Last Sunday (8/23), I made the statement that we all need some pressure in our lives. We do. We may not like pressure, but it produces godliness in us. It is heat and pressure that makes a diamond valuable. Ordinary coal in the bowels of the earth is placed under pressure of 1,500,000 pounds per square inch at a temperature of 5000 degrees Fahrenheit. Out of that heat and pressure the beauty of a diamond is born. We too have the raw materials within us to reflect the glory of God. Those raw materials can become more and more valuable when we undergo the heat and pressure of growing pains.
Did you know the “who’s who” in the Christian faith have all undergone tremendous pressure in their lives? Let me give you a couple of examples.
The first American missionary Adoniram Judson knew imprisonment in Burma, the loss of a child, and the death of two wives on the mission field.
David Livingstone, the most famous missionary, is buried in Westminster Abbey. Yet his own life was filled with pressure and pain. He wanted to go to China but had to go to Africa. Arriving on the field, he found conditions nothing like he had been promised. His relationship with other missionaries was stormy. A child died at birth and his wife was paralyzed. A lion mauled his arm and left him crippled for life. On top of that, his in-laws thundered with wrath at him for taking their daughter to Africa! It was out of this pain and pressure that the world-famous missionary was molded.
Charles Spurgeon was one of the greatest preachers in England. Yet he preached out of the pain of intense personal suffering through gout and related diseases. His wife was an invalid confined to her room during the ten most productive years of his ministry. As Spurgeon and his wife sat in the room one evening a log on the fire whistled in the fireplace. Spurgeon told his wife Susannah, “It takes the fire to bring out the music.” What is true for logs is true of life.
God allows some pressure in our lives because that’s where He puts the music in our lives. The key is to trust Him. Like Paul wrote so long ago:
“I consider our present sufferings not worth to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18)

To God be the glory!

Pastor Tim