Pressure or Refinement?

Recently, I confided in a friend about some stress I felt but couldn’t make sense of. Usually my stress ebbs and flows as days pass and circumstances change, but for whatever reason, this stress was constant. It wasn’t going anywhere, even though I really wanted it to. 

While I sat there stumped, my friend asked me what my stress felt like. It wasn’t something I’d thought about before, and yet my heart and my body already knew the answer. The word tumbled out: pressure. This sensation of pressure was driving my actions and my motivations, and in the process, slowly choking goodness out of my life. 

David also felt the weight of pressure after he was betrayed by a close friend. In his hurt, he writes, “I am restless and in turmoil with my complaint, 3 because of the enemy’s words, because of the pressure of the wicked. For they bring down disaster on me and harass me in anger.” (Psalm 55:2-3) Pressure here is translated as ‘threat’ or ‘oppression.’ It isn’t the healthy nervousness we feel before giving the big presentation or going on a first date–it’s suffocating, and pushing us to act a certain way whether we want to or not. 

Here, David attributes pressure to the wicked harassing him. In my case, I attributed pressure to specific circumstances that created stress. But what if pressure doesn’t come from either of those sources? What if the circumstances themselves aren’t what create pressure, but rather the weight we give them? Aren’t we in charge of what thoughts and circumstances we give weight to, and those that we don’t? 

When we walk through hard circumstances, stress is inevitable, but pressure doesn’t have to be. The difference is where we place our trust.

I could keep walking through trials in my life by trusting in myself: not communicating how I feel, not giving my concerns space, and pressuring myself to focus on the good. Or, I could choose a different way. 

I could remember that I’m “being guarded by God’s power through faith.”

I could “rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, [I] suffer grief in various trials.”

I could trust that trials produce “the proven character of [my] faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire.” 

I could count on this: it’s through trials’ refining fire that we become living testimonies of “praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:5-7) 

In trials, we choose to carry pressure or experience refinement. 

Our self-imposed pressure is not from God, but refinement is.

Pressure happens when we depend on ourselves. 

Refinement happens when we depend on God. 

Pressure comes when we try to prove ourselves in our own strength.

Refinement comes when we rest in our faith, guarded by God’s power. 

More than any external factor, pressure is typically sustained by us, but there’s a better way. When we choose refinement and trust the Lord to sustain us, pressure melts away. We are protected, we are made further into the image of God, and He is glorified. 

Scripture promises us that we will walk through difficult circumstances. We get to choose how we will endure: through pressure or through refinement. Neither are easy, but one is “more valuable than gold.” (1 Peter 1:7) Refinement is the best way, and I pray that we’ll all have the courage to choose it.