Healthy Emotions are a Key to Healing Stress Related Disease Jesus Christ is both our Healer and the Prince of Peace and so naturally He is the One we need to turn to for healing stress. Wait a minute! Can stress be healed? Isn’t stress something that just naturally comes upon us because of the pressures of life? Let’s face it—modern life is characterized by mounting levels of stressful events as well as daily pressures coming at us from every conceivable direction. Get out of the situation (i.e. quit the job, leave the marriage, head for the islands, etc.) and you will get free of the stress. Well, yes and no. Run from stressful situations and you might be free of stress—for a little while. Until other things get to you. But the real culprit isn’t the situation that stresses you. It is your emotional response to the situation that is the cause of all the stress. And you can learn a new way to respond spiritually and emotionally. The answer is not to remove the situations, but rather to deal with the unhealthy emotions that are triggered by our response to the situations. We can do this by learning how to carrying our unruly emotions to Christ and receive in return a greater ability to trust Him and follow Him (see Lesson 11: “Strongholds” in our Workbook or CD/DVD series). Healing stress is precisely what the life of faith is meant to accomplish in us. Doctors know that emotional stress is a great destroyer of health in their patients. They often send people home letting them know that their symptoms are related to stress, but are unable to tell them how to deal with the stress itself, other than the usual palliatives such as: take some time off, get more rest, do some relaxation exercises, try meditation, etc.  These kinds of stress reducers work to a degree—while we are doing them—but they do not begin to touch the true source of the stress. This is not the doctor’s fault. They are trained to work with the body, not the heart—the spiritual and emotional life—of the patient. Healing stress is not done through removing the negative situation that stress us, or by taking medications to mask the symptoms, or by finding ways to reduce the effects of stress tension in our bodies. These methods can reduce stress temporarily, but they cannot cure stress. The way of healing stress by curing it at its roots, is a way of the heart. We always have a choice concerning how we respond to life: will we choose to respond in stress or will we choose the path of peace, which is only found in trusting and obeying God? It may be that our heart desire is to live in the peace of Christ and to walk closely with Him. Even so these are things that require learning on our part (see Lesson 24: “Christ Conscious Guidance” in our Workbook or CD/DVD series). If they came naturally or automatically to all Christians, then no Christian would ever experience emotional stress or suffer from stress related illnesses. So let us learn the things that make for peace (Lk 19:44) by pressing on to know the Lord (Hos 6:3) in the way that our modern lives require of us. It is time to learn how to let go of the unhealthy emotions that create so many psychological and physical illnesses and turn to the way of healing stress that is provided through faith in Jesus Christ.