Lower My Pressure

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,

about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia.

We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure,

so that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.

But this happened that we might not rely

on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

--2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NIV)

Margie purchased a new home two months ago only to be laid off today; she was the only source of income for her household and she had no money for a rainy day, what was she to do, how were they going to make it? She thought, Lord take the pressure away. Anthony witnessed the heartless murder of his brother, the pain was unbearable, what was he to do with his anger, how was he to avenge his brother? He thought, Lord this is too much pressure. Marsha’s husband just told her he didn’t want the marriage anymore, she had been trying for years to make things right, and now her world was falling apart. She thought, Lord I can’t take the pressure. Jeremy’s pressure skyrocketed, landing him in a hospital bed for weeks, the stress of everyday meetings and demands of family life had finally caught up to him, now he was praying that he didn’t have a stroke. He thought, Lord lower my pressure.

How about us? Are we like these individuals who may find that the walls of life are caving in without any way of escape? Much like the scenarios above, we as people, come a point where we realize that life is challenging and sometimes unbearable. In fact many of us find ourselves wondering will things ever change, will a break ever come, or will we ever truly experience victory. In those moments where we feel completely helpless, God simply wants us to turn to Him.

What? God will allow us to undergo great pressure just so that we may rely on Him? Yes! How do we know this? Well it’s in His word! In this passage, Paul, the Apostle, clearly writes to the Corinthian church to let them know that this life is filled with great hardships, things that no man was ever created to endure on his own, but that every man was created to manage with God alone. In fact Paul expresses his pain in that he admits that he, himself, had even lost hope in life itself, but in that moment he didn’t give up on life, but rather realized he suffered just so that he wouldn’t rely on himself, but on God, Himself!

In other words, God will allow us to get to points and moments of despair in our lives, where we feel completely helpless, but that’s only to show that we really have a need that can only be filled by God. That’s right God created us with an automatic void so that we can turn to Him in our weakest moments.

The wonderful thing about God is that we don’t have to stay in a state of despair and all He is looking for is a heart of humility, one who doesn’t mind surrendering and realizing that God is the only one who can release the pressures of life. When we come to the place where we recognize God as the pressure-regulator, then we will find that life really isn’t all that hard, because we don’t have to do it ourselves, we need only to call on Him.

Today simply ask God to lower the pressure, and He will, He’s just waiting on us!