Pressure

For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.   – 1 Peter 2:20, nasb

The world’s most precious gem, the diamond, is the result of pressure. Carbon deposits in the depths of the earth respond to intense heat and pressure, producing these coveted bits of stone. A few years ago General Electric announced the “successful synthesis of diamonds,” by taking carbons and submitting them to more than a million and a half pounds of pressure per square inch, coupled with temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Many accomplishments in this century are the direct result of pressure. Your automobile tire, the suspension bridge, the explosion of fuel in the piston of an engine all operate on the pressure principle. Life itself depends on pressure – from the unborn infant making his entrance into the world, to the pressures that drive a businessman.

Pressure inflates the automobile tire, but too much destroys it. Pressure creates the diamond, but too much disintegrates it. Pressure applied at the right spot can stop the flow of blood from an arterial cut, but pressure at the wrong spot can take a life. Pressure can give you ulcers and high blood pressure, and lead to emotional or physical collapse. Or, pressures can lead to unprecedented success.

How’s your relationship to God in the midst of pressure? When pressures interfere with that relationship, they can drive you against the rocks of circumstances and destroy you. But pressures can also drive you closer to God, and help you realize your human insufficiencies and your need for a Savior who loves you and wants to guide you.

God is not a safety-valve for pressure. He’s a loving Father who helps strengthen you so you can stand the pressures of life. Don’t pray for fewer pressures. Rather, ask God for greater strength to bear them. All progress in life – physically and spiritually – would come to a standstill apart from pressure. Learn to make pressure work for you.

Used with permission from Guidelines International Ministries. To learn more about Guidelines and the ministry, send an e-mail to [email protected]. You may also visit www.guidelines.org.