Stress: Lessons from the Vine

 Stress: Love it or Leave it?

Stressed out?  It's nothing new.  Stress is a very real part of life.  Most research has indicated since 2020, stress has nearly reached it's own pandemic with people being more stressed than ever before.  When dealing with stress many people medicate with food, alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, and many other things thinking those activities help us manage our stress.  These tend to create their own issues.  There are numerous articles about the increase in obesity during 2020-2021.  Addiction increased as well with alcohol and drug use.  Relationships are broken, financial problems due to overspending due to the ease of online shopping.  The problems created by medicating stress creates a whole new level of stress.

The assumption is that we should seek to find a life that is stress free.  "If only I could live on an island somewhere in the Caribbean and find a job and live on less, that would be ideal!" was my mantra for a long time.  I can hear the steel drums with the backdrop of ocean waves now.  "If I could just change jobs and get away from the morons I work with and for, I'd be better off." some would say.  Maybe one of the thousands of books written about reducing or eliminating stress is the key.  Or perhaps counseling or therapy would help.  We tend to automatically think that stress is bad and must be avoided at all costs.  We think that the goal of life is to insulate ourselves from it in order to experience a stress free life.

Perhaps some stress is neither good nor bad.  Maybe stress simply is.  Perhaps there is a better answer to stress other than to medicate it or avoid it.  Is it possible that those things that raise your blood pressure the most, that cause you the most frustration, that have you staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, that make you red in the face ranting on your soapbox are actually allowed in your life to do something positive in it?  We may be able to learn something from the vine.

Vineyards in the world are grown on approximately 18 million acres.  In America alone the production of grapes for wines will surpass $276B in only a years time.  The viticulturist works with winemakers to produce the best grapes possible for the most marketable wines.  The work meticulously to produce the biggest and juiciest grapes possible.   WRONG!

One woman reviewing grapes for the purpose of eating or snacking said about the largest grapes she tried:  "These are MONDO LARGE, and so round and plump that I was almost concerned. Are they too big? What did scientists put in these to make them so large? Unfortunately, more attention seemed to have been spent on the grape's size than its flavor. It’s like eating a big, bland ball. It’s not bad, just boring."

The reason for the size of the grapes is that the vines are grown under ideal conditions.  Life is easy for the vine.  Optimum rain, sunshine, and soil conditions cause the resources to go to the fruit rather than the vine.  The vine will survive under ideal conditions.  So the fruit benefits and grows big and juicy.  Unfortunately, it's also very tasteless.

On the other hand, grapes that are produced on vines with less than ideal sunlight, soil conditions and nutrients, rainfall, and other environmental issues including vulnerability to disease  end up smaller, yet more flavorful, exiting, and more expensive.  Why?  Because the resources go toward keeping the vine healthy enough to survive and less concern for the grape.  How could that possibly produce a higher quality grape?  Because the stress of the negative environmental factors causes an increase in grapes’ polyphenol content, which has been frequently shown to improve the color, aroma, flavor, and overall quality of the grape and the wines produced from them.  Some of the most expensive wines in the world come from the grapes grown under stress, not under optimal conditions.

What does that mean for us?  I think we are the same.  What will bring about the best fruit in our lives?  A life lived in what we perceive to be ideal conditions or one a life lived with stress?  The way we perceive stress in our lives can make all the difference in the world.  If we see stress as bad, as something to be avoided, we can spend a lot of time being stressed about stress.  Thus there is an increased potential to numb ourselves with various medications mentioned above which again creates a massive snowball effect.

Perhaps if we could view at least most stress as valuable, we'd be less anxious about it, try to look at the positive effects stress can have on our lives, not the least of which is having less stress about stress.  

For those who are students of Jesus, perhaps instead of asking for the elimination of the stressors in our lives, perhaps we should be asking "What are you trying to produce in me through this?"  Is he wanting to make you more patient?  More tolerant?  More loving?  More generous?   Maybe he's wanting to use the negative and the worst environments to produce someone who is more dependent on Jesus.  I've found out it's not in the best of circumstances but the worst that I live my best life.  

2 Corinthians 4:7-9

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

I will believe that instead of avoiding stress, I'll embrace it knowing He's wanting to make me better.