STRESS TEST
Posted by: henkf <henkf@...>
PASSING THE STRESS TEST
Psalm 92
One of the rituals that many Americans over forty go through is the so-called "Stress Test." Many of you may have participated in that test where you walk or run on a treadmill. The way your heart deals with that test determines the doctor's assessment of your physical condition. It is always a happy moment when you can say, "I passed the stress test."
It is sad and ironic how many stress test failures there have been lately. We're not talking about stress tests on the human heart. We have seen great tragedies in hotels where walkways and ceilings failed the stress test and collapsed with considerable loss of life. We have seen whole buildings fail the stress test and collapse. We have seen bridges and overpasses fail the stress test and collapse under the weight of automobiles or through the shaking of the earth.
But there is no greater tragedy in this world than when human beings fail the stress test in their daily lives; not just the test associated with the physical heart, but the emotional, and the mental, and the spiritual stress test. They collapse under the weight of their own hurt and their own despair. Countless millions every year fail the stress tests that are part of our daily lives.
So the question we'll be looking at today is: How can we pass the stress test? We recognize that heartache and despair and adversity and trial and tribulation are all part of life, so what can we do to cope?
Someone once said that the problem with most people is that they want to get to the promised land without going through the wilderness. But there are times when all of us must go through the wilderness. Someone else has said that the course of true anything never goes smoothly. All of us are familiar with Murphy's Law. There are those who have claimed that Murphy is an optimist. If anything can go wrong, it surely will.
- SO HOW DO WE DEAL WITH THE STRESS TESTS OF LIFE?
- WE BEGIN, FIRST OF ALL, BY EXAMINING OUR OWN BASIC ATTITUDES.
Some of us are hindered by a negative attitude towards other people, towards ourselves, and towards life itself.
I like the story about the man who was seeing his mother off at the airport. She was taking a trip to visit some old friends, and as she prepared to board the plane he told her to have a good time. To which she replied, "Now you know perfectly well that I never enjoy having a good time." Unfortunately, there really are people out there who don't enjoy having a good time. We are much more content with worrying than with coping.
F. Stanley Jones told a story about a little girl he knew who one day set off on a binge of early rebellion. Any time her mother would tell her, "Do this," she would answer, "I don't want to." Then the mother tried varying her order and told her daughter: "Do that." Again the child answered, "I don't want to." The mother, being very busy, said, "Alright, then do whatever you want to." The little girl heaved a big sigh and said, "I don't want to do what I want to." Some people go through life like that -- not even wanting to do what they want to do. These people constantly fail the stress test. They are hindered by their determination to be contrary.
Of course, the opposite situation is no better. A person with an overly positive attitude is as bad off as a person with an overly negative attitude. These people don't even know when they are in trouble. You might know the story about the traveling salesman who talked with an older salesman on the road. "I'm not doing too well," said the younger salesman, "every place I go I get insulted." "Too bad," sympathized the veteran, "I can't understand that. In more than forty years of traveling on the road, I've had my samples tossed out the window, I've had myself tossed out, I've been kicked down the stairs, and I've even been punched in the nose. But I guess I'm lucky, I've never been insulted."
Life is a matter of attitude. And adversity brings out our basic attitude.
Dr. Peter J. Steincrohn, in his book, HOW TO MASTER YOUR FEARS, gives an example of a basic reaction to adversity. He writes: "The year was 1929. Mr. Smith was worth a million dollars just before `Black Thursday' of the market crash. A month later he had only a hundred thousand dollars. What did he do? Most of us have read of the many such Smiths who jumped from hotel windows. But the average man said: `Imagine jumping with a hundred thousand dollars in your pocket. I was left without a nickel to my name and you couldn't have pushed me out of a window.' There you have what we like to call normal and the abnormal reactions to a difficult situation."
Two basic reactions to stress: the man with a million dollars who had only a hundred thousand dollars left jumped out of a hotel window, and the average man in the street who didn't have a nickel would never dream of jumping out a hotel window. There are some people who collapse under the very slightest strain. There are others who take adversity and shine it up, and turn it into something worthwhile.
J. Wallace Hamilton once used an example from a Knoxville, Tennessee, newspaper. There were two articles in the same paper, about similar situations, but with two different reactions. The first was the story of a boy who, jilted by his sweetheart, left a note on Henley Bridge: "To whom it may concern; I am going to jump off this bridge because my people are all against me, and the only one I ever loved is mad at me, and I think this is the only way out." And so he jumped. The other story in the same newspaper was about a young Air Force corporal who, when his girl jilted him, wrote a song out of his heartache which became a popular hit and brought him twenty thousand dollars. I would say that the second boy passed the stress test. Adversity brings out our real attitude about life.
What is your attitude towards life? Do you think in negative terms? Do you let even the most minor of irritations burden you down? Or do you mount with wings like eagles and fly above?
- OF COURSE, THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PERSON IS THE PERSON WHO LEARNS TO DEAL WITH LIFE FROM A FEELING OF GRATITUDE,
- NOT JUST A GOOD ATTITUDE, BUT GRATITUDE--BELIEVING THAT THERE IS SO MUCH IN LIFE,
- REGARDLESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES,
- FOR WHICH TO BE GRATEFUL,
- TRUSTING THAT THIS WORLD WAS CREATED BY A GOOD AND LOVING GOD.
