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Of all the things that rob a Christian of peace and robust mental health, stress has to be near the top of the list. There are so many stressors in our lives that to not find a way to actively de-stress is to choose to remain stressed. This is sort of like fertilizing the weeds, as we learned in our second mental health strategy.
A certain amount of stress is good for us—doctors call this eustress. Our bodies have been designed by God with a hormone called cortisol that helps us respond to stressful situations, and He also designed that the unused cortisol be flushed from our bodies as we sleep and exercise. However, when we become stressed, many times sleep and exercise are squeezed out of our lives.
Men’s Health magazine reported, “You personally may dictate when you’ll die. After studying 1633 men for 30 years, Purdue scientists found that worrying takes 16 years off your life. Negative thinking triggers the release of cortisol, a stress hormone that can be dangerous when elevated for long periods of time.”
The eustress can degrade into distress if we’re not attentive to this downward slide. The excess cortisol that is allowed to remain in our bodies leads to unhealthy responses—like sleeplessness, starvation or binge eating, and little to no exercise. These unhealthy factors are further exacerbated by our diminished coping skills that come from the damage done to the hippocampus in our brain. Lingering cortisol kills the neurons in this memory center of our brains, which makes it harder for us to recall past lessons that could help us resolve stress.
Sadly, distress can become its own downward cycle as the unhealthy responses and diminished coping skills negatively impact our lives, creating even more stressors.
Stress makes us:
Self-focused
Short-sighted
Stingy with our time, possessions, and even God’s promises
But there is a word of hope for us. William James noted, “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
I want to give you one thought—one word, one action—to combat stress: Bless.
Blessing others takes the focus off myself. Blessing God puts the focus on Him.
In the Gospels, we see people who had suffered the ravages of stress, encounter Jesus, find freedom, and then begin to bless others as a preventative to returning to their stress-filled lives. We can see a few examples in healed women, a man delivered from demons, and a woman who had lived a less-than-virtuous life (Luke 8:1-3, 26-39; 7:36-50).
Frequently, the Old Testament psalmists shared how blessing God and others brought them out of their stressful situations. A great example comes from David when he chose to bless God in a stressful place, and ended up being a blessing to other afflicted people around him (Psalm 34:1-6).
Instead of remaining self-focused we become others-focused
Instead of being short-sighted we get a big-picture orientation
Instead of being stingy with our possessions and God’s promises we become generous
Remember that in the distress cycle I mentioned earlier the brain cells in the hippocampus were being damaged? The excess cortisol literally kills those neurons. The good news is that the hippocampus is one of the few places in the brain that experiences neurogenesis after cortisol is flushed. When you replace stressing with blessing, and the cortisol is regularly flushed from your body, brain cells are regenerated in your hippocampus. In essence, you are developing both a new brain and a new mind.
The apostle Paul wrote, “Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24 NKJV).
Don’t let stress steal life from your years and years from your life. De-stress by blessing God and blessing those around you.
Healthy leaders look in the mirror first before they confront a teammate on something that needs to change. Check out the full conversation Greg and I had on The Craig and Greg Show about defeating the two-headed leadership killer of ignorance and arrogance. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
“I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him.” —C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” —William James
The most empowered and empowering person is the one who remains in Jesus.
“Whereas three or more incidents of intense stress within a year (say, serious financial trouble, being fired, or a divorce) triple the death rate in socially isolated middle-aged men, they have no impact whatsoever on the death rate of men who cultivate many close relationships.” —Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee, Primal Leadership
T.M. Moore has an outstanding series of posts on how Christians should interact with the governments in the lands in which they live. I highly recommend this series to you. T.M. wrote, “We have seen that justice is a jewel of many facets. In its obligatory facet, justice requires that we love our neighbors simply because they are made in the image of God. We must regard them, and do with them, as we wish to be regarded and done with ourselves. In its preventive facet, justice demands that we use forethought in all our actions to make sure, as far as possible, that our neighbor or his property is not injured by what we do. Distributive justice encourages us to share generously with our neighbors and others in need. Restorative justice comes into play when the balance of neighbor love has become disturbed and the one guilty of disturbing it is required to set things right again. Each of these forms of justice, grounded in the Law of God, is very much a part of life in our society today. It is simply mindless or prejudicial to insist that we should have no input from Scripture or the Law of God, either in the public square or in the making of public policy. Our nation was founded on Biblical principles of justice, and to deny this is to rewrite history past and to put in jeopardy history to come.”
