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Stress is a natural part of life, and, in many ways, a helpful and even pleasant part of life. Riding a roller-coaster produces stress. Yawning, doing exercises, and even sex are other activities that involve stress. What makes stress unpleasant and harmful is the feeling that we cannot escape it.

A soldier on the front line is under stress. He could be shot by his own men if he chose to escape that stress by running away. Obviously, the stress he faces is more inescapable than others. His stress is based on his desire to stay alive. The damage caused by his stress may be less than the damage caused by a bullet through the head. But, then again, maybe not. His worry alone could kill him, especially if it resulted in him cracking up, jumping out of his foxhole, and running, screaming, straight into enemy fire.

The ultimate way to escape stress is to let go of whatever it is that you are hanging onto so tightly. It could be your desire to do well on an exam; or your desire for someone to think well of you; or maybe, like the soldier, just your desire to stay alive or healthy. Letting go could actually help you to achieve all three of these goals.

The trick is really in the timing. If you wait too long, you could have a nervous breakdown and do permanent damage to your mind and to yourself. If you let go too soon and too often, you'll never accomplish much of anything. When stress is not helping you achieve your goal, you may need to let go of the goal for a while, and just do what you feel comfortable doing.

Within our (Jesus Christian) community, people often stress out wanting to win the approval of the rest of the community. If you push it too far, one day you will snap, storm out, and vow never to return to such an oppressive life again. This is more or less the pattern that every "backslider" has gone through. Far from winning approval, they ended up totally destroying the relationship between themselves and us. The tragedy is that their desire to "please" the group often led to them "hating" it. Something went tragically wrong. So how can we keep that from happening to others of us?

Remember, it's not necessarily wrong to want to win the approval of others. But a better goal is to want to win the approval that comes from God... whether or not we win approval from others. There is a line that we need to walk between being rude to others (e.g. leaders) and just grovelling to them. We must learn to recognise when we are walking along that line.

Early warning signs that you are worrying too much about what someone else thinks, are (1) when your desire to impress others leads you to cover up errors or in some other way be dishonest; (2) when you find yourself getting rattled when questioned, and especially when you find yourself giving confusing answers; and (3) when you start to feel anger toward those who are trying to correct you.

Those are times when you need to let go of your desire to impress whoever it is that you are trying to please... not in anger, but in an effort to win God's approval more than the approval of the group. People who leave groups in anger over the discipline that they endured while part of the group, often swing over to a philosophy of selfishness and/or bitterness toward the group they left, as an effort to compensate for the stress that they felt when they were with it. If you stop doing what you are doing for God, then you, too, will fall into the same trap. (Note: You probably won't admit to being selfish or bitter if you backslide, but that is still what it will be.)

So, when you feel anger, dishonesty, or confusion creeping in, that is the time to let go. Rather than blame the group or the leader for your stress, you need to recognise just how much your stress is still under your own control.

Even the soldier who is sent to the front line, more or less with a gun at his back, can, by letting go of his desire to stay alive, and by directing his attention to a loving God, turn the stress over to God, and find his answer. God may tell him to stay and fight, to turn and run, or even to just go through the motions without actually pulling the trigger, and deal with the bigger problem later. But whatever he decides to do, he will be doing it because he has decided to do it, and not because he had no choice in the matter. And if he is doing it in obedience to God, there won't be the bitterness that hangs around when someone goes from grovelling to rebelling.

There are a lot of circumstances that are thrust upon each of us, and they cause frustration and stress. But they always leave us with some freedom in how we will respond. It is our personal responsibility to respond in the way that is most constructive. God can help us to find that way if we will ask him for his help.

Take an assessment of yourself when you feel stressed, and let go of those areas where stress is not helping you to do a better job. You may be surprised at how much your production can actually benefit from not trying so hard.

(See also Heavy Burdens and Difficult Yokes.)

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