An honest look at how we feel sometimes as Christians and what God has asked us to hold onto through the storm...

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We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. -- 2Corinthians 4: 8-9 (NLT)

"Blessed and highly favored" is the resounding answer when Christians are asked the commonplace nicety of "how are you doing?" We are blessed by God and we are most certainly highly favored but that often is a covering for the real day to day answer. The truth is that most Christians are more afraid of other Christians finding out how they are doing than anything else. Too much judgment and criticism is given when love and edification is necessary. The cold hard reality is that we bleed just like everyone else. We suffer in pain just like everyone else. We can feel sad and hear from well-intended brethren that no one with the Holy Spirit should feel sad! Tell that to Joseph! Do you honestly think that he was dancing for 13 years in prison? What about Elijah who was so despondent that he asked God to end his life? So we strap on our best church masks and shuffle off to the sanctuary, the one place we should feel the freest to be honest, and pretend that nothing is wrong. That everything is just fine. That we are simply blessed and highly favored.

While we certainly go through what every human being goes through, there is supposed to be benefits from walking with the Lord. Sadness need not drift into what the world classifies as depression. Confusion need not drift into giving up on life. God recognizes the realities of living in this fallen world but reassures us that while we may have symptoms from time to time -- we do not have to develop the condition. Because our position in Christ should always outweigh the condition the world would like to sell us on. We are bombarded on television with advertisements for depression medications, anxiety medications, and medications to deal with the side effects of those medications. We live in a society that encourages talking about problems for years and years instead of conquering them. A society that tries to teach us how to cope, that is how to live with, our problems instead of overcoming them. I do not know where this writing finds you today. It found me in a place of uncertainty when God spoke it to me. It found me in a place of profound sadness when God had me write it. It found me in a place of great solitude when God brought me to the key verses above.

These two verses from Paul's second letter to the Church at Corinth serve as a reminder and assurance to us as believers that while things may not be going our way, that God will not let it defeat us if we cling to His Word. Four comparisons are found within these verses which show what we are and what we are not. First is that as believers we may indeed feel pressed by the forces in this world. Pressure is something everyone will face in this life. Pressures from work, family, finances, and even church. Paul goes as far as to say that we will even feel pressed on every side. Have you ever felt that way in your walk with the Lord? Pressure seeming to come from every direction? In the Old Testament we see that King Jehoshaphat must have felt that way when three different nations combined their armed forces and aligned against him:

Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, "A vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of the Sea. It is already in Hazazon Tamar " (that is, En Gedi). Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah. The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord ; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him. -- 2Chronicles 20: 2-4 (NIV)

Surely the king felt pressed on all sides; as if the world was coming against him. The promise however from God is that though we may feel pressed we are in fact not crushed. Pressed is a sense of pressure but crushed is a giving in to that pressure. Of wallowing in the pressure. Of trying to then resolve or escape that pressure through our own means. Jehoshaphat did not do that here. In his flesh he could have sought the advice of his military experts. He could have tried to go make a peace treaty with the approaching enemies. He could have evacuated and ran for the hills. Instead, he called for a fast and inquired of the Lord. After that -- he prayed:

"O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your Name, saying, "If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.' "But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from them and did not destroy them. See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. " -- 2Chronicles 20: 6-12 (NIV)

Take a good look at this prayer and we see the ingredients for petitioning the Lord during our distress. It is bathed in humility. It recognizes the sovereignty of God. It reminds God of His promises. It admits that there is no natural answer for us so we merely fix our eyes upon our supernatural God. That is how we remain uncrushed during times of great stress. We try not to solve the problems within our own logic and strength but rather turn to our God and fix our eyes upon Him. The enemy here never stood a chance against God. Jehoshaphat was delivered and that same deliverance is available to all who seek Him today as well. Pressured? Absolutely! Crushed? Not as long as there is a God in heaven I can turn to!

Secondly, Paul says that we are perplexed, or confused. How many of us can raise our hands to that one! This world embraces the polar opposite of what God teaches. Our flesh runs in the opposite direction from thus sayeth the Lord. The enemy is constantly mixing a little truth with a lot of leaven to get us off our game. To get us to compromise what God has already said. Is it any wonder that sometimes the end result is confusion? Have you ever come to the place where you feel that no matter what decision you make it will be the wrong decision? Are we seeking out the solutions of this world at that point? Are we seeking out the opinions of man? Is it any wonder then that the confusion only deepens? At the heart of the confusion are discrepancies between the will of the world and the will of God. Between our flesh and our Spirit. Between the whispering of the enemy and the teachings of God. What does the Bible tell us regarding finding God's will for us?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is --his good, pleasing and perfect will. -- Romans 12: 2 (NIV)

The key verse tells us that while we may be perplexed we will not be driven to despair. Too many Christians walk around bound by the lies of the enemy. Bound by a sense of guilt that Christ sought to take away with His work on the cross. We can fail to understand the enormous gift of grace we have received. Is this a license to sin? Absolutely not but it should be enough to eradicate confusion because we realize that sin requires repentance while there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. If we are to avoid despair we must confront confusion by knowing what God's will for us is. That is found in renewing our mind daily by absorbing His Word and seeking His face in prayer. We renew our mind against the thinking of this world and into the Word of God. His will is found in His Word. No confusion at all. No contradiction. No despair.