The Greek word translated as “consider” in Hebrews 3:1 means to observe closely, to consider attentively, to fix your eyes or mind upon it. In its context, this verb is usually directing us to the end result of being in awe, kindling a renewed faith, and being rejuvenated with a new resolve to move forward.This is what happens especially when we consider Jesus❣️
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I think it is very instructive that Jesus began His three years of public ministry after thirty years of preparation, and that He began His daily ministry after an early-morning prayer session. If Jesus needed that kind of preparation time, what would make us think we could do with anything less?
Karl Vaters and I discussed Chapter 10 of my book Shepherd Leadership which is entitled “Can’t, Won’t, or Don’t” This chapter (and our conversation) covers the three main reasons leaders need to address to make sure they are being adequately prepared.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Our sixth spiritual discipline—confession—is at the pinnacle of our growth as maturing saints. That’s because many of the other disciplines will culminate in one saint confessing to another saint. Confession not only keeps us strong as individuals, but it keeps the whole Christian community in a strong, healthy place.
The story has been told about two monks who had woven plenty of baskets to sell in town on market day. On the way to town they devised a strategy where one monk would sell at one end of the market and the other at the opposite end. At the end of the day they would meet at a designated place to go back to the monastery. One monk sold all of his baskets and returned to the meeting place. He waited, and waited, and waited. It wasn’t until the next morning that the second monk appeared.
“I cannot return to the monastery with you,” he told his waiting friend. “I have committed a terrible sin. I was tempted, and I gave into the temptation and committed fornication last night. I have broken my vows to my brothers and to God, so you will have to go back without me.”
The first monk listened to his friend and then answered, “Come, my friend. We will go back to the monastery and repent together.”
He was really saying to his friend, “I can identify, because under the same circumstances I might have done the same thing. Perhaps if I had stayed at your side I could have held you accountable, so I bear mutual responsibility for your stumble.”
The early church is described in terms of togetherness. James, the early leader of the church in Jerusalem, was a part of this togetherness and used it as an important conclusion to his book of instructions to the saints—
Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.… My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:13-16, 19-20)
James wants the saints to be together in prayer, together in worship, together in confession, and together in rescuing their fellow brothers and sisters. The word he uses for “confession” means an out-loud profession or agreement. When he says, “confess your sins” he uses a word that means a deviation from a standard, or a falling short of God’s word.
James sees this ongoing confession as a preventative to “a multitude of sins.” In this instance, the word he uses is an outright violation of God’s laws. In other words, the small deviations can add up to something deadly.
Paul uses a similar idea when he writes, “Let us purify ourselves” (2 Corinthians 7:1). The implication again is that we are confessing both individually and corporately. I can be a huge blessing to my brothers and sisters by going first in confession (Matthew 7:1-5).
In each of our previous five spiritual disciplines I’ve shared a “so that” statement to help us keep perspective of why we need to employ those disciplines. For confession, here’s our focal point: I confess to other saints so thatwe can be mutually accountable in our growth toward purity and maturity.
Confession is good for us individually and corporately, so let’s continue to use this to strengthen everyone.
The Holy Spirit loves to give us those “lightbulb moments” when the Word of God almost leaps off the page! I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
It has long been believed that some migratory animals use the earth’s magnetic force to help them navigate. Some researchers discovered that moths can see both the magnetic fields and the stars to plot their course. The lead researcher wrote, “If you have this tiny insect with a brain a tenth the volume of a grain of rice and eyes smaller than a pinhead, that they can do this is surprising.” The protein in their eyes that allow them to do this is unevolved—it’s always been there, implant from the beginning by our awesome Creator!
