Stress
To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David. “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah. But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him. Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD. There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.”
Psalm 4:1-8
The number one contributor to health issues in the United States is stress.
Some doctors say that up to 80% of health issues are stress related. The word stress itself is not in the King James Bible, but that doesn’t mean that the Scriptures don’t address the topic. In our text, we see the word distress, and of course it isn’t hard to see that the root word here is, in fact, stress.
According to the Oxford Dictionary this word means, “The action or fact of straining or pressing tightly, strain, stress, pressure; fig. pressure employed to produce action, constraint, compulsion;” The last part of this definition intrigued me: “pressure employed to produce action”. Stress certainly does produce action in us, but generally not the type that it should. In our Psalm, David says that God had enlarged him when he was in distress, which is an interesting statement. The implication is that God wants to use stressors in our lives to cause us to grow, or as the definition says, to put pressure on us to produce action. The problem is that we often allow it to produce the wrong actions.
Stress, it would seem, is like a magnifying lens: it can be focused on enlarging us but often we turn it toward our problems instead and magnify them. What then was intended by God to make us better is used to make our problems bigger.
We see both of these examples given in the scriptures. In the reign of King Saul, the conflict with the Philistines was hard. The Prophet Samuel told Saul to take the army to a certain place and wait for him there. The Bible tells us that the people were under such a great stress in 1 Samuel 13:6 that “When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits.”
The stress of the situation was so great that the men of war hid anywhere they could find. Saul was also under a great deal of stress, which resulted in the terrible error of a sacrifice that was not lawful for him to make at the time. Because of Saul’s response to the stress, God said he would remove him from being king and replace him with David.
Other examples of how stress magnifies our problems and causes us to make bad decisions are recorded in the Bible, but you have many examples from your own life, as well.
It wouldn’t take much to convince you that stress is bad and can cause us to make bad decisions.
I want to focus on the alternate side of that.
We see great examples of how to deal with stress properly in the lives of Jacob and David.
Do you remember when Jacob was under a great stress as he headed back to see Esau? In that time, instead of making his own plans, Jacob turned to God, and we find one of the most incredible interactions a man ever had with God as Jacob wrestled with God all night long. He later said of this place in Genesis 35:3, “And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.”
It was this encounter that changed Jacob’s life and caused him to turn to God and become a man of great faith.
Likewise, David faced many times of stress in his life, but one in particular is called out in the Bible in a unique way. Just before God would make David the king over Israel He allowed David’s city to be attacked by an enemy.
The families of all David’s men were carried away by the enemy and when the men saw this they were greatly grieved, as you would imagine. They were so grieved that they talked about turning on David and killing him.
This passage carries a great statement of encouragement in it, though, as it says in 1 Samuel 30:6, “And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.”
I don’t know if you noticed, but in both of these instances, the stress was alleviated when Jacob and David turned away from the circumstances and toward God. The stress of their situation was great; like Saul, they could have allowed it to magnify their problems until they did wrong, but instead, they both turned to the Lord, and God delivered them from their problem. Instead of magnifying the problems, the stress was used to enlarge them, and both Jacob and David went on to become great for God, and these times of stress were a significant proving time for them in that. For just a minute, consider all the verses that tell us that this is a right response to stress.
“In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God: and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears.”
2 Samuel 22:7
“The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses.”
Psalm 25:17
“Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.”
Psalm 107:6
“Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.”
Psalm 107:13
“Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses.”
Psalm 107:19
“Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.”
Psalm 107:28
“I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.”
Psalm 118:5
“A Song of degrees. In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.”
Psalm 120:1
I hope you get the point that the desire of God is that when you face stress in your life, you would turn to Him. He wants to enlarge you, but if you don’t turn to Him, you will turn that magnifying glass on your problems and enlarge them to the place that you make bad decisions and hurt yourself. In our text passage, we see the process that God desires for us to use to deal with stress very clearly.
Notice that in David’s distress he called upon God, clearly asking God to hear his prayer in verse one. We have firmly established that this is the right response. What, though, are we to do in prayer? I’m sure that you, like me, have prayed about something that was stressing you out and didn’t seem to get much relief. I never experienced relief because I was still focused on the issue rather than on God until I saw this passage in this light.
Notice the six things that God says we should focus on in our prayer during times of stress.
First, he says in verse four “stand in awe”. The problem that we have is that we are too often in awe of our problems, and David is not referring to that. Instead, he is telling us to stand in awe of God. You have a choice: you can see God from the perspective of your problems or you can see your problems from the perspective of your God. The one that seems bigger is the one that you are focused on. During times of stress, if you will get your focus back on how great God is, then it will change your perspective about how big your problems are. “Stand in awe” means that you remember that God is bigger than any problem; He is greater than any trial and He is able to deliver you from any stress. As a child of God, the only reason we face stress alone is because we have forgotten God. He has never forgotten you, though. The first step is to get your view back where it ought to be, relying on God and His power.
