Thriving Under Stress and Responsibility - Lynn Martin

About seven months ago, I became a father, and you're welcome to congratulate me.

It's been really good, and I thought about showing pictures to prove it, but I decided not to. You'll have to take my word for that. But this morning, I'm going to talk about something else really good about being a father, other than, you know, the nice things that happen. I'm going to talk about the things that aren't quite as nice.

So, some things that have changed for me are now I've got another person demanding my attention, and you don't really get to choose whether you give them your attention or not. I've lost a lot of sleep, and one of the things that I didn't really think about before I became a father is that the buck stops with you. So I can't anymore, whenever something happens, whenever he's sick or something, I can't anymore be like, "Okay, Mom, what shall I do?" Because I'm the dad, and I have to decide eventually. I mean, like, I don't have someone else I can really fall back on. I have people that I can ask advice from, but I can't really turn the decision over to someone else.

So basically, what parenthood is, is having more stress and responsibility and having less resources to deal with the stress and responsibility. That's the way I sum it up. It gets better later, I promise. Well, thank you.

But I think that's—I think it's a good thing, as I will show, or maybe show, I don't know, in the sermon. But not all of you are parents, and whether you're in this position or not, I think a lot of us today are in a position where we have more stress and responsibility than we—than is easy for us to handle. And this message will be about some things that I've learned or want to learn about taking care of stress and responsibility. So this is about thriving under stress and responsibility.

It will be very short, I hope.

So first of all, God gave us freedom, and with that freedom comes responsibility. And our responsibility is to exercise, to use that freedom well, and to live as though we're in control and not our instincts. So here are the two key ideas I want to get across in this sermon. The first one is to thrive under stress and responsibility. We need to take control of ourselves and our lives, and we need to change our perspective on the stress that we have.

So I think one thing we need to know is that our life is our responsibility. We do get a lot of help from God, but He wants to work with us. He doesn't want to just override us. And I think that's fairly clear in Scripture. We learn that a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.

And James talks about self-control in the matter of the tongue. He says, "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body." So to become perfect, we need to be able to control ourselves to bridle our bodies.

So for the first section, I'm going to talk about taking control of ourselves and our lives and some tips for me and also for you guys in how to do that. So the first tip that I have is to know who you actually want to be like. I think that's really important for being able to take control of yourself, is to know what that control looks like.

So we like to compare ourselves to each other in mundane areas of life. Like, "I don't make as much money as so-and-so," or, "My house doesn't look as nice as so-and-so's," or, you know, "I weigh less than so-and-so," and things like that. That's the sort of thing we tend to compare ourselves with each other in. I don't think those are the helpful areas to compare ourselves to each other in.

I think we should look for the people who respond well to stress and pressure, and we should want to be like those. Not like the people who look on the outside like the person we'd like to be like, if that makes sense. But the people who, by the way they interact, they show that they're the type of person that we would like to look like, well, actually be like.

So when we think about the—maybe take a moment now to think about someone who responds well under stress. And when we know who we want to be like, when we know that we want to be like this person, we're choosing the characteristics we would like to have.

And when we choose the characteristics we would like to have, we're, in a way, choosing the kind of person we're going to end up being. Because, yeah, what's always in our mind, what we're always looking toward, is what we're going to end up being like.

And obviously, the ultimate example of this is Jesus. So all the people that we can think of who respond well under stress and pressure, those are the people we want to be like. But ultimately, the only perfect person is going to be Jesus, and He is a great example for how to respond well to stress and pressure.

The second thing I'd like to suggest is to identify what is non-negotiable. So people often talk about learning to say no, which is really important. But I think that maybe what's a little more important is to learn to say yes.

Because if we say yes to everything, we're saying no to everything as well. If we're saying yes to too many things, if we're trying to do more good things than we're capable of doing, we're going to end up not really doing anything fully. So we need to choose the things that we're going to say yes to. We're going to choose the things that we are going to actually accomplish. And that might only be three things, I don't know, that we want to do with our lives in the next year. But that's important. We can't put a hundred things in front of our eyes to do all the time, but we can put three things in front of us to do.

