Pressure's On

Tears were streaming down my cheeks; my eyes red, and face flushed, I clinched my jaw, grinding my teeth as my last ditch effort to keep my mouth shut. I was so tired, so agitated, wondering why in the world I was doing this thing that I so disliked. I wanted to say it; everything in me, the frustration, the heartache, the pit in my stomach, screamed at me to release one phrase, one word to express my truest feelings of this particular moment, of this particular “duty”…my mouth cracked open, and deeply inhaled, I managed to say, “I ha…”but instead of the word, a wail replaced it as it crossed my lips; sobbing ensued, but without the curse to accompany it…I won again, narrowly escaping the temptation to libel the very thing God had led me to do…

Have you ever felt called to do something, something you were excited about on the one hand, but nervous about on the next, and once you started it, you quickly wondered why in the world you were doing it? After all, you really DON’T like it, the ins and outs of all the duties, deadlines, assignments, whatever, it all builds up to a towering mountain of disdain, and everything in you wants to quit, wants to give in, maybe I was wrong, see ya! End of story; missed God, that was a mistake…

And sometimes you’d be right. There are times, when we feel led by God to do something, whether it’s go back to school, start a new job, or even enter into a dating relationship, and we’re in it a little while and all of a sudden, we realize we do NOT like what we’re doing, and that our “call” was a wide miss. In times like this, you shake the dust off your feet and move on.

But there are other times when, you know God has led you into it. You weighed and measured the costs and benefits of this decision, this job, this degree/certification, this relationship: you knew what you were getting into, kind of, and you knew that God was calling you to it. And, if God calls you, it’s better to walk in the hardship of obedience with a little suffering, than the ease of disobedience with a lot of it.

So – you say “yes” to this new position, new contract, new calling, and you get into it, and suddenly, the pressure’s on! The costs are way outweighing the benefits now, you become engulfed in deadlines, conflict management dilemmas, endless phone calls, administrative mayhem, dealing with petty offenses, familial responsibilities, on and on, the negatives of your new calling/position pile up up up until you can no longer see beyond them. The feelings of hate, frustration, and anxiety hit you like a slap of a tidal wave. You fight the urge to quit, to give in, to scream with all your might: “I HATE THIS!!!!”

But there’s the problem. The enemy wants you to curse your position, wants you to release your anger on the situation; he wants you to badmouth, complain, criticize, do everything he says about you to the very thing the God of glory asked you to do…

“The power of life and death are in the tongue…” (Prov. 19:21)

The power of life and death are in our tongues! If we curse it, it will be cursed. By articulating those feelings, we bring us that much closer to aborting our path of obedience, that much closer to preventing God’s purposes from coming to pass in our lives. And this is what the enemy wants. He wants us out of the will of God, wants us to quit, to choose mediocrity, to forfeit our place on the narrow road…and he typically begins applying his hardest pressure just before the birth of a breakthrough.

“The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.” (Rev. 12:4)

Just as the enemy was waiting for the woman to give birth, knowing that a new life was forming, so the enemy waits on us, seeing when our time for delivery is at hand…and he prowls, roaring and seething, intimidating us, wearing us down, throwing out everything he can muster in order to get us to abort the process and forego our breakthrough.

He can’t compete with God’s promises from God’s end, but he can get us off track on ours. This was the battle I faced with this new thing in my life. It was apparent God had called me into it; I was supposed to proceed, even if there were things about it I didn’t like. But suddenly, a few weeks into, I became entrenched in all the negativities, related to this responsibility, and everything in me struggled to persevere, to keep going, to NOT say what I wanted to say, to refrain from articulating what I was feeling…and then it dawned on me…something was just ahead.

Why else would the enemy work so hard on getting me all uptight and frustrated? Why else, would he be so relentless in dashing my head with thoughts and emotions of how much I despised the opportunity afforded to me? Why else was it so hard to see the good in it, the very reasons I was called to do it? It must mean…I’m almost to the other side! Something in this situation is about to bring forth a new life, a life, which God wants me to have and enjoy…and the enemy wishes to steal. I have to stick with it! I have to bless it! I have to persevere! If I submit to God’s will to do this, and I resist the devil’s temptations to use my lips as his mouthpiece of death, then the devil WILL flee (ref. Jms. 4:7) and the good thing, which the Lord promised me, will shortly come to pass.

I’m not there yet; I’m still in the resisting stage; but I know that good things are coming, and until then, I will rejoice in the Lord always.

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” (Hab. 3:17-18, emphasis mine)