PRESSURE COOKER

Many years ago a young man worked for me. He worked at the university at night, cleaning buildings, and then worked for me part-time during the day.

He told me he had purchased a new truck. I said, “You told me that your truck was in good condition, why a new one? Did you get a good trade?” He did not have one idea about what he had paid for this new truck, only his monthly payment. We have an entire generation (a generation is 25 years) of young people who know nothing about money, only how to use a plastic credit card.

In this time of recession – depression you only have to walk on the street, listen to concerned citizens to find that the depression is not over, that average people are in a state of “pressure cooker” living.

Everyone wants to blame someone. You just need to look in the mirror. Did anyone believe that America could continue in its runaway inflation, dot-com bubbles, real estate bubble, bail-out bubble? Surely as the great preacher, R. G. Lee, in his great sermon said “pay day some day” had it right. Our national debt can never be repaid, hyper-inflation, derivatives, entitlements.

A person with intelligence does not ingest margarine, the body will not digest synthetics. The alcoholic knows that the more you drink the more you must drink in order to get a buzz. Bitterness accumulates. The couple going through a divorce could never believe the poachers buying their furniture which they worked so hard to get, so loved in their home.

The pressures of life come from our own flaws. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. (Matthew 12:20; Isaiah 42:3). Both in the old testament and the new testament God tells us of his long suffering. Peter knew that he should not have denied Christ. The straying lamb knew that he should not have left the fold. So much of our pressure, depression, our inability to forgive. We want vengeance, the last word, someone to suffer. Don't get into a spitting contest with God. He is going to win. We are taught over and over that our forgiveness depends on our forgiving. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. (Mark 11:25).

Bitterness will cannibalize you (eat you alive)...children who's feet were under the same table, so estranged - bitter in the settlement of their parents' estate. The smaller the estate, usually, the more bitterness.

One of the finest men I ever knew, lived next door to me. His attendant came over and told me about 10pm one night that Bill had died. I realized the funeral home had come to remove the body. Around 11pm, I'm sure his body was not yet embalmed, family members fussing and fighting over “the stuff” in his house...running out the front door shouting insults at one another. Graduate of Williams College, Puritan ancestry, many valuable antiques.

Another next door neighbor took me to the funeral...not one of these fighting-feuding family members in attendance.

Revenge between people, whether family or associates, scars your entire life, changes your personality. Almost 3% of the American population takes anti-depressant medication. There has been a 70% increase in Americans receiving food stamps since 2007.

Of the 7 billion people on earth today no two are alike, now, before Noah's flood, or the future. If you want spectacular evidence, cameras now photographing the iris of every eye. Like a thumbprint, iris flecks entirely different for every human being. Like the grains of sand on the seashore, no two, under the microscope, ever alike. We are not a cookie cutter people. Some of us can take pressure better than others.

King David had an army of misfits around him in the cave of Adullam. From these mighty men of valor, one, Eliezer, such a fighter that his fingers were pried from his sword. Jashobeam, slew three hundred, himself, at one time. In more modern times, Sgt. York (WWI), Audie Murphy (WWII), the test of a man is not when all is going well but when is all is going wrong...the pressure cooker trials of life.

Prize your trials, God is testing you. This writer's greatest blessings have come through “times of testing”. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:7)