Stress
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.”
