Keys to Rising Above Pressure, Stress and Trials

Cleaned from the live recording. Lightly edited for reading.

*Host's opening: a minute into ascent, speed and air density put the greatest stress the vehicle will ever feel, and the engines are throttled down so it can press through. Question: why do we go through difficult times and stress when we are trying to rise and get stronger in Christ?*

Why we face pressure when we try to rise

Good morning, and thank you for having us into your home. What a question to start with.

We experience difficult times when we try to rise because we have opponents. The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). The Bible talks about the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2). When we read Revelation, it says the accuser of the brethren was cast down, and because his time is short he goes about, like you said last night, doing what he has to do (Revelation 12:10-12). And we go about doing what we have to do to hinder and negate his work. That's it in a nutshell.

So one, we have an enemy in the devil. But there are other enemies the Bible speaks about. The world: frictions, things around our environment, things we were not born to allow into the vessel to influence our lives. You read psychology and you hear people say they are a product of their environment. Some of us are escaping a terrible past, terrible family traits, family problems, mistakes.

And the Bible mentions another enemy, the one we many times don't look at: our self, the flesh. When you look at rockets, sometimes the very design has limitations. Not necessarily flaws, but limitations, until they discover something better. They have to tailor the ascent to the limitations of the craft. So those are the three enemies we are battling. Some of us weren't strengthened or built or exposed to certain things, so it's a battle.

But that stress, that test, that difficulty you find yourself going through, is what is necessary to prepare you for the future. Every launch, successful or unsuccessful, prepares for the betterment of the next one. They use what they learned, whether through failure or success, to prepare for the next launch.

I read something this week that made me laugh. Somebody said, you don't have to be the experiment. Samson was already a test case, and we could learn from that example. So there you have your answer, bite-size.

*Host adds that higher destinations bring more pressure, and asks the next question: why does God feel silent in a difficult season, when you keep praying and others around you are getting a word?*

*Elder Esther first adds to the earlier question: a teething baby is in pain, but the tooth has to break through the gum so the child can eat, talk and grow. Pain in trials is necessary for us to grow and ascend where the Lord has placed us.*

Pressure matches the assignment

Let me step back to that first question before I go into the next. Listening to you, one of the things coming to my mind is this: you experience difficulties in proportion to the environment you are entering.

Entering Earth's atmosphere is one type of pressure. Exiting is another. But if you are going to Saturn or Jupiter, it's a totally different type of pressure. If you are sending a probe to the sun, it will be built differently from a probe going to the moon, because it has to be prepared for the atmosphere of the sun, which is very hot. For the moon it has to be prepared for coolness, for ice.

So the pressures we go through in life are based on assignment. They are based on destination, on the reach of your ministry, the reach of God's assignment and your giftings. If you've been built for Guyana, God will prepare you for Guyana. If you've been built for Afghanistan, he'll prepare you for Afghanistan.

Stories from the road

We had a perfect example sometime in July when we were in Dubai. We went to a restaurant with Indian cuisine and enjoyed it. The next evening we said we won't go back there, we'll walk and choose a restaurant at random. So Apostle Cory Lee , Reverend France Ford and I walked, and we saw a restaurant that looked really nice outside. We went in, they smiled, directed us upstairs, we sat down and looked at the menu, and we realized it was an Afghan restaurant. We didn't know what to order exactly.

We ordered a meal and it came with an appetizer, some soup. I've never tasted anything like that before. Apostle Cory Lee and Reverend France left theirs. Like the true missionary, I drank mine, so at least the restaurant attendants could see it looked as though we enjoyed it, because they came back and asked how it was.

Then we went to another place in Pakistan, I think in Rawalpindi. They asked if we wanted iced tea while we waited for the meal, and I said yes, because the place was hot and I am accustomed to iced tea. When I tasted the iced tea, I remembered the Afghan restaurant right away. This was nothing like the iced tea we know. I can't describe the taste, and I wouldn't try to describe it live. But when you are being built for something different, you learn how to handle these things.

A few years ago my wife and I went to visit someone. They offered us something to drink, and as good Christians, good ambassadors of the kingdom, we said yes. I started to drink. I've never tasted anything like that, not just the taste but the texture. When I finished, I looked at my wife and said, "How you doing? You need any help?" Because I knew no matter what she tried, that couldn't pass down her throat. You need a certain level of grace to drink that and keep a straight face. So I took it from her and I drank it. To this day we don't know what it was. She tried to give me an explanation, but I can't take that explanation, because it tasted nothing like that.

But you learn from those experiences. God was preparing us for something greater. Now when you go places, I wouldn't say it's fully easy, but it's manageable. You know how to keep your face. Some places you eat and your face breaks out, because people prepare things differently. Different cultures. But like you said with the baby, when these things happen you don't cry. You see it as your immune system being strengthened, adapting to new environments and new foods. It's like teething. You have to grow in capacity to handle these places.

