De-Stress Your Life
6 Steps to Help You Empower Yourself for Maximum Success

Stress is normal and, up to a point, helpful and healthy. An optimum amount of stress stimulates, invigorates and motivates us. Only when we become overwhelmed by it does it become destructive. If we want to lead joyful, productive lives and ministries, we must learn the skills for handling stress.

God’s Word provides many strategies. Read through 2 Corinthians to see what God has to say about managing stress. Write down what you learn. Jesus models how to effectively manage stress. Isaiah 53 describes him as a “man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.” He was despised, rejected, pierced, crushed, wounded, oppressed and afflicted. His stress was incredible for our sake. 1 Peter 2:21 says He suffered for us, leaving us an example we should follow in His steps. We are to follow His example not only by suffering, but also by handling suffering and stress like He did.

Six specific skills can help us transform stress from a curse into a blessing. Each has a practical action plan.

1. Identify the causes. If you don’t know what, specifically, is causing you stress, you can’t begin to deal with it. It’s like a doctor trying to cure you without knowing your affliction.

Stress has both internal and external sources. Internal sources include health, spiritual and emotional struggles, and unrealistic expectations. External sources of stress include marriage and family, major changes, social relationships, and your ministry situation.

2. Take some time right now to write out your specific causes of stress. Use the general areas of internal and external sources you just listed to give you ideas. Then, rate each on a scale of 1-10 (1 being extremely low). Remember that not all sources of stress are painful or “bad” (having a baby, for example).

Then, identify the effects of your stress. Everyone develops healthy and unhealthy reactions to stress. Some reactions are inherently more destructive than others.

This skill will help you better understand how you react to particular stress situations and why you react as you do. As you gain insight, you will become more effective in making choices to cope at each point in the process. To determine how you are reacting to stress, it helps to determine the total amount of stress you are experiencing.

In the figure above, the bottom line shows your total amount of stress. The left side shows how well you are coping overall. Point A designates no stress (which is theoretical). Between Points B and C, we have an optimal amount of stress. At point D, we have so much stress we are no longer functioning.

Where are you on the curve? Where were you three months ago? Six months ago? If the trend continues without change, where will you be in another six months?

Now we must consider what, if any, symptoms of stress we are experiencing.

External symptoms include difficulties in resolving conflicts, impatience and rebellion, whereas internal symptoms include depression, indecision, nervousness, angina or fatigue. Even Jesus experienced symptoms of stress (see Luke 22:44). Write down what symptoms you have when you are under stress. Which ones do you have right now?

3. Handle your distresses . Distresses are the negative emotional responses to the source of stress. For example, if everything seems to go wrong one day, what kinds of feelings might you have? Some distresses include fear, anger, guilt, rage, sadness and shock. Experiencing distress is normal, but when we don’t handle our distresses well, we seriously hinder our ability to handle our stress. Sometimes as pastors, we mistakenly believe negative feelings are wrong. Look at Jesus’ feelings.

(For anger, see Mark 3:5; for distress, refer to Mark 14:33; for fear, study Hebrews 5:7). If Jesus could experience these feelings, why do we think it is wrong for us to experience them? Now, write down any distresses you recently have experienced.

4. Identify and use your resources. We have wonderful resources for managing stress. Some that are available to Christians and non-Christians alike include sleep, diet, physical exercise, physical and mental relaxation and relationships. Other resources are available only to Christians, including prayer, praise, trust, claiming God’s promises, applying God’s Word and forgiveness. Which resources haven’t you recently used? Which could help you right now? Which will you begin using? Write down your responses.

5. Do something about your stress. Often, just doing the first four skills isn’t enough. Scripture gives many examples and teachings that we are to be active participants with God in doing something about our stressful situations (see Gen. 40:12-15; 2 Cor. 2:12-13 and 1 Thess. 2:17-3:6).

Write down some general ways to lower your overall stress level (exercise, vacations, etc.). Then, look over your list of stressors (see skill No. 1) and consider specific ways to do something about them.

