How does God speak to you?

Here’s how He worked with me last week.

On Wednesday, I was stressed out in several areas. That’s not necessarily bad, as there are different kinds of stress.

Good stress helps one focus. It’s short-lived and essential for keeping one on task and productive. An athlete welcomes stress when pushed to improve performance. That’s good stress.

Bad stress decreases performance, creates confusion, inhibits joy, and can lead to long-term health problems.

Besides physical workouts, there are plenty of other healthy stressors: academics, for example, or even writing this column. That type of stress doesn’t lead to health problems.

But the kind I was dealing with that Wednesday was not the healthy kind.

I thought, how can I turn those areas — specifically two stressful situations that had been bothering me for too long — into the good kind of stress, the type that leads to growth?

A meme I saw recently says, “When life gets stressful, do something to lift your spirits. Go for a drive. Keep going for two or three thousand miles. Maybe change your name …”

Instead, the next day, I decided to bring my stress to God.

I started with some quieting exercises, working with the vagus nerve to bring relief to my body: Slowly breathe deep. Hold for four seconds. Slowly exhale. Hold. Repeat. Singing can help also as the vagus nerve runs through the neck. I sang quietly, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you, O God (Psalm 56).” He then reminded me of James 1:2: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds …”

What? I’m supposed to be joyful in my struggles? Are you kidding? How in the world?

And then He reminded me of I Peter 5:7, which instructs us to cast, throw, pile — to yeet! — all our worries and anxieties on Him because He cares for us (my paraphrase). Now, I’ve known those words for years, but have I actually applied them, put them into practice during stressful moments?

And on to Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

So, I decided to try out those ideas as if for the first time. I started with thanksgiving. I spent some time thanking God for caring, for working, for acting on my behalf. I took a few moments to appreciate joyful moments from my past. And I felt better that morning.

Later that day, about five hours later — I counted — the first of my two stressful situations was resolved. The next day, the other was resolved.

The day after that, God continued to speak to me through the first episode of a new-to-me podcast, “Being Known,” by Dr. Curt Thompson, a psychiatrist and expert in interpersonal neurobiology and Christian formation. He mentioned a famous research study done on rats.

They were placed in an ideal situation. Call it rat heaven, rat Disney World, rat utopia. Everything they wanted or needed was provided. Fun times. Then they took a subset of the rats out from the rest and put them in a stressful situation for a while before bringing them back to rat paradise. That occurred multiple times: remove the same rats, subject them to stress, and then bring them back.

Eventually, they took all the rats and put them in a very difficult situation. Not surprisingly, the rats that survived were the ones that had undergone multiple episodes of distress.

Finally, they found that the rats that were pulled out, stressed, and returned had brains that were fundamentally changed, improved. Dr. Thompson says: “Everything about their neural interconnections were thicker, the neural networks were more densely connected, there were more neurons, and the neurons were bigger.” In other words, their brains were better, stronger, and more efficient. Their resilience to suffering was reflected in the circuitry of their brains.

Isn’t that interesting?

That applies to us, as well. Persevering through stress and coming back to joy allows the neural plasticity of our minds to change and adapt.

James continues the above quote saying that the tests of faith “produce perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”

So, when the Bible talks about being transformed by the renewing of our minds, it’s a real practical concept. It’s not just through difficult trials but also through intentionally focusing on appreciation, recentering our minds on what is good, right, pure, etc. Meditating on moments of joy regardless of our circumstances leads to growth.

So that’s how He spoke to me last week. I should listen more often.