So it might be some, you know, family is something that's really important. Work is something that's important because we're providing for our family. Church is very important. But I think maybe we want to get more specific about what do we want for our family. What is that non-negotiable thing that we want for our family or for our church, etc.? So I think we should say yes to those non-negotiables, and we should say yes fully, and then by extension, we'll be saying no to other things.

The third thing I'd like to suggest is to invest in your team. So whether your team is your spouse or your team is some other person or group of people, we need help in order to live our lives well. And if we don't have help, we're kind of sunk. We need each other's support and wisdom, and we get better support from them if we are supporting them.

So one way that you can help your team is to give them space so that they're not always under the wire, not always working. To give them encouragement. You know, there are those people who always think of how good they are, but there are a lot of people who always think about how they could be better. So the thing that's in their mind is, "Oh, I could have done better in this way," or, "I could have done better in this way." But maybe what those types of people need to hear is where they did do well.

Your spouse, for example, might just not know how much of a help they are to you, and you can tell them. They probably won't be able to tell themself. And your spouse or your team, they might not know how well they're doing their job. It's really hard to tell whether you're doing a good job or not because all you can see is your own perspective.

It's hard for you to look from an outsider perspective on yourself. But that's something you can do for your team. You can give them that encouragement, help them know that they're doing well at their job. And I would also suggest being careful with criticism because it's very easy to criticize. We don't want to think that we're the problem, so it's very easy to make the other person feel that they're the problem so that we can feel that they're the problem. But, you know, when things go wrong and we identify this thing that our team member did that we feel like was the cause of things going wrong, we might not actually know why the team member did that thing.

You know, it could be that we're not actually seeing things clearly. Maybe we did something that caused them to need to do that, and then things devolved from there. They might be doing better.

And I think a team is not built by pitting the members against each other. I think a team is built by supporting each other, being quick to forget the faults, etc., of our team members, and quick to encourage them in what we appreciate.

So a fourth thing that I'd like to recommend for taking control of ourselves is to spend downtime doing something worthwhile. So the tireder I get, the easier it is to spend my downtime, say, on social media or something that doesn't take a lot of brain space and is kind of mindless. There's enjoyment there.

But the more stress and responsibility you have, the less free time you have, and the more important it is to spend that free time well. Social media, for example, will only help you in the short term. I'm not saying that it's entirely wrong, but there are other things you can do. For example, while you've got your phone there, you can read your Bible on your phone. I can read my Bible on my phone.

You can maybe go for a walk together or alone. You can play with your kids. It doesn't take very long to play with your kid, especially when he's less than one. And yeah, I think that the way we spend our downtime is going to help how much energy, how much ability we have to control ourselves in the bigger things.

So the second thing I wanted to talk about was changing our perspective on stress. So I found a few examples of it that I think that are here in Scripture. "Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." So giving thanks is a way to change our perspective on our stress.

And that's a function that it has besides just being a good thing to do. And here in Philippians, Paul writes, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." One thing that he didn't mention to think about was stress and responsibility.

I think if we think about these things rather than the things that our minds want to put in front of us all the time, the difficult things or the depressing things, that's going to help. That's, again, changing our perspective.

So I'll suggest several other ways of changing our perspective. One is to get some space for reflection. So it can be tempting whenever we're in the middle of responsibility to spend our entire time doing whatever it is that we're responsible for. But I think that we need time to stop, take a break, and reflect.

So an example I thought of is, let's suppose a commander of an army is constantly in the thick of battle, and he's always out there helping his soldiers. He's always out there fighting, etc. When is he going to get the chance to know how things are going everywhere else on the front lines so that he knows what kind of decisions to make?

He won't. If all he's doing is fighting along with his men, he's only going to be able to make decisions for what's right there in the moment. He won't be able to make decisions more broadly. So what the commander needs to do is to step back and be able to reflect on what is actually happening in the battle. And I think we need to be able to step back and think about what is actually happening in our lives.

And another recommendation I would have is to reserve our self-criticism for the right times. And I have this categorized under here because I think that it's important to be able to—okay, so for conscientious people, which—or people who have—I'm not sure how to say that. Okay, for people who are somewhat self-critical, and I'm one of those, it's really easy to get into a rut of thinking, "Oh, I did that badly. Oh, I looked terrible there," or, "I did something that looked stupid." And it's easy to wake up in the morning and be like, "I'm tired."

