Stress from Work | Mike Mazzalongo | BibleTalk.tv

• All right here we are lesson number three in our stress busters series. This time we’re going to talk about stress from work, deal with the general problem of burnout caused by continued overstress, and how to deal with it. We talked about that last time. And we said that if an individual is dealing with overstress and that overstress has led that person to what we call burnout, couple of things necessary to kind of get ourselves out of that state. One, a knowledge of the way that stress affects you. Two, a change towards a more realistic view of your limits.

00:48 - And three, of course for believers, a faith adjustment in drawing nearer to God. So last time we discussed the nature of stress from worry and how worrying created unnecessary stress which was harmful to us. Dealing with worry meant that we had to do certain things. We had to correct our perspective and trust that God would provide one day’s resources to deal with one day’s problems. Remember I said, the problem with worry is that we tend to worry about things in the future.

01:28 - So we focus on the future than on today, and God gives us what we need in order to take care of today. And then we needed to change our attitude, a shift from an acquisition-based type lifestyle to a righteousness-based lifestyle. Now I didn’t mean that you can’t be in the business of acquisition if you’re a businessman or you have a store or whatever. I’m just saying that our focus, our internal focus, our spiritual focus is not exclusively on acquiring things, and building, up and stockpiling in order to provide security for ourselves. Our inward focus ought to be a lifestyle of righteousness to please God, because this is what guarantees our life.

02:20 - This is what guarantees our peace of mind and not, you know, as the Bible says, bigger barns. So making these changes would lower the worry level and diminish our overstress that causes so many of our problems. This time, we’re going to talk about overstress that is produced by our work, our jobs, our careers. So a couple of quotes, not quotes, rather, the couple of questions rather that I’d like to ask and have you discuss among yourselves or discuss at home, think about. First question, did you ever work at a job where you were overworked and underpaid? What were the circumstances, and how did you feel? A great question for a kind of a small group discussion.

03:13 - Another question that I want you to talk about, and that is, under what circumstances would you willingly take a lower paying job? What non-tangible incentive would make you work for less money? Another great question. We can’t do that in this context here, have a, you know, a group discussion. But I give you those two questions to ask yourself and perhaps ask if you’re a group to talk about this. I guarantee you it’ll yield a lot of different insights. And I have a couple of quotes that I want to read as we begin. One quote, “I may be a lousy father and husband, “but when Merrill Lynch needs me, I’m here.” Of course, Merrill Lynch, the company, stockbroking company. And then another quote, this one by a famous man. And I want you to guess which famous man made this quote. He said, “My father taught me to work, but not to love it.

04:17 - “I never did like to work and I don’t deny it. “I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, “talk, laugh - anything but work.” Who do you think? What famous man do you think said this? Yeah, Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. I would have never thought it. I would’ve never thought it myself. Anyways. The stress caused from work is usually caused by one of two extremes. The first of which is, one type of stress is caused by a job or an employer or fellow employees that cause our stress, that cause our overstress, whether it’s too much work with not enough time, or not enough support, or not the right equipment, or not enough money to do the job, or an unreasonable or unfair boss, or a job that is dangerous or monotonous, or a job that is insecure, or a company that is failing.

05:22 - I mean, nothing more stressful than working for a company where the gossip in the office is. “Are they going to close the doors, “are we going to make it to, you know, “HR is starting to let off people. “I read in the paper that our stock has gone down. “Maybe the company’s going to go bankrupt.” Very hard to be motivated and cheerful and positive when you’re working for a company like that.

05:47 - In other words, sometimes the job and the way that the job is, is the thing that causes the stress, the thing that causes the overstress. A biblical example of this is in II Corinthians 11. Here, Paul the apostle is reacting to the danger of false apostles that have crept into the church. And these false apostles were preaching a different Jesus, a different gospel, and in doing so, they were damaging the church and they were getting away with it, because they boasted of impressive speech and important credentials. And nobody was calling them on the things that they were teaching that were incorrect.

06:34 - And so in warning the church against them, Paul describes his own credentials, both as a Jew and as a Christian apostle. And in his description, we get a glimpse of the type of situation where the job was the thing that created the stress. And so we read, he says, “But in whatever respect anyone else is bold, “I speak in foolishness, “I am just as bold myself.” So he’s saying, you know, “These guys are bragging. “So let me brag a little bit. “You know I’m being foolish here. “Let me brag a little bit.” So he says, “Are they Hebrews? So am I. “Are they Israelites? So am I. “Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.

07:18 - “Are they servants of Christ? “I speak as if insane. “I’m more so in far more labors, “in far more imprisonments, “beaten times without number, often in danger of death. “Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. “Three times I was beaten with rods. “Once I was stoned. “Three times I was shipwrecked, “a night and a day I’ve spent in the deep. “I have been on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, “dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, “dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, “dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, “dangers among false brethren.