The second thing David says to us is “sin not”. This sounds simple enough, but that is certainly the temptation during times of stress. The first step of sin in stress is that you stop trusting in God and start trusting in your own thinking. I shudder to think of all the times that I have made a plan to get myself out of a stressful time and how badly I have messed it up. David reminds us that if we don’t get our eyes on God, then we are likely to make a sinful decision. What a good reminder that the alternative to turning to God in our stress is sinful.
The next instruction that we have from David is to “commune with your own heart upon your bed”. This is a poetic way of saying, “meditate on what God is trying to teach you”. In times of stress, God wants to enlarge you, He wants to make you greater than you have been before so the stress that He has allowed in your life is for that purpose. In those times then we are to meditate on what God is doing and in prayer seek to apply His Word to learn not only how to respond in the moment but what lesson God wants us to take that will make us better. There is no doubt that David was stressed many times in his life, and that is when God gave him many of the Psalms as answers. The meditation of David on what God was doing changed his thoughts from problems to praises.
“And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.”
Isaiah 30:20-21
When we meditate on what God is doing, He will show us the teachers that He has placed in our life. So often we run from the lessons, but God wants to use these things tospeak to us instead. I praise God forthose times that I have been willing to meditate on what God was doing in mylife through my stresses and learned great lessons that changed me for thebetter. Now I know many of my teachers,when they come around, I recognize them and know that they are there to help menot to hurt me. I am better able toprepare myself for the lesson in that fashion and be teachable in thosetimes.
The fourth instruction by David here is that we would “be still”. So often in our stress we run from God and try to run from our problems.
My mother used to tell me, “No matter where you go, there you are.” What she meant was that you cannot run from your problems;
they will follow you. Stop trying to run away from stress and start looking to God for answers instead.
“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Psalm 46:10
God wants us to stop running all the time and just be still so that we can see Him do what needs to be done. You have only caused more issues by yourconstant plotting and moving during times of stress, but faith in God willsolve the problem. Stop doing it on yourown and look to God, know that He is God and not you, then He will be exaltedand work on your behalf.
The fifth step that we see here is that during these times we should “Offer the sacrifices of righteousness”. What would those be? It simply means to do what we know is right during times of stress. The flesh will try to get us to sin, accuse God, run away or remove ourselves from closeness with God. David says, however, that we should simply do what we know is right. In times of stress, that is a great sacrifice because everything that is in us wants to do the opposite. Some might call it character or discipline but God calls it a sacrifice here. The flesh and its desires are what you are sacrificing, and instead, you are living to God.
Finally, we are told to “put your trust in the LORD”. This is kind of a summary of all the instruction that we have been given. Simply put, we are not to take matters into our own hands. We are to let God do what He will and trust that He always does right. I don’t have to figure it out and make it work; I have to trust God and allow Him to do what He desires. God will work all things out for our good and for His glory if we wait on Him. There is no doubt that through my life I have created countless problems because I trusted in myself rather than in God. I so wish that I could go back and change that, but of course I cannot, and neither can you. Focusing on how we have messed it up before is not helpful except in learning the lesson not to do it that way again.
David goes on to say that there are many people who will question this method of dealing with stress.
He says, “There be many that say, Who will shew us any good?” God already knows that when you start to deal with stress in this way, the people around you will try to get you to question the wisdom of it. Likewise, the Devil, who is the Accuser of the brethren, will tell you that it will never work. However, take heart because the Word of God is true; if you will stay the course, God will enlarge you in a way that you have never known. He will do as David says and lift up the light of His countenance upon you. When He does, David says that you will experience two great blessings.
First in verse 7 it says, “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.” God will make you glad! The contrast here is given to show us something wonderful. The most gladness that the world has is when they are prospered. When their corn and wine increased, they see that as being enlarged and blessed. Unfortunately, there are many believers who fall prey to the idea that physical possessions are the sign of blessings, but David says that there is a gladness that exceeds that of physical possessions. God wants you to experience more than this world can offer. He wants you to be a partaker of the spiritual blessings that only His children can share. Have you ever really experienced the joy of the Lord being your strength like David did? I mean the joy that fills your soul and overcomes you with gladness so that you sit and weep because of the overwhelming love of God for you. This is that joy unspeakable and full of glory that we sing about. You will never get that from possessions, I promise you. This gladness comes only from closeness with God and that closeness comes only from waiting on Him in times of stress.
The second blessing that we are promised is in verse 8, “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.” How many times in stress have you lost your sleep? How often in those times have you wished for peace but found none? That is because you were trusting in yourself and your own plans. When you do things God’s way, He gives you peace and rest because there is no safer place than in His care. The security that comes from resting in God is described in the New Testament by Paul in Philippians 4:6-7
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
You can have the peace that passes understanding in the midst of your stresses if you will do what David showed you. Stress can begin to enlarge you by God’s graceor you can continue to enlarge your problems because of it; the choice is yours.
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