Hundreds of colorful notes hung quietly on the wall, tucked away in the corner of the room. The words written on the various papers jumped out at me. One note declared loudly that our team was “Hard pressed to make new wine,” and quoted 2nd Corinthians 4:8, which says, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed.” Another note quoted Psalm 100:5 and told us, “You can do hard things because the Lord is always there.” Many of the papers talked about “strength.” One of the notes said “joy.” These were the words our squadmates had written about our team. At first, the notes seemed like just nice words of encouragement for our team, but then, what spoken over us by our squadmates began to take a new light for me.
We sat in a circle reading a devotional in the house we were about to continue painting. In the devotional, the author talked about how, when she hurt her knee, the doctors told her it was her choice whether she healed fully or partially. She decided to embrace the uncomfort in order to heal fully. She also said that changing the words “have to” to “want to” or “get to” is really important in how one sees life. This got my team thinking. We began to discuss how hard it was to get up early every morning and have quiet time, but how in the end we were so grateful for it. We had to push our tiredness away and simply ask, “God, what do you have for us?” As we continued our conversation, I began to notice the pattern. There was a pattern in what we were saying, in what was being declared over us, in what I was reading, and in what I was experiencing. We recalled the words that had been written about us: “Hard pressed to make new wine.” I realized God was asking us to press in, and we were. Each of us was faced with our own struggles and general exhaustion, and we got to choose to press in. We got to choose to seek after God in each moment, got to and get to.
All the scripture I was reading for class was about prayer, and I noticed that the scriptures talked about being steadfast in prayer, and that we should be persistent and keep praying. “Keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking and you will find. Keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:9-10). Then again in Luke 18:1, “Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up.” In Luke 18:6-8, He says, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly!” As Paul sat in chains, he wrote to the church in Colossae and said, “Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.” (Colossians 4:2). In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul wrote, “Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16). There it was again and again, this idea of pressing in and continuing in prayer. This idea of finding joy and persisting even in hardship.
In the article I read for online class with Truett McConnell University, which is partnering with the World Race, I also noticed this theme. The article discussed Luther and Augustine and their theology on prayer. A conclusion in this article was that “while both thinkers are well known for the beauty and poetry of their heartfelt, free-forming prayer, they also prioritize formalized prayers such as the Lord’s Prayer and task Christians with the responsibility of learning the spiritual discipline of true prayer.” (Drever, 155). In other words, prayer can be considered as both spontaneous and a discipline. In order to seek after God through hard times and be pressed into all He has for us, we have to be both spontaneous and disciplined in prayer. Spontaneous to seek after God in the moment, and disciplined to create a practice of prayer in our lives. Also as a part of this class, we read Hymn 409. Two phrases stuck out to me. “Lord I come to you for rest” and “my guide, my guard, my friend, Lead me to my journey’s end.” These two phrases remind me again of seeking after God when things get tough, and to never stop.
This is exactly what I have been walking through the last few weeks. I was down with a cold and exhaustion, and I found myself constantly leaning on God. At first, I tried to push through. I continued to go to ministry even though I was weak and beaten down. I asked God to show me where He was in that moment as I trudged on, and He did. He gave me the strength to keep going and helped me find rest. Over the weekend, my plans got put on hold. I was stuck in bed while my squadmates were exploring a beautiful waterfall that I really wanted to see. I stayed in the hostel for the whole weekend, but I was still so weak and tired on Monday that I spent the whole day sleeping instead of going to ministry. Yet, in that time, I was able to seek after God. It was hard for me to see the good in that on my own, but as I sought after Him, I found His presence. I felt Him strengthen me. I pressed in and continued to pray even when things weren’t going my way. I let this become my first instinct, to run after the Father rather than turn away and pout. Over the last few weeks, I have watched as my team around me did the same.
I realized that all these words that had been declared over us, while they seemed unrelated at first, were actually all tied together. We were hard pressed, but it produced fruit in our lives. We pressed in when times were hard. We sought after the Lord for strength when things weren’t ideal, and we found His strength, and through all that, we found great joy in what we were doing. After all, isn’t joy just that? Joy is pressing into God and looking for his perspective when things are tough. Joy is happiness that the world can’t understand because by worldly standards, joy is happiness that shouldn’t exist.
By seeking after God in everything I have been doing, and by chasing after what He has for me, I have grown so much. I have began to see the joy God has for me and the joy He has for my team. I began to find happiness in the most peculiar things, and I rejoiced because I was focusing on God’s perspective and not my own. I know my team and I will face more trials and hard times, but I also know that we will press into God in those times, and He will show us what He has for us. He will bring His abundant goodness through hardship and produce new fruit in our lives. We are “hard pressed to make new wine.”
Note: Friends and Family, as you have probably figured out by now, I am taking a class with Truett McConnell University while on the race. Part of this class is to write extra blogs and tie in the reading and talk about what we are learning. This blog is one of those blogs. That said, the theme of pressing in and persevering is a theme I am truly discovering in my life and in my team. When I had my cold, I was asking God what I could learn from it, and then all of these things came together, from what I was hearing, what I was experiencing, and what I was learning with Truett, and I couldn’t get the phrase that my squadmate wrote out of my head. “Hard pressed to make new wine.”