So that's a segue to say why God builds us. It's the environment. If you can't drink the local stuff here in Guyana, you can't survive those places. I eat pepper in Guyana. I love pepper. But when you go to places like Nigeria, you're eating peppers the way you eat curry here. In certain cultures, if your nose doesn't run, it's not good. And there are other places on the African continent that eat much more spicy food than that. So the little things you do here, the training here, is preparing you for other places.

Why God seems silent

When you asked this question I was smiling. One of the reasons we feel God is silent is like an astronaut who watched Star Trek and Star Wars, saw all the action in the movies, all the communication and drama, and now he's on a spacecraft heading to space and there's none of that. Nothing.

What I'm simply saying is that we allow external things, social media, people's exaggeration, people's lives, to set expectations and standards for us. In the movies you are hearing from some galactic spaceport, from Andromeda, asking for clearance and authorization, telling you to wait until the craft docks. There is none of that on the shuttles going to space. So many times as Christians we have to face reality and stop looking at how people paint it. That's one.

Two, we need to understand that communication varies between roles. If you are responsible for communication on a spacecraft, of course you'll be hearing more. You are the one communicating with ground control and the captain, because you're dealing with navigation. But if you are responsible for another part of the craft, you won't hear so much communication.

In the body of Christ we have various roles. The Bible says some are ears, some are hands, some are eyes, some are mouths, some are feet (1 Corinthians 12:14-21). Obviously if you are the foot, you won't hear as much communication from the head. The ears hear, the eyes see, the mouth speaks.

So sometimes in the body the hand wants to talk and the hand wants to hear, and because the hand is not hearing like the ear, it feels out of place. The ear hears all the time. Even if it tries to close off, it's sensory perception, it still hears. And there's the hand trying to figure out what they're talking about. When the brain sends a signal for the hand to do something, the hand senses that, and that's like hearing for the hand. But the rest of the conversation doesn't happen for the hand.

So when you hear prophetic people or prophets talk, you feel they're in a world you don't understand. When they talk as though this should be happening all the time, it builds a certain expectation, and now there's unnecessary pressure on the hand, when everybody is telling everybody you need to operate like the ear. You weren't built for that. You weren't trained for that from a baby, listening and adapting and learning what this sound means. You were built for the signal the brain sends to your hand based on what the ear heard.

So we need to understand our place in the body. We need to understand how our communication comes, how God signals and speaks to us. Or else we'll be frustrated in life, trying to function in a way we were never asked or called to function in.

Also, when we read our Bible, we realize a lot of the men who wrote it were prophets. They functioned as eyes, ears and mouthpieces for God. That was the job. So you can't just pattern your life on all of that.

Growing up in how you hear God

There's another aspect I was sharing with Pastor Sarah that really blessed me. I was listening to Pastor Chris, and he was relating something Kenneth Hagin said, I can't remember if it was in his book on tongues or something else. In a vision or a dream the Lord Jesus came to him and told him clearly: I won't be coming this way to communicate with you anymore. You need to grow and learn how to be led by the Holy Ghost. Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God (Romans 8:14). Not those who are led by dreams and visions. I think that's how he put it. The Lord was telling him that like the rest of the believers, he needed to learn to walk by being led by the Spirit.

We have seasons in our life. How do you communicate with babies when they're young? You show them signs, you make this motion and that motion to get their attention. You speak some kind of gibberish, because you think that's the level they're on. When you're a young Christian, God speaks to us at certain levels too. He speaks in ways we can understand. But then he expects us to grow.

When your child is grown in the home, you speak to them differently. I know when Mommy gave you the eye, there was no shouting, no screaming, no thundering voice. Just that look. It's like you've been given a thousand instructions in one look. That's communication.

There's a psalm I love every time I read it, where the psalmist says our eyes are toward the Lord like the eyes of a servant looking to the hand of his master (Psalm 123:2). You're watching for the signal of the hand or the eye. If your master has dignitaries there and you need to do something, he won't call out do this or do that. You need to know what this eye signal means, what this hand signal means, what this twitch of the mouth means, what this cross of the legs means.

But if you are new to the job, he'll have to call you. He'll whisper in your ear, and you'll say, "What you saying?" Then he has to talk louder, and you say, "Oh, you mean so and so." And still you didn't catch it, so he has to get up and show you: this is what I mean, do this, and when you see this, do that. But after training, when he whispers something, you know exactly what to do. And as you grow more, it may just be a little nod.

So as we grow with God as mature sons, we are supposed to be on a level where we understand him clearly. There doesn't have to be a mother of big visual stuff for you to know the Lord is talking to you or which direction he wants you to go. Sometimes it's a little nudge in the spirit. There's a shift in the atmosphere of his presence upon you.

