Pressure

Have you ever thought of how many things in this life are named with the word "pressure"? But think about it, we have atmospheric pressure, low pressures, high pressures, blood pressure, pressure gages, pressure cookers (remember those fund things!!), peer pressure, and the list can go on, and on, and on. There is even a song about pressure "Under Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen. It seems like no matter what is going on or what is not going on there is pressure everywhere. Pressure to make a decision, pressure to cook dinner, pressure to get up, pressure to go to bed....and if you don't think you're under pressure....think again. At some level in my life, I hope that the pressure lessens, that the pressure dissolves and goes away, wishful thinking huh?! I am, for lack of a better description, built with a pressure gage (and I think we all are-some of us just control it better than others). And like pressure gages, I have in different parts of me different types of gages. Currently, I have the one with the red area that tells you when to shut off the pressure and stand back (or as with me, you really can't see the pressure gage but you know when it's in the red). Its not, believe it or not, by choice. The pressure seems to build up quickly, especially lately, and it seems like just when things kind of even out, the pressure starts back up. The song 'Under Pressure' talks about pressure in the same way (if you have never read the lyrics look them up-very interesting). And when I get to the red, I'm generally like a pressure cooker..... the steam has nowhere to go but out. So why so much pressure? I thought I knew the answer to this question when I started typing this morning.....that changed in this paragraph and quickly. But in looking up the lyrics to the song 'Under Pressure', I found that I wasn't on the right track.

David Bowie & Queen, as wierd as they are, talk about pressure of the world and how it puts us in places that we never thought were possible and how pressure can destroy us. A very cool song really, not what I thought the words were when I first looked them up this morning. The lyrics begin "under pressure pressing down on me, pressing down on you no man ask for under pressure - burns a building down, splits a family in two, puts people on the streets" - not what you were expecting huh? Paul was under pressure too (as with many others) but he writes to his friends in 2Cor 1:8 "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We are under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despair even of life." I wonder if Paul and his followers in Asia were under pressure similar to what Bowie and Queen talk about? So much pressure that they were on the streets or families were split in two? Truthfully, I was surprised to see the word "pressure" when I looked it up. Paul says "we despair even of life", that seems like a lot of pressure and similar to the pressure in the song lyrics too. And I bet Paul was under such pressure in Asia that he felt like he was loosing his faith. I don't know for sure but this passage seems to talk about such strain that Paul's only out was to write to his distant friends, to detail what kind of position ('we') they were in to those far away. We despair even of life, that's pressure, pressure that even though I may not feel to the point of loss of my life, with which I identify. Pressure.

So how does this pressure affect me? Why is pressure so vivid and real in my life? Mostly because I focus on the pressure, really that's the reason. I focus on the pressure just like all of you do too. Focus on the things or thing that brings pressure; see that pressure gage is more real than if first appeared. But I wonder what would happen (not that I am advocating this procedure) if I focused on something other than pressure? Bowie & Queen goes on to sing "Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking, can't we give ourselves one more chance, why can't we give love one more chance....cause love's such an old fashioned word, and love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night, and love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves". I bet that through you for a loop!!!! I mean this song is about pressure not love...right? In comparison, Paul writes throughout 2Corinthians to his friends not only about pressure and despair (and only in two occasions) but throughout these letters about love. In 2Cor 2:4 Paul writes "For I wrote to you out of distress and great anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know of the depth of my love for you." Paul uses the word "love" and compares it in difference to the pressure of the times. He, in these letters of 2 Corinthans, challenges and encourages those he writes to continue to love, to show love, to be sincere in love, to be forth right in love, to give in love, love, love, love. Not to unlike my song. Paul used the description of pressure to show his distant friends that he was under and continued to be under pressure but not to bring them the same anguish he was under but to show them that in all the pressure love had to prevail.