The words of the Psalmist are so important for us when he writes:
- Psalms 92:1-5 BBE
- (1)
The Psalmist knows about gratitude, about the grateful heart. Henry Ward Beecher once wrote: "If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes, and search for them with my clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction. The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessing, only the iron in God's sand is gold!"
We must learn the spirit of gratitude. We must look at life, not through rose-colored glasses that refuse to see the wrong in the world, but through glasses that are tinted with the knowledge of God's love and concern and providence. It can make a difference in how we deal with stress.
Corrie ten Boom never looked at life through rose-colored glasses. She was to suffer in Hitler's concentration camps. There is a beautiful scene in her book THE HIDING PLACE that I want to tell you about. She and her sister Betsie lay in the Nazi prison camp struggling against the nausea that struck them from the reeking straw, and the filthy, repulsive conditions. One day, suddenly, Corrie sat up and struck her head on a slat above her--something had pinched her leg! She cried out, "Fleas! Betsie, the place is swarming with them!" They scrambled, heads low to avoid another bump; they dropped down into the aisle, and edged their way to a patch of light.
"Here, and here's another one!" she wailed. "How can we live in such a place!"
And almost imperceptibly Betsie lowered her head and began to pray: "Show us, show us how." Then, all of a sudden, Betsie said, "Corrie, He's given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!"
Corrie glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, and then drew the Bible from its pouch. And she read from I Thessalonians. In the feeble light she turned the pages and found the passage. She began to read, "Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. . ."
She read on, "Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus..."
Betsie lit up, "That's it, Corrie! That's His answer: `Give thanks in all circumstances!' That's what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!"
Corrie stared at her and then looked around at the dark, foul-aired room. "Such as?" she said. Betsie answered, "Such as being assigned here together." Corrie bit her lip. "O yes, Lord Jesus!" Betsie said again, "Such as what you're holding in your hands." Corrie looked down at her Bible. "Yes, thank you dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank you for all the women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages."
Betsie again speaks out: "Yes, thank you for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!" And then Betsie looked at Corrie expectantly, and prodded her to continue. She did. "Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds."
Betsie went on serenely, "Thank you for the fleas and for..." Then Corrie interrupted, "The fleas!" This was too much, there was no way that God could ever make her grateful for a flea.
But Betsie was not going to be deterred. "Give thanks in all circumstances," she quoted. "It doesn't say in pleasant circumstances. Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."
So Corrie and Betsie stood between bunks and gave thanks for the fleas. But this time Corrie was sure Betsie was wrong. To make a long story short, their building, designed to hold 400, had 1400 women packed in it. Quarrels and fights broke out constantly. One time, Corrie writes, "In the dark I felt Betsie's hands clasp mine. "Lord Jesus," she said aloud, "send Your peace into this room. There has been too little praying here. The very walls know it. But where You come, Lord, the strife cannot exist. . ."
The change was slow, but distinct. One by one the angry women let up. A ripple of laughter widened around the room. Corrie said she sat back on the sour straw and knew there was one more circumstance for which she could give thanks.
Later Betsie was overjoyed to learn that because of the fleas, they were allowed to have their Bible study and prayer groups unmolested. Apparently the guards were afraid of the fleas. Corrie adds, "My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie's bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for."
"Give thanks in all circumstances." That is not a Pollyanna attitude towards life. It is a simple, basic trust that in all things God works to the good for those who love Him.
If I might put it into a phrase that makes it memorable: Gratitude turns our attitude into a beatitude--a blessedness.
A man from England was on the ocean with his little seven-year-old daughter coming to America. That morning on the ship he had preached on the love of God. It had been a difficult service because he had lost his wife just a few weeks before.
As he and the little girl leaned upon the rail of the ship gazing upon the vast expanse of sea, his daughter said to him, "Daddy, does God love us as much as we love Mummy?"
"He does," said the father. "God's love is the biggest thing there is."
"How big?" asked the young girl.
"How big? I'll tell you. Look across the sea. Look up. Look down. God's love is so big that it stretches around us farther than all this water. It is higher than the blue sky above us. It is deeper than the deepest part of the ocean beneath us."
After a moment of silence the little girl suddenly grasped her father's arm, exclaiming, "Daddy, we're right in the very middle of it!"
Yes, coping with the stress tests of life--it means developing a sense of gratitude, and being aware of the magnitude of God's love for us. Some of you have come through some difficult stress tests: the loss of a loved one, the collapse of a great dream. Even the minor irritations of life mount up so greatly for some of us that we sometimes feel that we will collapse.
But we can keep going. We can endure by developing a positive attitude, by having a sense of gratitude about life, by leaning our weight and casting our burden upon His love for us. We can go on.
There was a bad moment in World War II when it looked like the Germans might win. But then Winston Churchill went on the air with the words that gave a new courage to the whole free world:
"When I look back on the perils which have already been overcome, upon the great mountain waves through which the ship has driven, when I remember all that has gone right, I am encouraged to feel that we need not be afraid that the tempest will overcome. Let it roar, let it rage, we shall come through."
When we have a positive attitude, when we have a sense of gratitude, and when we remember the magnitude of the great love of God, we can survive and overcome anything that life can throw at us.6
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