Numbers 11:4‑18
Romans 12:9-21

Did you take a vacation this summer?  How was it? Did you have a delightful time and did everyone relate well and enjoy being together?  I detect some reactions that indicate traveling with family members was not all bliss.  There may be more truth than we realize to the assessment that the family that can travel together will stay together. 
           
Several years ago when our children were young while we were riding in the car we were discussing our vacation plans.  I shared our plans that year we were going to Niagara Falls, drive into Canada, and then drive to Kentucky from Canada before returning home.  Danita and Brandon were having some difficulty sharing the space in the back seat.  Melanie asked how long it would take us to get to Kentucky from Canada.  I responded, "Probably two days."  She blurted out, "Two days in the car.  We'll never make it.  Just look how Brandon and Danita are acting now.  We can't take two days of this."  Sound familiar?
           
Taking a trip will bring out our stress points.  There are several reasons for this:  the rigors of travel, the emotional bombardment of countless new experiences, the detachment from that which is routine and comfortable‑‑all these and more gang up on us.  They drain our energy and we become irritable.  Even those who are the most important people in our lives get on our nerves. 
    
Sometimes our stress in traveling is intensified by the surprise that our relationships are strained before we ever get out the front door.  Here is a trip for which we have planned and toward which we have looked forward for several days, probably for several weeks or months.  But we can't even get the suitcases packed without getting into arguments with each other.  By the time we drive away from the house we are all stressed up with no where to blow. 
    
The stress factor that appears during travel is not a new phenomenon although we may think we hear more about it today than did people in previous generations.  However, the biblical text read earlier reveals that one of the first trips taken by a group of people was extremely stressful.  Moses had led the children of Israel out of Egypt, into the wilderness, and they were on their way to the Promised Land.  This was a journey for which they had longed for years, even generations.  Parents had told their children that someday they were going to take a trip, a trip to freedom.  Some day they said Pharaoh will let our people go.  We'll walk out of the sweat shops, out of the slave market, out of the land where we are treated worse than animals and into a land of freedom, joy, peace, relief.  "O, what a day that will be," they told their children.  One day the dream began to happen.  Moses spoke powerful words of encouragement and spent a lot of time negotiating, arguing, debating, and demanding from Pharaoh.  One day he said, "Pack your bags, get your families together, eat a quick meal because tomorrow we're out of here."  Sure enough, they were.  It was hard to believe.  What they had dreamed for generations became a reality.  What a delight it was to be free, to be on a journey together!  The wilderness was so refreshing.  They could breathe.  Life was wonderful. 
    
The days of freedom stretched into months.  The food supply ran low.  The temperature ran high.  This freedom idea was nice, but they weren't sure they were getting anywhere.  Moses left them for a time, too long a period of time.  In their restlessness they made themselves a god they could see.  Moses returned with a set of rules for them to live by and it seemed that whenever they put those into practice they all got along better.  But the rules didn't solve the food and water crises.  Eventually they found water and then God provided them with manna every morning.  Their stress level was reduced for awhile, but eventually they got tired of the same old diet everyday, water and manna, manna and water.  They remembered the succulent food they ate in Egypt, all the fish they wanted, watermelons, leeks, onions, and garlic.  Sounds like a delicious diet, doesn't it?  A selective memory is essential in order for people to convince themselves that life was better in the past because only a selective memory enables people to edit the events and leave out the painful memories.  While the Israelites had all the fish they wanted to eat, they didn't want to eat much because they were dog tired and their bodies were bruised and cut from the slave drivers who squeezed every possible ounce of work out of them from sunrise to sunset day after day after day.  For generations they had been slaves in Egypt but now that the water and manna began to taste bland, they remembered how good the slave life had been.  Selectively they remembered only the quantity of food that had been available to them and forgot the hard, oppressive daily labor they had to do.   
    
The newness of their journey in the wilderness began to wear off, tension mounted, and they began to complain.  Moses overheard their complaints.  Many of them wanted Moses to hear them whining.  Some of them blamed Moses for their situation and condition.  Moses absorbed much of the blame and got all stressed up.  He wanted to throw up his hands and quit.  He preferred to die than to deal with these whining, complaining relatives of his.  When he agreed to lead them out of bondage and toward the Promised Land, Moses had not realized that it meant wet nursing a bunch of forty and fifty year old neurotic babies every step of the way.  A common tendency of a person who is under stress is to do what Moses did, absorb the complaints, take on the problem alone, and the result is more stress.  Moses felt trapped and saw no way out.  He felt the burden of this entire group of vagabonds on his shoulders.  Complainers are quiet willing for someone else to shoulder the responsibility for anything that occurs.  Whatever goes well is never enough and what goes badly is the leader’s fault.  They have no ownership in any of it and are free to whine and complain. 
    
However, in conversation with God, Moses devised an excellent plan of action.  He selected seventy people to work with him and share the burden.  The best way to bear the stress factor in life is to share it with others.  As more and more people share the burden, the load becomes lighter and lighter.  An old Chinese proverb says, "Many hands make light work."  Isn't there more to be done in the day to day operation of a household of two or more people than one person can do?  But when the burden is shared, it becomes lighter and manageable. 
    
Moses learned a valuable lesson about dealing with stress.  The story is recorded in Numbers, and we would be wise to read it and reread it to discover the instructions that are there to guide us in coping with stress.
    
Stress is internal pressure a person feels as the result of an expectation.  One dictionary definition of stress is force exerted upon a body that tends to strain and deform its shape.  Doesn't that definition apply to our lives?  Stress is a force exerted on our lives that strains and deforms our bodies.  Often our faces get out of shape and become distorted with frowns and wrinkles indicating we are and/or have been under stress.  The journey of life creates a certain amount of stress for all of us.  Twenty‑five million people in this country suffer from hypertension or high blood pressure, often a signal of stress.  60,000 deaths are caused each year from high blood pressure, and this does not include those who die from heart disease and stroke that also may have been caused by high blood pressure and stress. 
    
