From Pressure to Provision: You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.

 

Proverbs 24:10 says, “If you falter [waver, hesitate, give up, fail] in time of trouble [stress, difficulty, pressure], how small is your strength!”

One big question is, what puts us under pressure? For me, it can be the stress of others or my own desire to achieve. It is often the voices in my head in relation to these two situations that make me feel pressured.

One of those voices is a desire for others around me to not be upset. I realize that when someone close to me or matters to me is upset and stressed about something, it bothers me. Just recently, I had a group of women over to my house for fellowship and prayer. It was a powerful time and God showed up in amazing ways.

Yet, I was tense as it went over the scheduled time and I was trying to hurry things along. I could tell my husband was annoyed and I found myself eating and grazing from all the leftover food we had feeling bad about it. To have cut it off and sent folks home would have cut us off from just the part that God was touching each person in prayer. which made it difficult. For next time, we agreed for me to have an hour flex time.

I realize that I am sensitive to the environment around me and the stress others are feeling, especially when connected to me. The voices in my head start telling me that I am not enough, not considerate enough or doing enough. I struggle with just letting others own their own emotions and separating myself from this. I let their expectations, frustrations and the atmosphere they set impact me.

The other thing that puts me under pressure is my own expectations of myself. I want to be more, do more, give more. I love to accomplish and get things done. On the other side, sometimes this leads me to hurry. I want to hurry up conversations, avoid situations and press through things so that I can accomplish more. What I find in this is that I may just pass by what I need to pay attention to. The very conversations that I hurry or press may be where God would have me spend my time.

One thing I love about remote working is that I can get in a better work rhythm of doing my analytical tasks and things I need to just get done at home. It is quiet, comfortable and I am just able to accomplish more in a shorter amount of time. Also, not having the driving takes some of the rush and taxing of this off, allowing me to focus, be more present and enjoy what I am doing.

Then when I go to work, I establish a schedule of meaningful connections. My time spent in the office, since I am doing my tasks at home, I am training myself to be more present and available. I can just have good conversations and not worry about getting a lot done. I am more available to those who need me. I have found these conversations way more satisfying and God filled. I have found myself praying with people rather than rushing them out of my office so I can get my work done. I have loved it.

The other things that I have come to realize in this is that my expectations are too high of myself. Who says that I need to accomplish so much? I hear this voice that pressures me to do more and have woken up to it not being God’s voice. I find that because I press to accomplish so much that I am not only in a hurry, but I judge others based on what they accomplish as well. I am not as present to people, I am more direct in conversation because I feel the pressure and I risk burning myself out.

I am learning to reset my expectations of myself. I am inviting God into my expectations and activities as a regular practice. I am slowing down to question what really needs to be completed. I am also finding freedom in just not being involved in as much. When I am left out, rather than feeling disappointed or rejected, I am rejoicing and feeling protected.

I am working on focusing on the quality of time that I have with others and enjoying my time more rather than pressing through something to get it done. I am stopping to ask myself what I need in a given circumstance and what would make it more enjoyable. Sometimes just having worship music on while I do something or making sure I am not going through the motions, I find so much more quality in my time.

Proverbs 24:3-4 says, “By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.” All our rooms through knowledge can be filled with rare and beautiful treasures! This is everywhere we plant our feet. At home, at work, in our personal time.

Knowledge here literally means through prophetic unction. This means that as we follow the Spirit of God, he will lead us into this. Are we hoping, anticipating and looking for God to fill every place we go with rare and beautiful treasures?

“I was made for more” sings in the background.

Are we finding the treasure in the moments? Are we making our moments those worth treasuring? Solomon as He was building the temple, covered everything in gold. He made it spectacular. He did not give what was common or average. He saw nothing less than what was the absolute top He could give.

Solomon, the day after being made king, 1 Chronicles 29:21 says that first thing that He did was making offerings and present sacrifices to the Lord on behalf of all the people. These were not small sacrifices but everything in thousands. It says He made “sacrifices in abundance.”

That’s what I want my life to be. I want to say something not with words but with actions. I want my life to be offerings and sacrifices in abundance. At the end of my life, I want to look back and say that I made thousands upon thousands of offerings and sacrifices.

All that to say that God fills every place we go and He is a rare and beautiful treasure. Do we see Him in the room, acknowledge Him and make room for Him in everything we do? Seeing the beauty in the moment starts with seeing Him. He is amazing.

“Through it all my eyes are on You and it is well” sings.

David saw God as a treasure and lived out of this. He had tremendous faith and worked to make everything in his life about God, with God and through God. He desired everything God had for him. And when he couldn’t build God a temple, he put everything in order that he could and obtained what was needed. He then passed on to Solomon His understanding of the greatness of God.

In Chronicles 28:9, David says, “And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve Him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek Him, you will find Him. But if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.” (NLT)

David then prays over Solomon in 1 Chronicles 29:19, “And give my son Solomon the wholehearted devotion to keep your commands, statutes and decrees and to do everything to build the palatial structure for which I have provided.”

From David’s example, there was no doubt by Solomon that God was great and worthy of the highest honor. David instilled in Solomon faith, wonder and awe of God. Does everything we do demonstrate to our children that God is worthy of honor?

“You have no rival, You have no equal, now and forever God You reign” sings in the background.

The second question that it brings up for me on Proverbs 24:10, where it says, ““If you falter [waver, hesitate, give up, fail] in time of trouble [stress, difficulty, pressure], how small is your strength!” is whose strength am I leaning into?

A little earlier, Proverbs 24:5 says, “The wise prevail through great power, and those who have knowledge muster their strength.”

Some years ago, I was feeling overwhelmed and like I did not have the strength I needed for the battle. I was sitting in a prayer room and talking to God about how overwhelmed I felt when the people leading the prayer started singing about His power being limitless. As I saw those words come across the screen it suddenly dawned on me: We have unlimited strength in Him. We are never tapped out. I was just leaning into my own strength rather than His.

Psalm 29:11 says, “The Lord will give strength to His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace.”

Psalm 68:35 proclaims, “The God of Israel is He who gives strength and power to His people. Blessed be God!”

And Psalm 84:5,7 tells us, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in you… They go from strength to strength, each one appears before God in Zion” (Psalm 84:5,7)

Finally, as I can proclaim as well from this situation I walked through where I felt tapped out, “In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with a strength in my soul” (Psalm 138:3).

God is faithful. When we have trouble or stress, we can always count on the Lord to meet us when we cry out to Him. He is not going to give us the strength to accomplish something that is outside of His will, Like Saul from the Bible who wanted to rule the kingdom in his own way, but when we say yes to His plans, He will make the way and give us the strength we need. He is faithful, in our weaknesses and failings.

God will not only give us His strength but He can be such an encourager. I will have a really bad day at work and get in my car to go home and the song plays on the radio, “I know there's gonna be some brighter days.” Before I know it, I am wrapped up in His love and letting go of all the disappointment. The more we lean into Him, the more strength that we have.

What can sometimes trip me up is when I lean into trying to console myself for feeling weak by distractions. Rather than lean into God, I lean into shopping or eating. I lean into trying to get relief from the voices and stress rather than hear the voice that calms the storm. While this happens much less frequently than it used to, it still happens on occasion.

Lord, let Your voice be the one that we hear above the winds and the waves. Give us discernment on other voices that would try to get us off course. We are so grateful for Your hand in our lives and Your still small voice that calls us out of chaos and into the more You have for us.