Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love, which you have shown from long ages past.
Psalm 25:6 NLT
We live in a fast-moving and often brutal world, often forced to live at a pace that leaves us breathless. We easily tire under the weight of life’s competing demands. So many of the prayer requests I receive reflect today’s challenge of affordable rent, employment opportunities and financial stability. It is evident we have to navigate our way through a pressured life that increasingly challenges our mental health.
Recently I received notice from a credit agency that I owed my old mobile phone company money. It was a small sum, around £28. I wanted to challenge this since I’d cancelled my account appropriately. Then the problems began. Firstly, there was no phone number to talk to a fellow human. After trying to talk to a human being, eventually I paid up, under the threat of further penalty charges.
Fortunately God is not some unreachable rule-enforcer. He is a personal friend who works with us. I am supported in learning more about who I am, and introduced into a community of other people, each one pursuing God and finding connection with the divine promise through encounter with God and participation within the community of God’s faithful. As I feel increasingly alienated from a world that demands so much of me, I grow closer to God.
Yet the world that pressures me finds it difficult to embrace the God I worship.
So even my faith choices place me at odds with society; another potential source of pressure.
The way I choose to live lies within my own gift. I accept God’s compassion and love. The flood waters of circumstance may be licking at the threshold of my life, yet I can find peace and confidence in God.
QUESTION
How do you cope best with pressure?
PRAYER
Lord, may I trust myself entirely into your hands.
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