Even this morning I was praying and smiling, thinking about an incident we had in worship. When you grow and lead in a work, especially when you are called to certain offices or ministries, the Lord deals with you a certain way, and it sometimes requires swift action. But the people around you don't know, because you didn't fall into a trance, you didn't fall on the floor and shake and get up and say thus says the Lord, or speak in tongues for ten minutes and then say I hear the Lord saying. No. He spoke to you very quietly, instructed you, and you moved. And you need people around you who understand that you have to be able to move on the fly.

With a spacecraft, if they detect debris in your way, they don't need to explain it to you. Even if you're landing an aircraft and there's another aircraft on the runway and they say pull up, do you ask why? "But you told us we could land. Can you give me some explanation in the meantime?" And then boom, you die. Time is of the essence.

So all of that in a nutshell says that when God seems distant, he's expecting us to grow, and the means of communication changes. Sometimes the channel changes. Like radio: we were on channel 487. God changed the channel, but because we're accustomed to hearing on that channel, we're not adapting. We're waiting for him to come back to 487, and he's telling us he's on 887 now, but we aren't changing. The communication isn't coming through, not because he stopped speaking, but because we stopped growing, we stopped adapting, we stopped changing.

*Host agrees: after two or three years in the work, the pastor shouldn't have to keep telling you what God is saying; you have to learn God's mode of communication and move quickly when the one covering you gives direction in a service. Elder Esther asks about a young believer who hears mature believers say God speaks to them with a twitch of the eye, goes looking for that, and says the Lord is silent when they don't see it.*

Read the family book

That frustrates you too, because they're trying to skip nursery, primary and secondary school and go straight to university. And they don't want to read the family book. The Holy Bible. It's there. It records how God dealt with different family members.

You're not the first family member struggling in that area. The great prophet Samuel, when he heard God the first time, ran out to the man and said, "Did you call me?" (1 Samuel 3:4-10) He mistook the voice of God for something else.

Pastor Chris said something very important. He said God is funny and serious. God did not talk to Samuel and tell him, "No, it's not Eli, it's me." If Samuel didn't learn in that season, God would have moved on, and he would not have known it was God until after he missed his opportunity. God doesn't hang around all the time waiting on you to figure it out. That's why the Bible says we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

The Bible says test the spirits (1 John 4:1). But some people have been testing the spirits for ten, fifteen years and they haven't come back with any results. After fifteen years of testing, they still don't know when God is speaking and when it's not God. And you are supposed to know that.

So with all of that, you need to read the Bible. You can't substitute things for the Bible. That's one of the mistakes. We read Good Morning, Holy Spirit, a powerful book by Benny Hinn. But even Benny Hinn, when you read the book, will tell you about his early stage with the Holy Ghost and his foundation in the Bible. He didn't just end up where he is. That book is an introduction, so we can grow. So understand your purpose, understand your function, read the Bible. Read the family book. Read the will. If you want to know how things should operate and what's in there for you, you need to read the will.

*Host: the family book has many family stories, and there must be one you can relate to. But reading alone isn't enough; we need the Spirit to open understanding.*

You can't read the family book and do what your Father instructs in it without hearing his voice, without walking in the spirit. If you read the family book and that's not happening, you are reading it but not doing what is required of a family member. And if you're not doing what's required of a family member, you won't reap the benefits, because God's family was designed to function in a certain way.

That's why you read it. That's why you learn. The Bible says Elijah was a man of like passions as we are (James 5:17). The same things that affected him affect us. If something affected him in a wrong way, it will affect us in a wrong way. And the things that had a positive impact on him will have a positive impact on us. When you read about Samson and some of these family members who were just rebellious, and every family has rebellious members, you read that they had a tragic end. Don't think if you do like they did you won't reach the same fate. But if you do like the others who succeeded and did great things, you'll also succeed and do great things. That's why it's there, as instruction and as an example for us.

*Host's next question: some people don't see the difference between the process and a delay they are causing themselves. They blame the devil when God is saying there is character you need to develop to reach your purpose. How do you help someone see that the problem is in them?*

*Elder Esther answers first: sometimes the Lord takes us through things to deal with our character. She shares a time she insisted "it's not me, Lord" until the Lord showed her, when she settled down, that it was her problem. Going around in circles can be God getting your attention. We cannot ascend with weights; baggage makes the fuel fail and you drift back down. When the Holy Spirit pinpoints something, don't push it off on your sister over there. Deal with it. We all came from different homes and teaching, and when the Lord calls us we have to shed some of those characters.*

Check yourself

Imagine we have three spacecraft companies. Two were able to launch successfully. But every time yours goes up, thirty seconds, forty seconds in, it explodes. And you sit in the briefing room complaining it's the competitor's fault. You complain the weather wasn't right today, it seems like every time we go to launch there's some obstacle up there. After a while, those listening will ask, what's wrong with these people? Can't they see where the problem lies?

