Psalm 131, Matthew 6:24-34 

I’ve been noticing that there seems to be a steady increase recently in radio ads offering help to people who are experiencing stress and anxiety in their lives. Offering a variety of coping strategies from herbal diet supplements to self- help tapes, books, seminars, pills, and clinics – they are really pushing this. I suppose this is a sign of the times. 

The news services, of course, dish out a never ending stream of bad news – from wars and suffering all over the world, to natural disasters, to the state of the world economy – and to many people these reports are getting closer and closer to home, and are like hammer blows to the soul. Striking our hearts again and again and again… it starts to take a toll. It really does - 

In December of 2005, a team of Australian researchers scientifically confirmed a long-suspected link between emotional stress and illness. The group from Sydney's Garvan Institute discovered that a hormone called neuropeptide Y (NPY) is released into the body during times of emotional stress. This hormone undermines the body's immune system and literally makes you sick. 

According to the Institute's Fabienne Mackay:  "That stress makes you sick is no longer a myth; it is a reality and we need to take it seriously."[1]

We can understand that, can’t we? I think we all know what stress is! We all know what it means to worry at times – even if we are not constant worriers, we’ve all had those periods of uncertainty, of inner turmoil, the sleepless nights … from family stresses, financial stresses, worries about health, about our children, our parents, conflicts with friends, co-workers, neighbors, bad news – there really is no escape, this is our world. 

Added to the general stress level of life, I just read that much needed rest and relaxation doesn't seem to come as easily or naturally to Americans as it does to those in other nations. According to the 2006 World Almanac and Book of Facts:

• a worker in Italy averages 42 vacation days per year.

• a worker in France: 37 days

• a worker in Germany: 35 days

• a worker in Brazil: 34 days

• a worker in the United Kingdom: 28 days

• a worker in Japan: 25 days

• a worker in America: just 13 days[2]

So, we’re not good at resting… and yet there are so many things – weights – that we carry day by day, weights that we need to put aside now and then, but we can’t seem to do that.  And so we hear advertising offering remedies that will simply make our worries disappear. Or, we start thinking that a lottery ticket or a good day in Atlantic City might be the answer… or some other artificial means of dealing with stress. 

Joseph Califano, the chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University says that Chemistry is chasing Christianity as our nation's largest religion. Think about that statement. There are millions of Americans who in times of personal crisis and emotional and mental anguish once turned to priests, ministers, and rabbis for some help, he says, now go to physicians and psychiatrists, for pharmaceutical relief, or to drug dealers and liquor stores, as chemicals and alcohol replace the confessional as a source of solace and forgiveness.[3]

Kind of a frightening observation.

And what a contrast are those words to those of King David’s that we read today in Psalm 131 - .

²But I have calmed myself and quieted my ambitions. I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. 

Or to those familiar words of Jesus found in Matthew 6 –

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear…²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?...³¹So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³² For the unbelievers run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

In a day when so many things, and people, and messages, and problems vie for our attention, in a nation that takes 33,000,000,000 aspirin a year (true!), many people experience a paralysis of personal energy. And this "frozen feeling" can easily overwhelm us. 

Did you ever see a circus lion ‘tamer’?  (Personally, I’ve never liked those acts, they seem degrading to these proud wild animals.) But if you’ve ever seen one, you know that the trainers always seem to be holding a stool.  Well, a William H. Hinson explains why animal trainers carry a stool when they go into a cage of lions. They have their whips, of course, and sometimes even pistols are at their sides. But Hinson says the stool is the most important tool of the trainer. They hold the stool by the back and thrusts the legs toward the face of the animal. Those who know about these things will tell you that the animal tries to focus on all four legs at once. In the attempt to focus on all four, a kind of paralysis overwhelms the animal, and it becomes weak, and disabled because its attention is fragmented.[4]

You think that can happen to us? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. Sure, it can! 

David wrote his Psalm about 700 or more years before Jesus spoke his words in the Sermon on the Mount. But it’s interesting that they both end up with very similar advice at the end of giving their personal view on dealing with stress. 

Verse 3 in Psalm 131 says simply:

³ Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore. 

Jesus says in Matthew 6: 33 – 34

But seek first his [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Of course this can sound like a cliché, as it is apparently much easier said than done, (and this also sounds like an ‘easy answer’ and you know how much I try to avoid those, spiritually speaking) yet very clearly, the Biblical antidote to stress is making our primary focus in life the things of God.

“Put your hope in the Lord” says David. By implication “Don’t put your hope in anything else!” Seek God’s kingdom (i.e., God’s rule in your life) first, and everything else will fall into place. Those, of course, are not my words, they are found in God’s Word. 

