Lesson 6
I. Introduction Gal. 5:22,23, Eph. 4:1-3, Col. 1:9-14, I Tim.
1:15-17, II Tim. 4:2.
God has told us to be longsuffering and patient. How do we achieve
this? Many times it seems the cares of the world are overwhelming
us, because we allow them too. We must take control of these situations
and turn them around. We must let God control our lives. Sometimes
controlling the situation involves leaving the situation. We as
Christians must walk away from some situations in order to maintain
our Christian walk. However, when we find that is not possible
we must take control of ourselves and approach a solution as Christ
would.
II. Lower Your Tolerance to Stress
It seems that we have it backward in our society. We tend to look
up to people who are under a great deal of stress, who can handle
loads of stress, and those who are under a great deal of pressure
to perform. When someone says, "I've been really working
hard," or "I'm really stressed out," we are taught
to admire, even emulate their behavior. In my job as a teacher,
I hear other teachers and even myself at times, bragging "I
have a very high tolerance to stress."
Fortunately, there is an inviolable law in our emotional environment that goes something like this: Our current level of stress will be exactly that of our tolerance to stress. Have you ever noticed that the people who say,"I can handle lots of stress" will always be under a great deal of it!!! So if we teach ourselves to raise our tolerance to stress, that's exactly what will happen. We accept more confusion and responsibility until again, our external level of stress matches that of our tolerance. Usually it takes a crisis of some kind to wake us up to our own craziness--we lose a spouse, bad health overwhelms us, a serious addiction takes over our lives--something jolts us into a search for a new strategy. For me it is health problems. The reason for my beginning this study, is the reccomendation by my doctor to reduce stress. At first I thought there was no way to do this, but when I examine my relationship to, and lack of control of, stress in my life, I decided I had no choice but to search for answers. The answers are in the word of God. (John 5:39) A careful study and understanding of, and implementation of those things found within God's Word, will reduce our stress.
What we need to do is to recognize those things that bring
us the most stress early, before it gets out of hand. When you
feel your mind moving too fast, it's time to back off and regain
your bearings. When your schedule is out of hand, it's a signal
that it's time to slow down and reevaluate what's important rather
than power through everything on the list. When you're feeling
out of control and resentful of all you have to do, rather than
roll up your sleeves and get to it, a better strategy is to relax,
take a few breaths, pray, study God's Word, and maybe take a walk
through the wonderful world the God has created. Prov. 15:8, 28.
There's no need to worry that you won't get it all done. When
your mind is clear and the peace of God is within you, and your
stress level is reduced, you'll be more effective and you'll have
more joy in doing the things that you do.
(II Cor. 13:11, Phil. 4:7) As you lower your tolerance to stress,
you will find that you'll have far less to handle, as well as
creative ideas for handling the stress that is left over.
III. Below is a short test to see how we are doing in lowering
our tolerance to stress:
Circle 0 for never , 1 for sometimes,
2 for often, and 3 for always
1. I wish I could get more work done than I do now. 0 1 2 3
2. I wish I could get by on less sleep. 0 1 2 3
3. Having to stop work for meals is a drag. 0 1 2 3
4. I don't have time for everything I want to do. 0 1 2 3
5. I have so many things to do, I don't know what to do first.
0 1 2 3
6. Finding time for family and friends gets harder all the time.
0 1 2 3
7. When I have free time, all I can think of is work. 0 1 2 3
8. I can't relax. 0 1 2 3
9. I must find a way to make more money--soon. 0 1 2 3
10. People expect too much of me. 0 1 2 3
11. I don't know how I'll measure up. 0 1 2 3
12. I wish I could do better than I'm doing. 0 1 2 3
13. I'm worried about my future. 0 1 2 3
14. I have so many problems that I don't know what to do. 0 1
2 3
15. I wish I could solve all my problems. 0 1 2 3
16. I wish I knew what I was meant to do with my life. 0 1 2 3
17. If I could just get through this problem things would be better.
0 1 2 3
Happy Verses: I Sam. 2:1-10, I Chron. 16:29-36