There is something the other two companies did to move past this level. They learned something and they fixed it. They made the necessary adjustment, the necessary tweak, and so they're going to space. But you just reach into the atmosphere up here and explode.

In our life, start to look internally. If others succeeded in this area, it means there's something they learned, some adjustment they made to their lifestyle, some tweak to get them past this. And I can't blame my environment, because a lot of people grew up in worse environments. People are launching on worse days than me and making it into orbit. But even in bright sunshine, the best of weather, my rocket is exploding, my rocket is going off course. You have to check yourself.

Whose responsibility is your destiny: the case of Saul

There's another part of that question that needs to be addressed. It went like this: if God called you, whose responsibility is it to bring to pass what he purposed for your life? Is it his, is it yours, is it the devil fighting you?

Saul in the Bible is a perfect example. God called him to be king. Imagine the introduction he had to his calling. His father lost his donkeys and couldn't find them. He set off with a servant to find the donkeys. The servant said, hold on, we shouldn't search all over. There's a man of God in town, a prophet. Let us go and see him, and he'll surely tell us how to find the donkeys (1 Samuel 9).

They went to see the man of God, and the man of God had made preparation for them, because God told him they were coming. Imagine the man of God tells you, "I was waiting on you. I have some instructions from the Lord for you." You ate with the prophet of the day. Then he told you, don't worry about the donkeys, your father already found them. Confirmation.

Not only does this man see into the future, he saw you coming. He had so much confidence in his seer gifting that he prepared for you. When you went back home and realized everything this man told you was so, surely if he was right about the donkeys, your destiny is set. I'm going to be king over the land. What prophetic insight. A map to your future.

The Bible describes him as a man of beauty, head and shoulders above the others (1 Samuel 9:2; 10:23). He was the right size, the right picture of what the Israelites were looking for in a king. This is leadership material. A man who stands above the others in a crowd, where you can spot him. You understand human psychology. You want somebody you can rally around, somebody you can vote for, somebody who can encourage other people to vote. Mass appeal, crowd appeal. He was the guy.

And he didn't just have that. He had a prophet. One of the greatest prophets, the greatest judge of that time, of the entire Bible, because Samuel was a true prototype of Christ. He filled all three offices: judge or king, priest and prophet. He is one of the only prototypes who filled all three offices that Christ walked in.

Another way Samuel was a prototype: all the priests came out of the line of Levi. Samuel didn't come from Levi. (Editor note: 1 Chronicles 6:22-28 lists Samuel's family in the line of Levi through Kohath, while 1 Samuel 1:1 calls Elkanah an Ephrathite of Mount Ephraim. Check this point before using it in print.) Just as Jesus did not come from the lineage of Levi. He came from the kingly tribe of David, but he is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 7:14-17).

So this man Samuel had the backing of heaven. The Bible says Samuel grew in favour with God and man (1 Samuel 2:26). He grew in such a way that God did not let one of his words fall to the ground (1 Samuel 3:19). In the days when they wanted a king, Samuel put forward his life's work and pedigree: did I take a bribe from you? Did I do this, did I do that? And when he finished talking, God confirmed what he said. Heaven authenticated him and sent rain in a time of drought (1 Samuel 12:3-18). That is the level of the prophetic. When Samuel moved from place to place, the rulers of the place used to ask him if he came in peace (1 Samuel 16:4).

If you're talking about having a prophetic word from an authentic man of God, this is a man heaven backs. Heaven says, give him what he wants, do what he says. Gabriel, Michael, don't come and ask me if you should do it. He spoke it, just go and do it. It's like this man had a blank check in the prophetic. Whatever he speaks, that's it.

Saul had that kind of backing for his future. And yet he failed miserably. Why did he fail? Because of pride, because of haste, because of trying to be a people pleaser. You know those people we see in offices always licking up to people anyhow. He was that type. They gave him instruction to deal with this king in a certain way. He came back: I did this and I did that, but the people. Everything was the people (1 Samuel 15:15-24). He allowed external forces to shape the direction of his life more than the Spirit of God. And he failed.

When we allow our life to be governed and directed by external forces and not the word and the Spirit of God, we will always fail and not become what God has planned for us. It's not that God's plan is not correct. It's not that God can't bring it to pass. It's not that you don't have the agency and power to make it happen. But if you don't allow his Spirit to lead you and follow the instructions of his word, and you allow external forces to do that for you, you will never meet his desired outcome for your life.

*Host closes: whether internal or external, it all comes back to the Spirit. Service times and invitation follow.*