Self Destruction, by Kasey Murphy
This person will self destruct in 3…… 2……
Stress has a funny way of affecting the human body. Some People get ulcers, some develop a twitch, others get high blood pressure. If you’re really lucky, you get more than one. If you’re me you get all three. That’s right, I’m that guy. The guy that, when I reach my stressed-out-to-the-max level I get a stomach Ulcer. To be fair, though, that exists partially because I didn’t read the bottle of aspirin that tells you not to take too much. My left eye will not stop twitching, which I’m convinced is just Satan messing with me, and when I went to the doctor she told me my blood pressure was a little high.
I can attribute 2 out of 3 of these to unusually high levels of stress. The third I can attribute to being an idiot, but stress does make it worse. The fact of the matter is that something like 90% of the illnesses that kill people nowadays are rooted in stress. Does that tell us that the human body wasn’t meant to deal with so much of it, all the time? We can actually avoid dying by avoiding stress. That’s a thought that will keep you up at night stressing, “How do I avoid stress?”
A job brings stress, so you quit. This brings more stress because you can’t eat. You could get a less stressful job, but that probably won’t pay as much. So that isn’t an option. Hmmmmm…… You could go on vacation, but that costs money, so that when you come back because you’re now in deeper debt, and now your more stressed than when you left. Plus the stressors that were there when you left are still there when you return. So how can you avoid stress? There are a couple of ways. You could become a beach bum living in a shack somewhere “off the grid” so your debtor’s wont catch you. Or you could take your stress to God, give it to him to carry, and do your best to obey his word.
I have to let you in on a secret that I’ve discovered; you can’t avoid every bit of stress that comes your way. Life happens, stress comes. God tells us that “In this world we will have trouble” – John 16:33. But Jesus doesn’t leave it at that; he tells us in the next part of that statement that we shouldn’t fear because “I have overcome the world” –John 16:33. You might as well take the word “Fear” and replace it with “stress” because this is what Jesus is talking about. This is coming from a man who knows the feeling.
Imagine knowing that you were going to be beaten within an inch of your life, be whipped with a torture device that would rip the skin off of your bones, be ridiculed by everyone, deserted by those that are supposed to be your closest friends, have to carry a large heavy wooden cross through a crowd that is hurling every insult imaginable, and then to top it off you’d be nailed to that very same cross for something that you didn’t even do. Now that’s stress. But in John 16 he isn’t freaking out or “venting” to his disciples. No, he is concerned about them, and he actually takes the time to comfort them. Now I’m not saying that Jesus didn’t stress out over the agony that he would have to endure. Jesus actually stressed to the point that he sweated blood from the pores in his skin. How many times have you experienced that extreme of an amount of stress? But Jesus took the time before he was going to die a very painful and humiliating death to comfort those he loved. Guess what: he LOVES YOU!!! So he offers comfort now just as he did then.
When you think that you are at your limit, you have reached your max, and you can’t take anymore, Jesus says to look to him. He asks for your burdens, he offers to trade you his yoke for yours. The good news is his yoke is light and he wants to carry your problems. Stop trying to do it alone; it will not work. Trust me, I’m stubborn. I’ve tried! I can’t do it alone, I need Jesus!! I need to have a shepherd to run to when I’m freaking out. When I do he extends his arms and says welcome home, what took you so long (well maybe not the last part but he’s probably thinking it)!!
Remember the Holy Spirit lives in you so Be the Church!!
3 Responses to “Self Destruction, by Kasey Murphy”
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Dude this is soo awesome, touches on soo much that we all deal with, and can’t seem to ever get rid of, dude I can see God working through u with ur words, keep them coming.
hi im Rebekah, i am an incoming freshman and ive been looking for good christian groups i can get into and i loved what you wrote about stress. i know what u mean and i had to learn the hard way plenty of times when i tried to carry all the weight alone, so now i dont even wait till times get hard im always giving everything to God. But what u wrote just totally blessed me
~beka~
Im glad that what i wrote touched some lives. Rebekah i hope you check us out in the fall!!