Psalms 118:5
⁵ When hard pressed, I cried to the LORD;
he brought me into a spacious place. (NIV)

The world is full of pressure, but God brings us to a spacious place. We call it pressure because it presses in on us. We feel distended and about to burst if we don’t do something to alter the circumstances. But this is not from the Lord. He has not given us a spirit of fear, but love, power, and self-discipline. Self-discipline will not allow us to be moved by forces we don’t choose. Instead, the Spirit gives us the discipline to push back on the pressure giving us time to wait on the Lord.

We are tempted to take our pressure to the Lord, not for relief, but transference. We want the Lord to sense the same urgency we feel from others. But God exists at the behest of no one. He is the immovable mountain, and our strength is found at the summit. Pausing in His presence, we present our worry to Him. In prayer, we are touched by Him and our worry is met by His promises. We find calm. The pressure dissipates and we are lifted to a spacious place in the Spirit.

No one can push God around and in Him, neither can we be pushed around. There is always time to wait upon the Lord. Pressure makes us feel that our life is somewhere other than the hands of God, but He is our ever-present help in trouble. He is our Strong Tower where we are saved. He lives above time and beyond the minutia of human existence with absolute authority to command the storm to be still. Yet, we must turn to Him, run to Him, and cry out to Him in these moments. We push back against the pressure to find a moment not to transfer the pressure we feel to God but to allow God to touch the sickness of our stress so that our hearts and minds may be delivered from the immediacy of their pressure.

We live in this world, but our home rests atop the peak of His presence. There, we find space like an eagle flying above the fray. His wisdom reminds us of the self-centered spirit that moves the world. People pressure us because of their own fear prompted by the stress placed upon them by those in their life. But we don’t have to operate as the world does. We can be still in our mind and body to pursue a moment with God and He will lift us to a spacious place.

Prayer: Lord, help me to resist the pressures of this world trying to force me to do something I am not sure I want to do. And let me take time to call upon You and be lifted high. Amen.