Thirdly, we see Paul saying that we are hunted down. The NIV says persecuted. Picked on. Singled out. Once we claim the mantle of Christianity we can rest assured that there will be some persecution. Jesus Himself warned us of just that. Sometimes in our walk we can get to the place where we feel we are constantly being persecuted. If not by the world then even within the church. The enemy is the accuser of the brethren. No one is exempt or immune from it. Sometimes it must feel like we have a bullseye on our back!   Think of Joseph sold into slavery by his own brothers and then falsely accused of rape after taking a righteous stand for God. Now he sits and rots in prison for 13 years. Year after year passes. Feeling persecuted? No doubt. But the Apostle Paul says that while we will feel persecuted we will never be abandoned by God:

But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden. Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The warden had no more worries, because Joseph took care of everything. The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed. -- Genesis 39: 21-23 (NLT)

We read this sometimes and think that Joseph was now in a country club where he had a better cable package than the rest of us. Not so! He was still in prison for 13 years for something he did not do. Falsely accused and imprisoned in a foreign country where if he ever was released he would still be a slave! Joseph was persecuted to the extreme but despite the persecution, God never abandoned him. Sometimes when we are going through our trials and desert experiences we can feel like God has abandoned us. We can look at the totality of the circumstances instead of how God is still working on our behalf inside the persecution. I am sure that there was not a day that went by for 13 years that Joseph did not want out of that prison yet he was still able to see the hand of God at work. That is where we need to get ourselves to beloved. Where even within our persecution and trials we can still see the hand of Almighty God working on our behalf. That gain of perspective is what leads to a larger gain of perspective. When Joseph was finally released and made Chief Steward of Pharaoh, he was able to see the big picture despite the years of suffering and persecution:

But Joseph replied, "Don't be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don't be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children." So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them. -- Genesis 50: 19-21 (NLT)

Joseph was second in command to Pharaoh only. He could have sought retribution against Potiphar, his wife and his own family but he saw what God was doing. He knew he was never abandoned. Things will come against us beloved but God will always be there.

Lastly, Paul says that we get knocked down as Christians. Pressed, confused and persecuted are all feelings. Sometimes however, we lose the battle. Sometimes the flesh wins. Sometimes the world wins. Sometimes the enemy wins. But those are only battles in a long war. I think sometimes we do a disservice to each other to encourage the notion of infallibility. We set ourselves up for failure by implying that we cannot fail because of God. King David was a man after the very heart of God who wrote the majority of the Psalms. He defeated the nine foot tall Goliath. He led Israel to victory after victory. He successfully resisted the enemy in sparing the life of King Saul twice. But one lonely night on his palace rooftop, David would lose a battle. He repented and God restored him but he lost the battle. David was knocked down alright. The Apostle Peter would help build the church as we know it today. He would deliver the first sermon at Pentecost resulting in 3000 people saved. He would help spread the Gospel throughout much of the world before being crucified himself. Yet Peter lost many battles. He lost the battle of faith when he sank in the Sea of Galilee. He lost another battle when he denied knowing Jesus three times and called curses down upon himself in doing so. Peter was knocked down many times.

But the final contrast from key verses is that while we can expect to be knocked down, we will not be destroyed. The enemy seeks to kill and destroy but God is bigger than whatever it is that we face today and forever. I am sure that Peter and David must have felt destroyed but they weren't. I do not know where this writing finds you today. I do not know if you feel pressed on every side, confused and perplexed, persecuted and in trial, or like you have been knocked down hard. What I do know is that God has promised both you and me that we need not be crushed if we fix our eyes on Him. We need not be led into despair if we would transform our thinking to seek His will. We need not worry about God abandoning us -- it simply will not happen. We need not fear being destroyed. Battles will be won and lost between now and the time Jesus comes to take us home -- but the enemy has already lost the war! This world will pass away and Jesus will set up a new kingdom where He has promised to wipe every tear from our eyes. This flesh will come to nothing as we will receive new heavenly bodies. I do not know when God will lead me beside the still waters and calm my situations and I do not know when that will happen for you either. What I do know is that I need to hold onto the promises He has made me in the storm. I will not be crushed because He will sustain me. I will not despair for He will carry me if need be. I will not feel alone because He never leaves me nor forsakes me. I can be knocked down time and again but I will not be defeated because my God will not allow me to be destroyed. Hallelujah and amen! Praise God Almighty!

Reverend Anthony Wade -- July 18, 2012

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.