Pressed Beyond Measure

Perhaps like Paul, you are being pressed beyond measure, tested beyond your endurance. Your strength is nearly gone, and you are on the brink of giving up. You want to run, but there is no place to go. Now you say with Paul, “This is above my strength!”

What is the way to victory? All I can tell you is how God continues to bring me out. Here are two important truths he has given me:

1. Don’t think you are experiencing some strange, unique battle. On the contrary, you are in good company. Recall Job, Jeremiah, Elijah, David and Paul. What you are going through is common to believers throughout the centuries.

“Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:12-13, NKJV).

2. When you think you can’t go on another hour, when everything looks absolutely hopeless, cry out to God with all that is in you, “Lord, help!” Consider the counsel of the psalmist in the following verses: “As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord shall save me. Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice. He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me, for there were many against me” (Psalm 55:16-18). 

“I will love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. …In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; he heard my voice from his temple, and my cry came before him, even to his ears” (Psalm 18:1-2, 6).

Here is a key verse: “For he will deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also, and him who has no helper”(Psalm 72:12). Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to be your helper, and he will not turn a deaf ear to your cry for help!