A monumental problem for many pastors and others in ministry is “junk stress,” that is, any stress in which the cost of keeping it is greater than the benefits it provides, and dumping it is not sin. External junk stress might include an activity, a commitment or a responsibility that is not essential to your life. Pastors tend to take on too many commitments because of expectations placed on them. Their junk stress can include concerns, worries and other burdens they can cast on the Lord.

Go through your list of stress situations and note any junk stress. Write down each junk stress you’re willing to toss out, how you’ll do it and when.

Now, look at the sources of stress you believe you can do nothing about. Explore your options and try to come up with at least one thing you can do, either internally or externally, about the major stressors in your life. For those stresses you truly can do nothing about at this time, begin casting the burden of each one on the Lord, and continue doing so. (1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 55:22) 6. Keep your focus on God and eternal realities. No matter how difficult our situations, we can greatly reduce stress by choosing to change our focus from our problems to God, and to the eternal realities in the situation. The more we practice this skill, the more effective we become at it. It requires making a conscious choice in each new situation.

This skill can transform the most difficult and stressful circumstances into experiences of joy and God’s blessing. It can change the little, annoying stressors of life into opportunities to worship God, rather than merely feeling irritated and grumpy. (Visit 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 and John 17:13.)

We can learn so much about effectively managing our difficult stress situations as we fix our eyes on Jesus and consider Him who endured, so that we will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:2-3) We must choose to stop focusing on our problems to be able to fix our eyes on Jesus. Ask yourself: “What am I doing now to keep my focus on God and on eternal realities? What do I want to begin doing more, or better? Alone? With others?”

Being a pastor brings incredible stresses, but you can choose how they will affect you. Take the time to go through these skills today. You might think you don’t have time, but really, you can’t afford not to take some. These steps can help you be more effective in your service to the Lord as well as in your personal relationships.

reader feedback

What’s the Most Stressful Part of Your Job?

“The main thing that stresses me out is people who work unilaterally — who don’t seem to realize that we all have to work together as a team for things to go smoothly. As a planner, I publish calendars months ahead and try to keep everybody informed about schedules, but conflicting events still pop up!

“I love general systems-theory thinking: We all are part of a system, and any movement or adjustment in one part affects all of us. Therefore, we must keep each other informed and be tolerant of one another for things to articulate smoothly. Otherwise, the stress level climbs, people start assigning motives to each other and feeling hurt (or ignored), and then real tensions develop.”

Terry White
Associate Pastor
Potomac Baptist Church
Potomac Falls, Va.

“A few things stress me out, but they’re not the usual (workload, schedule or even my boss). Instead, it’s the small things — people who call or interrupt for tasks not in my area of responsibility or for things they could do themselves but don’t want to.

“Another distraction is when I hang a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and people still come and see if they can interrupt for ‘just a minute.’ It’s the little things that can make or break my day.”

Carolyn F. Yates
Business Administrator
Abundant Life Christian Center
Syracuse, N.Y.

“The most stressful part of my job is the same thing that stressed me out in previous positions and probably will cause me stress for the rest of my life: unfinished items on my to-do list. If I have 10 things on it and accomplish eight of them, I still feel stressed. Logically, I know I should feel good about crossing off eight, but still I’m not satisfied. Things hang over my head — phone calls to return or to make, projects to start or complete, items from meetings to do, and a host of other administrative details to tackle.

“So, how do I handle the unfinished tasks? One way is with prayer. It’s difficult to feel stressed for long when speaking with the Creator. You’re talking to the One in Charge, who knows everything about you — including your job — and still loves you! Try turning the unfinished items over to Him, and He will help you accomplish what He wants you to do.

“Another help is to keep the ‘main thing’ the main thing. Sometimes we get distracted and think that what we’re focusing on is so important, but if the unfinished items were so important, why didn’t they top our lists? The cream will rise to the top, and so will the big items.”

Gregory K. Gordon
Executive Administrator
First Church of God
Saint Joseph, Mich.