The nurse hooking me to my treatment contraption told me that I would be at full pressure. It was the fifth day of treatment. They had started at a lower pressure and increased it the previous four days. Full pressure at the beginning is difficult for many patients to endure.

Full pressure. Those words brought many memories to my mind of previously being under full pressure.

Pressure: “a pressing, or state of being pressed (specifically, a compression or a squeezing); a weight or burden, as of distress; a constraining force, influence, or impulse of any kind; exigent demands”

Have you ever felt full pressure? Oh, I have.

No easing into it?

Perhaps, a diagnosis hit you in the gut. Maybe a lay-off at your job. A loved one was taken from you in a moment. Your person said they didn’t love you anymore.

That full pressure can take our breath away. It can drop us to our knees.

We live in a world that presses around us every day and every moment. So much conflict, so much wickedness, so many opinions. Listening to the news, to me, is a burden of distress. David felt pressure when he was threatened by a conspiracy. Jerusalem was in turmoil, and there was danger everywhere.

“Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the pressure of the wicked; for they bring down trouble upon me and in anger they bear a grudge against me. My heart is in anguish within me….” Psalm 55:3-4a.

Job faced many pressures because God allowed Satan to test him. Job’s friends felt they should speak to him about the reasons for his sorrow. Elihu believed he was speaking for God and declared that Job should not be terrified of him or “should my pressure weigh heavily on you.” What a guy! Have you ever had someone place pressure on you? That constraining force or influence?

Paul had many external pressures—39 lashes from the Jews on five different occasions, beaten with rods three times, stoned once, shipwrecked three times, spent time in the deep, and many other dangers from many sources. He also stated that he had been given a “thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment” him.

He also had internal pressures. “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.” Paul felt the weakness, shame, and longing of fellow believers.

What are we to do when feeling full pressure?

David continues in Psalm 55: “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” (Verse 22)

Paul tells us: “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14

“Therefore leaving the elementary teach about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.” Hebrews 6:1

When pressed upon, PRESS ON!