There are other evidences of stress in lives including tense muscles, tight, queasy stomach, ulcers, hyperventilation, and the inability to develop and/or maintain relationships.  Stress is something we know we have when we feel it.   
    
There are a variety of expectations that cause the internal pressure we identify as stress.  It has a lot to do with how we see ourselves.  The opinions we have about ourselves as people, professionals, parents, friends, spouses, or employees are the expectations we have of ourselves and reflect our self‑ esteem.  We may see our worth as people determined by what we do.  We may think that we have to do everything by ourselves.  We may have a strong need to be in control and as a result be unwilling to permit others much if any flexibility.  Stress may be our reaction to the demands of our jobs, to family needs, to unresolved conflict with co‑workers, family members, or a friend, to selfishness where we conclude there is no problem easing the stress factor if people will just do things our way. 
           
Stress also results from our conviction that the past is better than the future.  Looking behind us causes a stiff neck, tight muscles and tensions result because we are in an attitudinal mood that says the best has already been.  In this way stress gets in the way of faith and actually makes faith impossible.
    
In the area of south central Kentucky where I grew up there are lots of rocky hills and mountains that provide excellent growth area for huckleberries.  There is no better dessert than huckleberry pie.  Unfortunately, the best place for huckleberries to grow also is the best place for rattlesnakes to live.  That makes picking huckleberries a rather risky enterprise.  Rattlesnakes shed their skins each year, often in August.  Folklore says that when a rattlesnake is shedding its skin, it is blind and immobile.  If something touches it, the snake will strike blindly, poisoning itself with its own venom.  When we get all stressed up, we tend to strike blindly, often injuring others as well as ourselves even to the point of being self‑destructive. 
    
We need assistance in coping with our stress.  Stress blocks the function of our systems and without a flow through emotional system we become wound tight to the breaking point.  The makers of Lipton tea claim that their tea is more flavorful and not bitter because of their flow through tea bags.  We need flow through lives in which we deal with stressful responses and situations as they arise so that life will be more flavorful, better and not bitter. 
    
Another coping aid for stress is for us to get some distance, emotional and/or physical, from the cause of the stress.  Of course this requires that we identify what the source or cause of the stress is; then, determine the method we need to get distance from the source.  Often at a distance the cause of stress becomes focused in a manner that provides clearer approaches for us to cope. 
    
A 75‑year‑old man went to his doctor for a physical examination.  The doctor examined him and found him to be in remarkable physical condition.  He said, "It's amazing!  You really have the body of a man 25 years younger.  What's your secret?"
    
The man replied, "Well, when my wife and I were married 50 years ago, we made an agreement.  We decided that we would never quarrel.  So when we have a difference of opinion and it causes friction, and we can see a fight coming on, she just stays in the house and I go out for a long walk.  I guess good health is due to the fact that for 50 years I've pretty much lived an outdoor life."
    
There is wisdom in this story.  In the midst of stress this couple sought some distance from the stress.  However a spatial response to a relational issue is not a solution. Once they had gotten some distance and thought about the cause of the stress, a second step is needed.  Instead of spending more time apart they needed to come together and discuss the issue that was leading to a quarrel.  The quarrelsome issues will not go away and distance alone is only a temporary solution.  If only distance is used, the stress eventually will have a stockpile effect and show itself in some other area of a person's life.
    
Regular exercise helps us cope with stress.  Physical exercise on a regular basis contributes to a better and more regular blood supply to all parts of the body which means there is a better supply of oxygen to all parts of the body.  Exercise of the body easily leads to an exercise of the mind.  Often in the midst of getting physical exercise, the mind begins to be free; thoughts begin to flow, not necessarily organized but free association.  One of the results that may occur is the discovery or formulation of alternative solutions.  As Moses began to exercise his mind and express his stress to God, he discovered an alternative to the trap he permitted his stress to set.  Moses boxed himself in with an either/or syndrome.  Either he would just keep his frustration inside or he would die.  Actually, he preferred to die which meant he would rather have no feelings than to feel stress.  But through his communication with God, Moses discovered a third alternative.  Whatever our stressful situation, an important element in coping with it is discovering at least three alternatives.  This protects us from the trap of the either/or syndrome. 
    
The third alternative that Moses discovered has valuable application for us.  He discovered the need to share responsibilities rather than taking all the responsibilities upon himself.  With that discovery Moses chose seventy people with whom to share the complaints of the people and with whom to work to find solutions.  We need to make that same discovery in all areas and on all levels of our lives.  The way to bear stress is to share it.  One of the ways to share is to talk about it with a person with whom we have a healthy relationship of caring and understanding.  We just cannot get away from the nature and need of relationships.  We must cultivate relationships.  People with the healthiest relationships have less stress and cope with stress in a healthy, wholesome way.  A major ministry of the church is to assist people in coping with the stress factor in their lives.  Often, however, church is another source of stress because we act out there the way we act everywhere else rather than rehearsing in church the way we are to act everywhere else.  Church is a place for us to begin coping appropriately with our stress by sharing responsibilities with each other rather than whining and complaining.   
    
We are on a journey like the children of Israel were on a journey.  The journey is life.  We do not travel long or far before we find something to complain about.  We can wallow in our complaints and find others who will join us in our complaining.  There are always complaint joiners around.  It always is easier to curse the darkness than to light a candle, but it is not better or healthier or wiser.  What we need is to find someone with whom we can share our stress for which our complaints are symptoms.  Through our sharing and being open to alternatives we will discover helpful, healthy, appropriate ways to deal with the stress factor as we journey through this wilderness toward the Promised Land.