Day 33

Stress and health

Who said the garden of Eden wasn’t stressful? Everything grew, the cabbages were Adam’s endless delight. That said the cabbage white butterflies also grew in profusion, or more to the point, the caterpillars grew to the point where Adam wondered if he would get to eat any of the now ragged leaved brassicas.

Then Jesus came on the scene. He didn’t have to ask where Adam was. He knew exactly where Adam was, where he always was. The question on his mind was, “why caterpillars?”

The next few moments were spent as Jesus gave some ideas on how to deal with stress.

First Adam needed to know for himself that was he was feeling was stress. As the cause was revealed Adam came to realise that what was causing him a problem was actually a solution for the caterpillar. What does God provide for the caterpillar to eat? Cabbages.

Then Adam began to realise that what was causing him to doubt God’s wisdom was that he was actually only seeing the issue from his own point of view. His stress came because he was, once again, self-centred.

The story is completely fictional. You won’t find it in any inspired work – but the story, a little parable outlines our approach to whatever causes us stress.

First of all try and examine the situation from another point of view. Work out if your rising blood pressure, temperature or feeling of anger and distress that may be causing you to think of fighting or fleeing is actually all about you saying to yourself, “I’m going to have my own way over this.”

While not a complete solution the reading for today puts it well.

“So instead of worrying about the things in life that heap stress upon us, we need to take them to God in prayer and trust that He will work everything out in ways that are best for us, and then keep focussing on our blessings and God’s promises.”

Oh, and then Adam received the best advice, "grow some cabbages for you, and a few for the caterpillars.

Peter