extreme pressure…

Severe pressure, like the kind that squeezes a grape to reveal the juice that is inside… It’s part of life. There will always be times of severe pressure and when we find ourselves in those stressful, pressure-chamber type situations–take a deep breath and let yourself experience it.

There is a passage in the Bible that is pretty cool. It talks about loving your neighbor and all that, but then it talks about pressure and hypocrisy. Jesus was always good that way about humbling people and making them really look at their motives.

Here’s what it says:

If someone wants to take your coat, don’t try to keep back your shirt. Give that to him as well. Give to everyone who asks and don’t ask people to return what they have taken from you.

If you love only someone who loves you, big deal. Even sinners love people who love them. If you are kind only to someone who is kind to you, will God be pleased with you for that? Even sinners are kind to people who are kind to them. If you lend money only to someone you think will pay you back, don’t think highly of yourself.

But love your enemies and be good to them. Lend without expecting to be paid back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be the true children of God.

That rocks my socks off. That means, when the pressure is on, when someone has just slammed me unjustly and I’ve got the best comeback ready to roll off my tongue, can I go somewhere within myself and find my inner peace? When I am being squeezed to the point where “what I am truly made of” is about to come out, can I make the decision to be someone else? Can I change?

I can and I have to. Because if I change, it will directly affect and bring change to others. One person really can change the world. I’m not saying it’s easy, but what I am saying is the next time you feel the pressure rising up inside of you because you are in a situation that is unfair, unjust, or just plain stressful to the maximum level…….picture yourself walking through the fire. Allow yourself to be purged of everything that is within you that you don’t like. It all comes to the surface during pressure…all the garbage.

If we can learn to view pressure and stress as an opportunity for inner cleansing, we can be the change that the world so desperately needs.