You Can Avoid a Spiritual Heart Attack -Stress

Stress.  Yet, another major cause of physical heart attacks is excessive stress.  Similarly, stress, or "anxieties of life," can easily prove fatal to the figurative heart, even causing the victim to cease serving God entirely.   Timely is Jesus' warning in this regard:  "Pay attention to yourselves that your hearts never become weighed down with overeating and heavy drinking and anxieties of life, and suddenly that day be instantly upon you as a snare."  (Luke 21:34, 35) Stress can also be brought to bear on our figurative heart if we agonize over a secret sin for a prolonged period of time.  King David learned from experience the pain associated with such harmful stress when he said:  "There is no peace in my bones on account of my sin.  For my own errors have passed over my head; like a heavy load they are too heavy for me." -Psalm 38:3, 4.

Next time: You Can Avoid a Spiritual Heart Attack - Overconfidence

The Watchtower, 2001