Stress is something we all deal with. Whether you’re a Christian or not, stress enters our lives and it can consume us. Some stress we add voluntarily and we must be sure we control and get rid of that kind of stress. But other situations we can’t control and these seem to bring the most stress into our lives. So the questions is, “How do we deal with this stress”? What can we do to make our lives easier, when we have problems in our lives?”. Well thankfully, God gives us wisdom as to what to do in these situations, so let’s look at these pieces of wisdom from God.

One piece of encouragement God gives us is to give our troubles to him. Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” We see this “casting of cares or burdens” multiple times throughout the Bible as well. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” Jesus himself says it in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” We see this mentioned over and over again, but how do we do it? How do we come to Jesus? How do we give our burdens and our troubles to God? The answer comes in Philippians 4:6 which says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Prayer is the answer. We must pray about our troubles and ask God to take them away or to help us through them. The Bible tells us to give everything to God and we must do that through prayer.

If we love God, we will have no fear. 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” Since God shows the “perfect love” described here, we will have no fear because fear has no place in love.

Jesus gives us an in-depth look as to why we should not worry. Matthew 6:25-34 says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his 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. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”” Jesus makes a valid point here that we are important to God. We could even say that we are the most important beings to God. Jesus uses the examples of birds and flowers to prove that if God takes care of these small creatures, how much more would he take care of us? The answer is infinitely more. Does this mean bad things won’t happen to us? No. But this does mean we should not have to worry about things if we let God control the situation and our lives.  

We must also understand that we will have trials and tribulation in this life. There is no way around it, especially for a Christian. Let’s look at what Jesus says about this. In John 16:33 Jesus says, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Notice how he did not say “in me you may have no trials”, in fact, he says the complete opposite in the next sentence, we will have tribulation. But before that, Jesus says we will have “peace” if we are in Him. But how is that so? How can we find peace with all of these things going on in our lives? It is what Jesus says next that brings this all together. He says, “you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Let that sink in for just a moment. Jesus has overcome the world. Meaning that whatever is troubling us, whatever is causing us stress in our lives, God has overcome it, he has defeated it. What a wonderful and awesome promise we have in God, that we can give our troubles to Him and he can take care of them. Why? Because He has overcome our troubles.

In conclusion, there will be stress and hard times in this life. However, we must be willing to give God our troubles and let Him take control. This is often times very hard to do because we don’t know the outcome. If we give it to God, what will He do? The uncertainty of the future can be a scary idea. But we must make sure that we let God take control and give our troubles to Him because he has a plan for us. And it is a plan to prosper us and give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).