Pressure can be a good thing. I know this to be true because right now, the pressure applied to my finger has stopped the bleeding caused by slicing it open on the metal hob extractor. The lesson? Don’t clean.

Seriously though, without pressure there are no butterflies, wounds won’t close, diamonds don’t form, babies aren’t pushed through a birth canal, the garden path doesn’t get clean and the meat isn’t half so tender in your casserole.

We need pressure in our lives.

However, we tend to avoid it as no one likes the idea of being constrained or even crushed because of pressure. We say things like, “she’s under too much pressure” and advise others to lessen their workload so that the pressure doesn’t cause them to buckle under the strain. Self-preservation at all costs! James has another idea:

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.”
James 1:2-3 MSG

Pressure: countless tasks, financial strain, extreme workloads, tense relationships… consider it a gift? I’m not so sure about that! But I do know that when I took the pressure off my finger too soon, the blood kept flowing… “so don’t try and get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work” (James 1:4 MSG) because even though it might not feel very nice, it’s doing an important job.

Pressure compels us to examine what’s important in any given moment. It focuses us and forces out of us what’s really lying inside. Just like when you put pressure on the toothpaste tube – out comes the toothpaste. If you’re feeling under pressure at the moment, don’t run from it, allow it to propel you towards Jesus. Ask God to meet you in the pressure and use it to make you “mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way” (James 1:4 MSG). Your faith is more precious than gold and we all know that goes through a furnace to come out pure.

Pressure can be a good thing. Embrace it.