What Would Jesus Do with Stress
Some days are harder than others. Well, some weeks or some months are especially difficult. I’ve known people fighting battles with illness whose goal was to make it through the year.
Our text today tells of Jesus’ response to a hard place in his life. He walked for days to get to the grave of his friend. When he got there, people he loved were crying. He raised his dead friend from the dead and the response of the powers that be was to seek to kill him.
Under these circumstances we come to our text which shows Jesus’ response to this stressful time.
John 11:54
Therefore Jesus no longer continued to walk publicly among the Jews, but went away from there to the country near the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and there He stayed with the disciples.
On this stressful day he did three things:
First: He took care of his needs.
It is wonderful to take care of everyone else, but there is a time when you have to see to your own needs also.
Second: He retreated
to a place where the threat would not be so immediate. Of course Jesus was not afraid that someone might kill him. He knew that he was born for the cross. He retreated because it wasn’t yet time for the cross.
Third: He went to people who loved him.
Surely you have people who love you even when the world seems to be against you. Those are the people who when you have hard days, you find comfort by just being around them.
When you find yourself in stress, it means that you are human. We all get it. These words are a reminder of how Jesus handled stress.
Lonnie Davis