Taking the Stress Out of Our Lives

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:4-8, ESV)
We live in stressful times, no doubt about it. Just ask anyone about how busy they are or how stressed out they are and they will be quick to tell you about their stress-filled lives. The problem with stress is that it robs us of the freedom we have in Jesus Christ, it mars our relationships with others and even reduces our productivity. I believe that Christians have lived in stressful situations since the beginning of the church. But notice the beautiful passage in Philippians chapter four and how it reduces the stress in our lives, almost immediately. Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord. When shall I rejoice? Always. The Christian rejoices in each and every situation, whether the world sees it as a good situation or a bad situation. This particular teaching of Christ is so important that the Spirit asked the apostle Paul to repeat the word. Rejoice. Again I will say, Rejoice. That means it is extremely important for Christians to be filled with rejoicing at all times. Coupled with the teaching about rejoicing is the encouragement to be reasonable. We live in unreasonable times. People in countries all over the world are so filled with self that they have become unreasonable. If you think I am wrong, just consider the daily news. Unreasonableness is a mark of our world, our generation. That is why it is so important to be reasonable. Not only are we to be reasonable, we are to let that reasonableness be known to everyone, not just a few. We need to be reasonable with our spouses, with our children, with our aging parents, with our friends. We are to be reasonable with those who serve us in our communities, in restaurants, in stores. When’s the last time you “ripped a strip” with a waiter or waitress, with a clerk in a store? When was the last time you acted unreasonably when you received less than good service? And when we act unreasonable, it upsets us. We become victims of our own unreasonableness. We carry bitterness in our hearts, we nurse the hurt we believe we received because of the carelessness or attitude of someone else.
Are you anxious about anything? Anxiety increases because we have become unreasonable. We then forget that the Lord is close by, He is “at hand.” The best antidote for anxiety is prayer. Do we really pray? Do we really trust God to care for us, even in small things? Remember when Jesus raised Lazarus? He prayed before He raised His friend and in that prayer He thanked God for hearing Him, letting us know that God always hears Him. God hears Jesus right now as He continues to intercede on our behalf. He is close. He knows our every thought, our every anxiety. By praying, with thanksgiving for all He continues to do for us, we lay every care on Him and He deals with our anxiety. Supplication. That is an interesting term. That’s a bit stronger than just asking. I am reminded of Jesus’ parable about the man who went to bed, but the neighbor had guests and needed some bread, so he continued knocking on the door until he got the man up. Supplication is that kind of knocking and patiently believing that God will supply our every need, like knocking on the door of a friend’s house at midnight, believing he will get up and loan or give us what we need. If we pray like this with faith, our anxiety will be dealt with and the peace of Jesus Christ will guard our hearts. Against what? Against the voice of Satan trying to get us to think that God hasn’t heard our prayers or that God won’t answer our prayers favorably. You know the old cop out, “Well it must have been God’s will that He didn’t . . .” God loves His children and He will never withhold anything that His children need. And we need the peace of Jesus Christ.
If we will follow the injunctions of the Lord in the passage above, we will be able to think about things that are just, pure, lovely, of good report, excellent, commendable, things that are deserving of praise. And this is precisely what Christians need to be doing in times that are filled with stress, with uncertainty, with real wars and with the threat of more wars. God will guard our hearts. He will give us peace, peace that others cannot understand. Even Satan will be confused at the peace that we hold in our hearts, because he desperately wants the citizens of the Kingdom of God to be doubters, bitter, distressed and disenchanted followers of Christ. But if we live our lives under the blood of Jesus, life incarnadine, we will certainly be filled with rejoicing and be a shining light to a world that is groping about in the darkness, a world that is filled with fear and stress.