“There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.” 

― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

 The last several weeks have been strange to say the least. This was mostly brought on by the fact that I was diagnosed with shingles a couple of weeks ago. If you don’t know what the shingles are or have never had them, all you need to know is they are basically nuclear chicken pox, and you most likely have them and don’t know it. The strange thing about my shingles is what most likely caused them; stress. You see, I don’t think of myself as an uptight person. Sure, things stress me out just like everyone else, but I feel like I have been dealing with stress in a really healthy manner lately. I guess not.

My little bout with the shingles caused me to ask myself a few questions about stress and how I let it affect me. Initially, the fact that I had developed some viral infection due to stress caused me considerably more stress than I already had. All the questions about how I handle myself popped up. Am I suppressing things? Am I taking on too many things? Should I talk to a counselor?  Thankfully, the answers were right in front of me.

Am I a Suppresser?

Yes, Chances are, if there is any amount of stressors in your life you are also a suppresser. Let’s face it. It is not only our habit, but our instinct to suppress the things that are stressing us out. If we didn’t hold all these things down to some degree, we would be sloppy messes all the time, wearing every emotion on our sleeve. This isn’t healthy and it makes people uncomfortable.

Am I taking on too many things?

I currently am in the middle of quite a few big things in my life. So are you. So is the person sitting next to you on the bus. This doesn’t make us special. If I were to take on just one responsibility in my life it would be too much to handle alone. So yes, if you feel like you are taking on too much it is because you are. However, Mark Driscoll puts it well when he says that people, “Are like trucks: they drive straighter with a weighted load.” Don’t be afraid of all that responsibility or how underprepared you are to handle it.

Should I talk to a counselor?

 

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

(Matthew 11:28-30 ESV)

 Emphatically, yes. You need to speak to a counselor very much. That is what Jesus is teaching me out of the shingles. You see friend, Jesus is the wonderful counselor who makes your weight not so heavy. When you bury those stressors down in your chest, it is on his shoulders you are to cast them. The negative stress you feel from all that responsibility and business are manifestations of sin in the world. It is the cancer that infests God’s violated shalom. The gospel, however, frees us from carrying the weight of that sin any longer. He bears the weight of all the stress, overwork, underwork, and business that your life can accumulate. Rest in Him, and enjoy His relieving work on the cross.