07:59 - “I’ve been in labor and hardship, “through many sleepless nights, “in hunger and thirst, often without food, “in cold and exposure. “Apart from such an external things, “there is the daily pressure on me “of concern for all the churches. “Who is weak without my being weak? “Who is led into sin without my intense concern? “If I have to boast, I will boast “of what pertains to my weakness. “The God and Father of the Lord, Jesus, “He who is blessed forever, “knows that I am not lying. “In Damascus. the ethnarch under Aretas the king “was guarding the city of the Damascenes “in order to seize me, “and I was let down in a basket “through a window in the wall, “and so escaped his hands.

” 08:48 - And so Paul is describing his job here, his job description as an apostle. And his job definitely caused him overstress for a variety of reasons. You know, we may have a situation that is somewhat like this. Hopefully not this bad, but somewhat like this. And if we do, we have a variety of options. We can change our job, or change careers. Or we can try to deal with the people or the responsibilities in such a way as to reduce their negative effects on us. But sometimes you see the problem is we don’t have the luxury of doing these things. We don’t have the luxury of quitting the job. We don’t have the luxury of starting a new career. You know, if you’re caring for a sick spouse, or if you’re raising a bunch of small children at home, if you’ve put many, many years into a career and can’t afford to leave it, or if you own a business and many people depend on you for your leadership and for a salary that your business pays. The boss doesn’t care what we think.

10:07 - The nasty fellow employee may not change or go away. The mission perhaps that we’ve undertaken is incomplete. And we cannot let it go like Paul, no matter how much stress it’s causing us. In a case like that, what do we do? That’s my point. If our job is causing us overstress, while we can always quit or change jobs, but a lot of times we can’t do that.

10:33 - So when we can’t do that, what other options do we have? Well, the relief from this kind of stress is given again by Paul in the following chapter. He says that in addition to all of this, the Lord gave him a thorn or a trial in his life that just would not go away. Just one more stressor to make the meter, you know the meters we were talking about from low stress to overstress, those meters? Well, it says if the Lord gave him one more thorn in the flesh, one more stressor to make those meters go into the overstress zone, time and time again. And so we read in II Corinthians this time, excuse me, yeah, II Corinthians 12, beginning verse eight, Paul says, “Concerning this,” meaning that thorn in the flesh, that extra stressor, he says, “Concerning this “I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, “‘for power is perfected in weakness.

’ 11:40 - “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast “about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ “may dwell in me. “Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, “with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, “with difficulties, for Christ’s sake, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Very famous words from Paul concerning this thorn in the flesh that he has. In this passage, Paul explains the way to deal with this ongoing stress of being cornered. This no way out type of stress caused either by the job or anything else for that matter in our life that continually drives us into the overstress zone.

12:28 - And what he says is, “The power that we need to deal “with this kind of stress does not “and cannot be self-generated.” I repeat that again. The power that we need to deal with this kind of stress does not and cannot be self generated. You know the power perfected in weakness that he talks about? This is the situation where we finally arrive at the realization that this job, or these people, or this situation, or whatever is just killing me. I can’t do it. It’s beyond me. I need help. And this is where we begin to experience the power of Christ. Remember I said at the beginning of this series that I am talking about stress and burnout, these topics here, from the perspective of a believer.

13:27 - I’m talking about Christians who are overstressed, Christians who experience burnout. And so the overstress caused by the job that’s eating our lunch can temporarily be dealt with by change and adjustment. But ultimately as Christians, we need to learn how to live and work under and through the power of Christ. In verse 10, Paul resigns himself to the fact that the job that he has will ultimately kill him in the end. But, he has finally found contentment because he operates no longer with his power, but has surrendered control to Christ and is content to deal with his ministry under the power of Christ.

14:15 - You know the little diagram that I’ve got here, you have your power here that starts from zero to 100%, let’s just say, and then you have no more power. Your ability is exhausted at 100. And then I put Christ’s power. And if you note Christ’s power starts when yours ends. His power doesn’t start where yours start. It starts where yours ends. That’s the point that Paul is making. He has all of these difficulties plus the thorn in the flesh. And he realizes after that, he can’t go on. He can’t do it by himself.

15:00 - And then he realizes, “Oh, Oh Christ is the one who’s going to empower me “to live, to work, to minister, and to be content “despite all of the things that are taking place.” In other words, Christ’s power kicks in when ours is exhausted, or ours is relinquished. All right, so there’s stress, overstress from the job. The job is creating the overstress. Well then there’s another kind of stress and that is stress from a workaholic attitude. One type of stress is from our job. The other type of stress in the workplace is from our attitude that we have regarding our job. Some people are workaholics. They live to work.

15:56 - A stressful job or a demanding boss, it destroys our sense of self and it ruins our bodies in the long run. But too much attention to work, and too much work destroys our souls. And what is needed in that situation is balance. A passage that addresses not necessarily a workaholic point of view, but an improper attitude about work which is what workaholism is, is found in Matthew Chapter 20. So we’re going to read that passage together. Let’s begin in verse one.

