People try to avoid stress in any way they can. Devoted to their certain stress relievers, they often use the release of stress as their primary motivation. A statement Lindsay Lohan made displays this principle, “Going clubbing is my way of relaxing or releasing a lot of stress. I don't feel that I should have to justify that part of my life. I don't know that I'm necessarily an addict.” Although she doesn’t know it, she justifies her party going ways as a stress reliever. Yet, even someone believing Lindsay’s motivation is appropriate, would be hard pressed to justify murder, rape, or other hideous crimes as a stress reliever. I apologize for the terrible abuse of logic; murder, rape and other hideous crimes are almost never justifiable. However, it is my belief that the idea of stress release is more often pursued than actual happiness, and that we miss the biggest benefit of stress relief when anything but God is the method used.
C.S. Lewis exemplifies what I mean in a sermon titled, “The Weight of Glory.” Although he uses love and unselfishness, the relationship between these concepts is the same as the relationship between releasing stress and happiness. In it he says, “The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.” In the same way, the removal of stress suggests that the process of relieving stress, and not true happiness, is actually the important part. I do not think that stress release is bad, steeped in inherent evil. Rather, like unselfishness, which is mistaken for love, the release of stress is mistaken for happiness.
As a matter of fact, stress release is very necessary and beneficial, properly motivating us to use it with appropriate methods. Robert Sapolsky studies the effects of stress on baboons, showing the dangers that stress presents, and he illustrates his findings by saying, “Over time, the ends of your chromosomes fray, and as they fray your DNA stops working as well, and eventually that could wind up doing in the cell… There are now studies showing that chromosomal DNA aging accelerates in young, healthy humans who experience something incredibly … stressful." So actually, leading a stress free life improves health, showing that any method that you use to relieve your stress has some inherent good.
Unfortunately for Lindsay Lohan, or any other hardcore party person, the use of any stress reliever other than a relationship with God misses the biggest benefit. When we put our trust in God, and abandon stress, our joy no longer is circumstantial! In effect, stress goes out of the picture, nailed to the cross, creating a permanent solution to the problem of stress instead of the quick fix we get from earthly stress relievers. Robert Sapolsky, the aforementioned scientist, has this to say about religion, “Religiosity in and of itself is good for your health… It infuriates me, because I'm an atheist, so it makes me absolutely crazy, but it makes perfect sense. If you have come up with a system that not only tells you why things are but is capped off with certain knowledge that some thing or things respond preferentially to you, you're filling a whole lot of pieces there—gaining some predictability, attribution, social support and control over the scariest realms of our lives." Christianity not only gives us a permanent fix to our problem with stress, but benefits our health as well.
Therefore, our ultimate goal should not be to relieve stress, but rather to seek true happiness, the concept of happiness requiring many more volumes. This being said, we should try to relieve stress as it benefits our health and is not an inherent evil. Finally the best way to relieve stress for the rest of eternity is through a deep relationship with God, and by trusting in His grace to sustain us. Anything less, and we shall find ourselves stressed out more and more frequently; never satisfied with the current fix, always searching for a better alternative. In the same sermon by C.S. Lewis, he goes on to say, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” Let us not be satisfied until we rest in the confidence of the Lord, giving all of our stress up for ultimate gain, becoming free only when we become, “Christi Servus,” Christ’s servant.
No comments:
Post a Comment