Watch the video above and talk about it with a group or mentor. Learn more.
Life comes with a lot of distractions. In fact, you will probably get distracted by a text, email, or someone asking you a question while you try and read this article. Due to all of these distractions in life, it’s hard to stay focused. This is one of the reasons we have so much stress. We focus on stuff that doesn’t matter. The Bible says that if we want to fight anxiety, we have to learn to change our focus.
Philippians 4:8 “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”
This is just one of the many times that the Bible tells us to focus on what is good and honoring to God. Let’s think about this verse as it relates to stress.
You’ll lose if you focus on your stress
If you want to have less stress in your life, then you need to stop focusing on your stress. This is hard to do because stress is all consuming. It wants to take over our thoughts. But spending all of our time thinking about stress gets in the way of having peace in life. You can’t just focus on “not-stressing out.” You can’t walk around all day saying, “Don’t be anxious, don’t be anxious.” If you do, then you are still letting stress control you. You have to replace your thoughts of stress with something else.
Think about it like this: If you are driving and you don’t want to hit the car next to you, what do you do? You focus on the road if front of you. If you focus all your attention on the other car and keep your eyes glued to it, then you’ll hit it.
When it comes to stress, you have to get your attention off the stress. That’s why God tells us to put our attention on the things that matter to God: loving people, being a God-honoring person, and focusing on God’s truth.
Focus on what matters to God
The Bible uses another picture to describe dealing with anxiety or any sin. It teaches us to take off our sins like dirty clothes and put on actions that honor God like we put on clean clothes.
Ephesians 4:22-24 “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.”
Think about it. Every morning you take off your dirty clothes and you put on clean clothes. In the same way, God tells us to leave behind our anxiety and focus on things that are good and true. We’ve covered some of what that includes already in this series: things like listening to what God says and what matters to him.
The point is to take your mind of stress and put your focus on Jesus. Focus on doing things that please God and bring you closer to him. If you change your focus, you can eliminate stress. Remember, there is peace in focusing on what matters to God.
Discussion Questions:
- Watch the video together or invite someone to summarize the topic.
- What is your initial reaction to this video? Do you disagree with any of it? What jumped out at you?
- When is the last time you were consumed by stress?
- Imagine that Jesus is faced with the same stresses that you are experiencing. How do you think he would relieve his anxiety?
- Read Philippians 4:8. Write down a God-honoring word or phrase that you can fix your thoughts on the next time that you are stressed out. Where can you put this word/phrase so that you will see and remember it?
- Think of a time when you put someone else first. Maybe you encouraged that person, paid them a genuine compliment, or did a random act of kindness. How did that affect your own stress level?
- Read Ephesians 4:22-24. What does it mean to “put on your new nature”? How can you apply that before starting each day?
- Write a personal action step based on this conversation.