Remember I told you that the reason I started this was not what it ended up to be by the end of the first paragraph. The pressure is huge on me right now, for a lot of reasons that I can not go in to detail about, but somewhere in all this pressure, God found a way to show me how to get my focus off of the pressure and on to the real focus, love. Maybe the pressure was suppose to bring me to a breaking point, where I would dash and run under the pressure? I think that was its (I do identify pressure as a thing and active thing-yes) sole initial purpose but somewhere in all the things that I see daily and don't really see, the pressure isn't really the thing I need to be focused on, more over its what I can make out of the pressure. So I wonder what pressures you are facing today? Pressures from work that trickle to home? Pressures from home that trickle to work? Pressures from outside beings that seem to trickle to every other part of your life? Maybe those pressures are designed to tear you apart, I know mine was and to some extent still is, but I think I have the passage way out of the pressure. Just change my focus, maybe you can too.

All Things?

I loved being a kid, the kid that believed and trusted everyone no matter how much that person might be lying or misleading, I would trust them. I even liked knowing that there was a pattern as I grew up and became a teenager, the fact that school was school from September to June and the teachers knew what to tell you, not entirely an issue of trust but on some level it is. I trusted that they would be in class and give me instruction (even when I didn't like it). And growing up, I learned that trusting is a difficult thing, that's what growing up does to you, makes you synical. I stopped trusting sometime when I was younger, I could tell you approximately when but it really doesn't matter. The fact that I stopped trusting is what matters. And I'm sure somewhere in your life, you had something happen that made you not be so trusting too. Maybe toward a person or type of person, situation or circumstance, but it happened and you have a wall around your heart that secludes you from being all trusting. It's ok, I haven't met an adult yet that totally trusts everyone in every situation for all things, so we're not alone. But on a level deep down, I miss that no fear of trusting, I'm not sure where it went but I do miss it. I miss not being afraid of getting to know someone and being able to be a friend and trust them. I know crazy. You're probably thinking, well you shouldn't trust everyone anyway. Well you're right I shouldn't but everyone, in some way, needs to know that someone gave them a chance. Don't you think that they, just like you deserve an opportunity to be trusted?
I have been building walls again, walls that will stop me from being to close to friends, walls that block who I am from the "real world". And I have found that in all things I am less trusting of even friends I have known for a very long time, people whom I know and who know me, people who I have no reason not to trust, and yet the walls are being built. The opportunities that I want so desperately are being whitled away from my path and I have no real desire to stop the process. No need to want to stop the process actually.
This week, unlike other weeks in the fairly recent past, I have not spent anytime in trying to trust God. Not unlike me in case you don't know me. I find other things that are far more important and far more needy of me than my spirit's desire to seek Him. But I read something from this week that I missed earlier - due to my lack of wanting to do it - and it struck something in me. The story is long but in short it was placed in a time when they had no other means of travel except an oceanliner from Europe to America. The water was socked in with fog and a man on the boat had to make an engagement in Quebec. The captain told him it was an impossible mission, the man said otherwise, he said "my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life." He prays and then the captain goes to kneel and pray and this man tells him "do not pray. First you do not believe He will answer, and second I believe He has, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it." Kinda egotistical huh! But the man then told the captain to look outside and the fog was gone. The man made his destination on time. Acts 27:25 "I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me." I believe God. In all things He controls every circumstance of my life, I believe He has..... Total trust in belief that what you ask has already happened. The fog in this story was real but to the captain it was also a fog in his life for not believing God would 'do'.
How do I get through this fog that I am in? How do I believe in all things again? I don't know but I hope (altho I should believe) that God does know, that even tho my heart is untrusting, that I can not believe all things are for His purpose right now, He knows. He knows that somewhere in the path ahead, the walls being built, altho they look like Jericho's walls from the inside, will sometime in the future fall like rubble. He knows, I hope, that when I don't seek and my heart walls are thick somewhere deep inside I am trusting. He knows that the fog is thick right now but soon I will see it clearing and find my way. He knows and I just have to believe.