In the God Speaks Science reading plan on YouVersion, John Von Sloten wrote, “Creation is God’s first book. To read it we need science. Science is not the enemy of the Christian faith; it’s an ally! … We need to read biblical creation references with the Author’s omniscience and original intent in mind. To do that, we need science. … What if you try to connect the next scientific truth you encounter to an attribute of our ever-near God? If everything comes from God’s mind, then everything has something to say about God’s nature.”
Competitive leaders need to keep both winning and losing in perspective. Check out the full conversation Greg and I had about competition on The Craig and Greg Show.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
If we’re not careful, we can get so focused on our own appointments that we will miss out on the amazing opportunities God sends our way to show His love to others.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I’ve always loved this stanza from a William Cowper poem:
Restraining prayer, we cease to fight
Prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright
And satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
Prayer is indispensable in spiritual warfare! Prayer is where we fight best for those we love.
Have you ever heard the question, “Are you a lover or a fighter?” I don’t believe this is an either-or answer, both both-and. I’m a fighter because I’m a lover. I love Jesus and I am loved by Jesus.This fuels my passion to fight for His glory to be seen. This drives me to fight against the powers that keep others from knowing this love for themselves.
T.M. Moore wrote, “If we want God to bring revival and save the world from its many and increasing troubles, we must give ourselves to extraordinary efforts in prayer before we enter the conflict.” Prayer isn’t preparation for the fight; prayer is the fight that has been lovingly empowered. This is why our fifth spiritual discipline of prayer is so vital.
As we have seen with giving and fasting, Jesus also has some don’ts and dos for us about praying (Matthew 6:5-8):
don’t pray publicly for earthly recognition or human applause (v. 5)
do pray privately (v. 6)
don’t pray robotically—And when you pray, do not heap up phrases—multiply words, repeating the same ones over and over—as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their much speaking (v. 7 AMP)
do pray intimately (v. 8)
Jesus practiced what He preached about praying in secret: Jesus was praying in private (Luke 9:18). He must have prayed so differently than anyone else the disciples had ever heard because they asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).
There is a way I speak to my wife in private that I don’t typically say in public. If I didn’t speak intimately to her in private, others would notice a difference in public. When I do have intimate, private, regular conversations with her, it also shows publicly.
So too with prayer. The New Testament doesn’t record very many of the prayers of Jesus for us. In fact, many of things we might think of as prayers sound more like commands from Jesus—“Lazarus, come forth,” “Little girl, get up,” “Be clean,” and similar phrases. We see the public display of power because Jesus had been empowered in private by His Father.
Private prayer is noticed publicly in the lives of the followers of Jesus too (see Acts 4:13; 6:15).
I don’t pray privately so that I can show off publicly. I pray in intimate privacy so that I can publicly show off Jesus!
All of our spiritual disciplines are for us individually so that we have something to give corporately. For instance—
As we are built up in private prayer, there is a greater unity in corporate prayer, and Jesus is lifted up for the world to see. We love Jesus and we love others, so we fight for the glory of God and the strengthening of our brothers and sisters. We are loving fighters!
So let me encourage you to make private, intimate conversation with Jesus a priority in your life.
Put the good stuff from the Bible in your heart and mind regularly. When you do, the Holy Spirit can remind you of what you’ve studied and help you apply it to your daily situations. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
“It pays to know the enemy—not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.” —Margaret Thatcher
John Stonestreet and Dr. Glenn Sunshine shared this, “The despicable and horrendous attacks by Hamas against civilians last week, including beheading children and kidnapping the elderly, seems a throwback to some distant, barbaric past of human history. We may have thought the world had long ago outgrown such barbarity, but it hasn’t. In fact, as shocking as it is, the kinds of atrocities carried out by the Hamas terrorists are the norms of warfare, at least throughout most of human history.” What changed this? Quite simply: a Christian worldview of just warfare.
“It is the quiet, steady appeal that moves the heart of kings. So then, the wise find ways to bring their cause visibly before the authority without being annoying. This is subtle art; it is not manipulation. This silent plea communicates to the leader a determination and resolve that appeals deeply to their conscience. Fools make themselves annoyingly heard; the wise make themselves dignifiedly seen.” —Dick Brogden, in Proverbs: Amplified and Applied
Craig T. Owens 