I might wake up and be tired, but the first thing I think rather than, "I'm tired," is, "I'm terrible." And then I'm like, "Oh, the reason I think I'm terrible is because I'm tired." It might be that I'm terrible too, but I don't actually have the perspective right now to tell whether I'm terrible or not. So I think that we need to reserve that kind of self-judgment for the times when we actually have a little better perspective. I do think that we should be self-critical, but I think we should be self-critical in smart ways.

So the next point that I have is to choose your life. So choosing your life, I don't think—okay, let's put it this way. So it's harder to endure something when you don't feel like you had any say in what you're enduring.

And many times we're in an area or we're in a situation where it seems like we didn't choose our situation, and that's part of what makes it seem so unfortunate. However, I actually think that we do choose our situation.

We may not choose—we may not have—if we had more options, we may not have chosen the situation that we're in, or we might have. But there's always the option of dropping our responsibilities, running away from our families, running away from Jesus, and then we'd be stress-free.

I mean, that's an option. It's not a very good option, but it is an option. And the fact that we choose not to do that means that we are actually choosing the life that we're living. So why don't we drop everything and run?

It's because we'd rather be stressed than be selfish. And I think that's a great choice to make, and I think that all of us can say we have chosen the life that we have. This is the life that we would rather live than all the alternatives.

And when we can say that, I think that we can endure our lives better and enjoy our lives better.

And I think we can say that we chose our lives.

The next thing that I'd like to say is, and this is something that I'm very bad at doing, but this is my recommendation for myself to not count my time as my own. Whenever we have things planned out beautifully about how we're going to spend our time, we're going to get this done in this chunk of time and this done in this chunk of time, or we finally got an hour to work on X project, and then all of a sudden there's something else that needs to be done. There's some fire that needs to be put out right away.

That can be really bothersome because it feels like someone is coming along and wasting our time. It's our time, right? But I think if we say this time is not ours, this time is something that we dedicate to whatever is the most important thing to do, then I think we'll be able to change our perspective on the distractions or what seems like distractions that we encounter.

And finally, I would like to suggest that stress is God's gift to those that He loves.

And here's why I would like to suggest it.

In Acts, the apostles were beaten.

The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem beat the apostles, charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

As far as I know, none of us have been beaten for Jesus' name, but these apostles considered that stress, that difficulty as something that showed that God was counting them worthy of Him.

Here's another passage where the writer of Hebrews writes that the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

I think if our Father, God, didn't give us stress, didn't give us difficulty, we would have to wonder, is He giving up on us?

Here's another passage from Paul. We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So these sufferings, not that I consider parenthood being a suffering, but the difficulties that we face produce endurance, and endurance produces character. This is God's gift to us to give us character and hope so that we won't be put to shame.

And here's a verse that we all know well that's often quoted, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. And I think I'd like to point out a few things about this verse. One is that it's for those who love God that all things work together for good. It's for those who are called according to His purpose. And I think those who are called according to God's purpose are those who choose to love and obey God. God calls anyone who will love Him and serve Him.

So it really is up to us whether good comes out of our stress and responsibility. If we love God, then good will come out of our stress and responsibility. If we're serving God, then good will come out of it. And if we're not, then good will probably not come out of it because this promise is not for those who are not loving and serving God. It's for those who are. And I think that's the way God wants it to be. He is giving us the chance to decide whether the stress, the responsibility that we have is actually going to be a benefit to us or whether it's going to be a detriment to us.

And if we're willing to conform ourselves to God, He will do His part to make these things a good thing.

So to conclude, my goal for my life has never been—well, I don't know if it has never been. It is not now anyway to have things easy. I don't know if maybe when I was six or eight, maybe it was to have things easy. But for a long time, my goal has not been to have things easy. My goal has been to have things to be worthwhile. And so that's why I think that being a parent is one of the best things that has happened to me, not just because of all the goodness that it brings, but also because of all the stress, etc., that it brings.

My life is worthwhile because I'm building character.

Maybe, I hope, building character. I'm at least been given the opportunity to build character and to become more like Jesus. So I think that whether you're a parent or not, I think the stress, the responsibility that you have can be God's gift to you. It isn't necessarily. It's up to us to love and serve God. But if we do, it is God's gift to us.