Pressure! You know the word. That feeling you get when life gets crazy, you are aware of all your responsibilities, but you keep dropping balls. Then (oh! Then!) a child (maybe even two of them) gets sick, or worse you get sick! The phone rings with some mysterious charge or fee on your credit card, while your mind is racing to figure it out. Someone starts calling in on caller-ID, reminding you of the person you forgot to call back.  Awww the pressure point or the boiling point. There are a million different life concoctions that create pressure in our lives. None of us gets quite the same cocktail because our lives are all different, and what causes us to feel pressure is different. Sometimes you can’t put your finger on it, it’s just there in your gut and you feel it.

I recently returned from a Mission’s trip. When I go on a Mission’s trip and are separated from my life, I have this amazing opportunity to just focus on what the single purpose of that trip is, what God is speaking about His heart for that place and the people I am there to minister to. I give, I receive and then I come back to quickly realize life was still happening without me. Things that needed to get done because I was gone still needed to get done. Responsibilities still had to be met. Mama had to be Mama. Wife had to be wife. So much to be done not enough hours, the reality is that sleep is a necessity and even the energy bunny runs out of batteries. You get the picture.  I was feeling life pressure.

When the Lord started talking to my heart about pressure I thought I knew what He was talking about. Have you ever done that? Kind of responded to God teaching you something new like, “Yeah, that is soo good God, great truths and wisdom about that. You are so God! ” Not that we are not grateful for every revelation but you realize you had a head revelation of what (through life) only a heart revelation can really teach you. You see, He was showing me wisdom on how to decipher the spiritual pressure in my life as a good steward of the pruning process of the Holy Spirit. Not the natural pressures of life like the trash must go out on Mondays, and I have to get up in the mornings to drive the kids to school everyday. He was speaking prophetically of the pressure to come and giving me cutting edge wisdom as the tools I needed to maneuver through the pressures I didn’t know existed … yet. He didn’t want me to call the pruning process (which is out of His great love for me and speaks to and cultivates my future and intimacy with Him by developing character) … “the devil”. And He didn’t want me to call “the devil” the pruning process of His great love for me.

When I say pruning process it can sound so deep and intense but my heart is that you would understand that even though it may be momentarily hard it is the very romance of God. It is often in hard places we press into God, and He revels His presence as strength. His voice brings affirmation of our identity in Him. His love comforts and fills the very core of who we are.

Let me break down this revelation or code in a humorous way by separating the pressures we may experience in life into two categories by calling them, “What the heck!?” moments and “Are you kidding me!?” moments. Deciphering pressure in our lives gives us wisdom and confidence in knowing when to war and when to die. Knowing the difference was such an eye opener for me in dealing with the spiritual pressure that came in my life that I didn’t understand.

“What the Heck!?” moments:

Sometimes the pressure we feel in life is the harassment of the enemy. Bottom line he hates us and doesn’t want to see us fulfill our God-given destiny. His very nature is pride and the Bible shows us that he comes to kill, steal, and destroy. He is a lurker, he roams to and fro (like a stalker) seeking who he may devour. He is a liar, accuser, and drama-maker!

Now, knowing what we know about the enemy, we can look at pressure in our lives that comes to kill, steal and destroy as being the enemy. We can quickly identify the pressure that comes on the inside when the enemy is trying to bring dissension, accusations and divisions in our heart and from the outside. We can see clearly incoming lies as being the plan of the enemy and stamp them straight up: the devil!

But then what?

Do we just see it and take it? Do we just sit down and cry about how the enemy is attacking us? Or do we have a “What the Heck!?” moment with the enemy of our lives and fight back?

It’s time for some “What the Heck!?” moments, and it’s time for war!

The enemy is a great intimidator with his guises and traps of condemnation. You have to settle once and for all that it will forever be what Jesus did on the cross, and not what you do that gives you power over the enemy.

How do we fight? We fight with truth! We ask God what the truth about the pressure or attack we are experiencing is. We go to the word of God for strength and ammunition. Then we position ourselves in that truth and declare it over our lives, and if our emotions aren’t there yet, stay the course, they will get there soon enough. Truth is your anchor in the storm. So tie your emotions to your anchor, or they will just magnify the storm.

The Lord was showing me because of what He did and who He is, all I needed to do was put one hand on my tiara (which is my identity, a daughter and co-heir in Christ), grab my sword (which is the word) and get my war on by pushing back darkness and taking hold of peace.

So important to note, not all spiritual pressure is “the devil”. Which leads us to …

“Are You Kidding Me?!” moments:

Sometimes there is pressure in our lives, maybe even brought on from a dangerous prayer we sang in worship, that comes to reveal a place in our hearts that needs to be pruned. It comes to our lives, gently puts a little pressure on our hearts and touches insecurity (ouch). Maybe it touches pride (ouch), it might just put some pressure on anger (ouch) and even go deep and touch fear, all kinds of it even the fear of man (ouch).

When you get in these situations and you’re real ‘self’ is having this, “Are you kidding me?!” moment (like you really want to go there?) when self is in the tension of choosing whether it’s going to fight to live or ignore what it saw in the heart and die, allow the loving hand of the Lord to prune away what is not needed or doesn’t bare fruit. It’s not always abstract; I’ve laid down what was good for what was best. I’ve died a few deaths that were just a matter of keeping my mouth shut. It’s been as practical as not spending as much money on shopping, to spending less time on the phone, to stepping out being who God wants me to be and being scared while I did it. Only we know what is in our hearts as God reveals it, and only He knows how to garden our hearts so we live fruitful lives, so our families and the world see people dressed up in Jesus.

Pruning in our lives is just the developing of character, so that we can stand up under the calling in which He is calling us. It is His loving kindness to the very core of us.

You know I’ve had tons of “Are you kidding me?!” moments; sometimes I die quickly. Other times, I flop around on the altar a bit and no doubt with rivers of tears. The spectrum of death to self is so great, and even though I don’t always die quickly. I find it a gift to see through the spiritual pressures that come into my life through these lenses, so that I might have the understanding that when the pressure I experience is the devil, I have the wisdom to war, and when the pressure is character development through the death of self, I would have the courage to die.

In life there will always be some form of pressure because life is always happening. The pressures we experience in life are both natural and spiritual. I pray for the grace to bear up under our natural responsibilities and for the wisdom to decipher spiritual pressures in our lives.

Lord,

I pray that we would know when life gets crazy, and pressure starts building from every side and within, that we would have the ability to separate what is natural from what is spiritual pressure and what is the enemy from what is character development. That we would know clearly as your daughters and sons when to wield our swords as warriors in war and when to embrace dying to ourselves as you develop our character and groom us for who we are called to be in you. Lord as water fills the deepest places first, Lord I pray that your Holy Spirit would go and fill with your love the deep places of our hearts. And for those who have felt crushed and weighed down with pressure, I pray that your light and strength would come to them through Your great love, bringing deep heart revelation, freedom, and healing!

AMEN.

Marissa Star

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