So why is it that this is so hard for us to do?  (And let’s be honest – it is hard.)  I could be wrong, but I don’t think that I’m the only one here who feels the stress of life … pretty frequently. And I know better! I know that David is absolutely on target when he says – calm yourself and quiet your ambitions, put your hope in the Lord, and you too, can be like me, like a weaned child content with its mother.  I know that’s true. I’ve been there. But for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to stay there! 

Putting the Kingdom first, seeking God’s plan, God’s priority over everything else (for me, at least) requires constant attention. Constant focus. But again, Jesus is right on – he knows the human heart – saying that when we do this, other things do, they will, fall into their proper perspective. 

At 73 years of age, John Wesley wrote in his journal (June 28, 1776) that he felt far more able to preach than when 23-years-old; he still traveled more than 4,000 miles a year, on foot or horseback (he said it gave him exercise and “change of air”). Wesley made a practice of getting up at four in the morning, he was able to go to sleep immediately, in his entire life, he wrote, he never lost a night's sleep. He experienced four illnesses that were used “to invigorate him”, and he wrote about possessing what he called “evenness of temper”: “I feel and grieve; but, by the grace of God, I fret at nothing.”[5]

Was Wesley some sort of spiritual aberration, or was he simply putting into practice those skills that David learned, and Jesus taught and demonstrated in his life?  What happens when we take God at his word, and simply trust him, and nothing else? 

****

I took a couple of days off earlier this week so I could go backpacking with my daughter, Kim. We went up to a wilderness area in the Catskills forest, a very wild and beautiful park. It turned out to be kind of cold (in the low 30’s at night) and, of course it rained and even sleeted at times… but something happened on that trip that had never happened (to this extent) to me in over 25 year of doing this kind of thing: 

And it’s kind of embarrassing… see, we got lost. I mean well-and-truly-lost. So lost that we made camp and went to bed on Monday night not really knowing where we were.  Like I say, kind of embarrassing! We had lost the trail sometime before lunch that morning, and we had been bushwhacking (i.e., walking without a trail) for most of that time since. 

I had a good topo map and a compass, and we both determined that we really needed to go ‘south’ (which turned out to be correct), but the problem was that there was a huge beaver swamp to our south, it went on for miles, and we just couldn’t find a way across it. So we were being ‘herded’ west, mile after mile.  When we finally popped out we were on a road on which we ended up walking over 5 hours  (two in one direction and three in the other the next day), no cars, no houses, no intersections, before we figured out where we were. 

When we finally got oriented we drove to a point where a road intersected the trail that we were supposed to be on, and we walked back over five miles simply because we had to know how we ended up going so wrong. Now, we had figured that the trail that we lost had ended up flooded by that beaver activity (because it was all pretty fresh).  And that would have been a better story, understandable, almost heroic. 

But we came upon a spot where both of us stopped and said, “Oohhhh….” at the same time. Because it suddenly became crystal clear what really happened: we made a wrong decision early in the day. We were at a ‘T’ and we should have gone left but instead, we went right.  Interestingly, when we were there (the first time) Kim took a picture. [on screen**] The “Road Closed” and “STOP” signs on the gate across the road should have perhaps, tipped us off that we might have been going the wrong way. But we were convinced that we knew where we were going. (As it turns out, we just weren’t as far along on our trail as we thought.)

Now the reason I’m sharing this with you, is not to publicly humiliate myself or Kim (although it is probably too late for that!) but to share something that Kim and I both noticed in the midst of this ‘adventure’. Now, incidentally, neither of us were worried in all this, we realized immediately that we were working on a good hiking story. We knew we had four days worth of supplies on our backs, and we knew we would eventually find our way out. 

But we also were constantly thinking about the fact that we didn’t know where we were. When it started to sleet at lunchtime we thought about being lost. Even making jokes and laughing didn’t hide the fact that the primary thing on our minds was not knowing if we really were going in the right direction or not. And in all of this we couldn’t help but notice our dog. Sierra. ** 

See, Sierra – who is just over one year old – was having the time of her life. ** She earned her name out there in the mountains. She ran like a deer, she ran after deer, she splashed through mud and bogs, and streams**, she threw sticks in the air… I mean, she was absolutely in the moment. 

And, clearly, the reason for that was that from her limited ‘doggie perspective’ it didn’t matter to her that we were ‘lost’** (although she could have easily found her way back), what mattered to her was that she was with me and Kim**.  And she was completely content and happy. And exhausted ** especially on the ride home! ** 

When I read these scriptures after coming home, and started writing about what it looks like to rest in the Lord, I thought of Sierra. The only thing that mattered to her was being with me. And she was free to enjoy every second of each new day. She felt safe and secure. She felt loved and knew she would be taken care of. 

To paraphrase something that Jesus once said, “If you humans know how to give good gifts, how much more is your heavenly Father ready to give you even better gifts!”  Trust in the Lord. Seek him first… and everything else will work out. 

Amen.

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