When You Are Pressed, Crushed, Or Tested

 Good evening everyone,

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       I pray you are all doing well on this Shabbat. I am doing well and I am soaking up the final days of Summer before we start school again. This is a spontaneous post which means you know it's going to be good because it was orchestrated by the Lord. So, I was reading earlier about the process of olives and grapes and I could not help but see it in a spiritual sense. When I think about what an olive or a grape has to go through to produce the sweet juice or the precious oil, the process is so valuable. An olive is pressed using a large stone wheel that squeezes out the pure oil and a grape literally has to be crushed several times to produce the juice that is squeezed out. 

  Similar to our lives, we go through times of crushing and being pressed. Those times when we feel all alone or in a great trial that we have no answers for, but to hold onto His every promise in our lives. Those times when it feels like the whole world is against us and when we look around us, it feels as if there is no help inside until we look up. Where does our help come from, it comes from the Lord who is the Maker of heaven and earth. Those times of pressing and crushing are valuable times in our lives. Why, because this is where the gold comes forth in our lives, we have to be under some sort of pressure to be able bring forth the good that He is wanting to come out of us. Is it easy, absolutely not, but it is needed. He wants us to produce that sweet smelling of savor that can only come forth through times of pressure. 

     If you are feeling you are being tested, crushed, or pressed, remember it's only for a season and when He is finished, you are going to be so much more stronger than before and it's only through Him that we can bring forth the good. Remember He is not against us, He is for us and will never leave us nor forsake us even when we cannot feel Him near us or see His hand. It's through the intense times of pressure that He is the closest to us. So be encouraged dear friends and allow Him to do what He only He can do in your lives. May the Lord bless you and keep you. Until next time, Shalom.