stress is very personal to you. We all need to grow in self-awareness. And God will continue to work through the circumstances in which we find ourselves in order to shape us into the likeness of Christ and use us in his service. My experience is my own. But I believe that the pressures from stress and the lessons learned are not unique.

We should take some comfort from the fact that we are not alone in experiencing stress, and while the way we label it might have changed, stress is not a twenty-first-century disease. This could also mean that the remedy might just be simpler than we sometimes imagine.

2. Assessing stress and remembering our Maker

Growing up in the Channel Islands, in Jersey, the sea was my constant companion and the best stress-buster I knew. My childhood was spent on the beach. Even as a young adult, I would spend as much time as I could on the sea (sailing), in the sea (swimming) or by the sea (fishing). I would always know the state of the tide and its ebb and flow.

But this was more than just leisure. The sea provided, and provides, me with a sense of the vastness of God’s created world. It produces a feeling of awe and wonder, particularly as I watch the tide racing up the beach or view waves crashing over the rocks. The vast ocean engenders respect.

The tidal flow in Jersey is huge – on a spring tide, the sea will rise up to forty vertical feet, progressing several miles up the beach. Consequently, there are warnings at the top of every slipway which read: ‘Time and Tide wait for no man.’ After a while, it became easier to walk past those warning signs without taking in the urgency of the message. One of my friends discovered the truth of it to his cost, when he nearly lost his life after getting distracted in the rock pools along the low-tide mark. He was only rescued from a remote sandbank because someone heard his cries and called the lifeboat.

The symptoms of stress are warning signs too. They remind us that we are mortal; our bodies’ needs must be attended to.

For many people, the sight of the sea is a great stress-buster. Most of us crave contact with the natural world as a means of getting our troubles back into perspective.

A modern disease?

A conversation with the average urban professional in the twenty-first century might lead you to conclude that stress is a constant companion from which there is little escape. What I think this chapter will reveal is that stress is not new, and also that it is not necessarily linked to geography, gender or career. Having said that, I think it is not without significance that a recent poll names Hawaii as...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Introduction: what this book is and what it is not
• 1. Stress in perspective and lessons learned
• 2. Assessing stress and remembering our Maker
• 3. Are Christians any less stressed than non-Christians?
• 4. The problem with the problem of stress
• 5. Worry and refocusing
• 6. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger
• 7. Be ambitious, but for the right reasons
• 8. Work, rest and worship
• 9. Joy and thankfulness as a way of life
• 10. Relax, you are pre-approved
• 11. Let God be King
• 12. Remember that God is for you!
• Conclusion: putting the pieces together
• Also by Simon Vibert