Under Pressure

What do you do with your pain, your disappointment or your anger? How you answer that question explains why you are the person you are. So often we are tempted to follow a destructive path because it promises to be an answer for pain, disappointment or anger. The Enemy knows how to exploit this situation with devastating effectiveness. Louie Giglio explains, “On page after page in Scripture, we find people in situations where life has closed in on them. It might seem logical for them to chuck their faith. We wouldn’t be surprised if they turned away from God in the midst of their difficulty, or if they leaned toward their favorite addiction in an attempt to feel better. Unfortunately, that’s what too many people do when the going gets tough, when life turns hard for us, we’re almost always tempted to welcome the Enemy at our table. But when we realize that Jesus invites us to follow Him even though life is hard, we discover the foundational truth for winning the battle for our minds.” Giglio is speaking of a faith that grows stronger under pressure. Such a faith is available. This will be our focus in this coming Wednesday’s night’s small group study, Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table. You can join us in person or on-line. For now, I ask you to consider that there is a way other than a faith that is mostly a quid pro quo transaction. If God does what I think He should then I will honor Him, if not, all bets are off. There is a better way. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are beautiful examples of a faith that grows stronger under pressure. As King Nebuchadnezzar was about to throw them into a fiery furnace, they replied to him this way, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it…But even if He does not…we will not serve your gods…” (Daniel 3:17,18) Wow! A different expression for this kind of faith is - “They thought they had us buried but they didn’t know we were seeds.” When this is your mentality you raise the bar on your discipleship.