16:32 - Jesus says, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner “who went out early in the morning “to hire laborers for his vineyard. “When he had agreed with the laborers “for a denarius for the day, “he sent them into his vineyard. “And he went out about the third hour “and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. “And to those, he said, “‘You also go into the vineyard, “‘and whatever is right I will give you.’ “And so they went. “Again, he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour “and did the same thing.

17:01 - “And about the 11th hour he went out “and found others standing around, “and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here “‘idle all day long?’ “They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ “He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard “said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers “‘and pay them their wages “‘beginning with the last group to the first.’ “When those hired about the 11th hour came, “each one received a denarius. “When those hired first came, “they thought that they would receive more. “But each of them also received a denarius. “When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner “saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, “‘and you have made them equal to us “‘who have borne the burden “‘and the scorching heat of the day.’ “But he answered and said to one of them, “‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. “‘Did you not agree with me for a denarius? “‘Take what is yours and go, “‘but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. “‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish “‘with what is my own? “‘Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ “So the last shall be first, and the first last.

” 18:12 - Well we see here that Jesus places man’s attitude regarding work next to God’s attitude in order to compare the two. Man sees work as an equation. “I work hard. I’m talented. “I get paid more, and I accumulate more.” I mean, it’s just natural. God’s attitude is that all talent, and opportunity, and gain, are a matter of grace and not payment. The stress in the parable was not a matter of wages. Everyone was paid a fair wage. The wage was in keeping with the time. A denarius for a day’s work, that was a fair wage. It was a fair price. The stress was caused by jealousy, since the boss decided to reward the workers equally regardless of their effort.

19:05 - The idea is that the stress was caused by the attitude of the people, their attitude that they had about the work that they did. Of course, in this world there needs to be consideration for effort and skill. I mean, the parable taught how God rewards in the Kingdom, not how General Motors ought to be run. In the physical world, there is an equation for effort, skill, and time worked because this provides motivation. But the parable teaches us, however, that those things that are imperishable, things like eternal life, and joy, and forgiveness, and peace, and contentment, these things are not earned in this way. They’re given freely. That’s how things work in the Kingdom.

19:57 - For the workaholic, the danger is in thinking that his or her attitude about work can be transferred to the Kingdom. And they need to understand that it can’t because it doesn’t work there. You can’t earn contentment. You can’t earn peace from your work, or your good work, or your hard work. You may get momentary satisfaction, but not contentment that just stays with you. In Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 Solomon says, “I know that there is nothing better for them “than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; “moreover, that every man who eats and drinks “sees good in all of his labor.” And here’s the point. “It is the gift of God.” It is the gift of God. Contentment is a gift from God. It comes through faith. It comes through thanksgiving. It doesn’t come through earning. It doesn’t come through striving.

20:59 - It doesn’t come through, “I do better work “or harder work than you.” It’s a gift that God gives to everyone who asks of it from Him by faith. And so the overstress that comes from the workplace is usually a question of imbalance. We’re overstressed because the job is either too much for us for some reason or other. In other words, the job takes too much out of us, and because of that, it creates overstress.

21:33 - And when this is so, we need to allow the Lord to provide his power to sustain us in what we do. And this requires recognizing that we really can’t, that we’re over our head here. It requires us to understand that He can, that He can help us in every situation. And of course it requires that we ask Him for help and persevere with confidence, not resignation. And then secondly, we are overstressed because we put too much of ourselves into the job.

22:08 - In one manner the job is taking too much out of us, creating overstress. In another way, we’re putting too much of ourselves into the job, and that creates overstress. And when this is the case, we need to remember that what we are giving up of ourselves will only gain earthly treasures. Workaholics need to understand and take the time to experience the treasures of heaven that are given out for free, love, and joy, and peace, and contentment, and purity, and fidelity, and hope, and patience. These things, these things are free. These things are gifts from the Spirit of God.

22:51 - And if we do these things, if we do receive these things, we will have a balanced, and productive, and satisfying work life. Okay, well, that’s some ideas, some hopefully helpful ideas, dealing with the problem of stress from work. Now in your, online rather, we have resources online, some bonus material. Of course you have the worksheet that you can use to follow along with the lesson. And I’ve added also another bonus material, and that is a burnout assessment test, okay. There are a couple that you can take.

23:36 - They’re real easy, just numbers, answer the question, fill out the blanks. Then you fill up the numbers, or add up the numbers, and it’ll give you at least an idea of where you are on the on the stress scale, you know low, medium, overstress. It’s a good way of maybe assessing your own stress level in the work that you are presently doing. Okay, so that’s our lesson for today. We’ll continue with this topic next time. Thank you. God bless you. We’ll see you soon. Bye-bye. .