I Isaiah's writings tell us this: The
servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched
field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a
second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who
knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on
him, thought he was scum.
“But the fact is, it was our
pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong
with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was
punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the
punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed."
Is there anything more beautiful,
and more awful? Our sins. Our failures. Our mistakes. OUR choices. He takes care of them. All the things wrong with us. All.
The servant, Jesus, grew up as a
scrubby plant in a parched field. I once wrote a book that became One Man, One
Cross. I, however, wanted to call it Life Is A Pressure Cooker, and I'm A Green
Bean, but the editor didn't want to use that.
But it is true. We, humans all, are
filled with pressure or have pressure bestowed on us.
Crew.org says this of dealing with
pressure:
Whether its deadlines at work or
personal goals you want to achieve, many of us live under a constant pressure
state. You can’t rewrite your genetic code, but you can rewire it—in a manner
of speaking.
Develop
a simple routine You know how people in the 90s always used those foam stress
balls? Well, they may have been onto something. Squeezing a ball in your
non-dominant hand can actually help you not “choke” under pressure. Why is
this?
“Before we are asked to perform,
most of us overthink what we are going to do. Take professional athletes, these
individuals are no doubt gifted in their particular skill-set. They practice
for hours a day, and yet sometimes, they can’t seem to perform when it matters
the most. That’s because they aren’t allowing for the automated part of your
brain to do what it does best.
The Apostle Paul admits there is
such a thing as daily pressure. He wrote, “I’ve worked much harder, been jailed
more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death’s door time
after time. I’ve been flogged five times with the Jews’ thirty-nine lashes,
beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I’ve been
shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In
hard traveling year in and year out, I’ve had to ford rivers, fend off robbers,
struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I’ve been at risk in the city, at
risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by
those I thought were my brothers. I’ve known drudgery and hard labor, many a
long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold,
naked to the weather.
“And
that’s not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties
of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the
desperation in my bones.”
Pressure can force us to do dumb
things, but it also turns coal into diamonds.
How you handle it, how you deal with
it, is the key. Giving it to a God who would allow himself to be human, to be
beaten, to be killed on a cross is an excellent way to begin.
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