SQUEEZED

How many weeks had this tube of toothpaste provided what we needed? I couldn’t remember as I tried to squeeze out the last dab to brush my teeth. I knew we had a fresh tube ready to replace it. But as I pushed the dollop onto my toothbrush, I thought, this is how we’re living today—under great pressure, hoping we’ll have what it takes to get through this day, this week, this month, and more.

I was reminded of how Paul admitted to similar depletion in his exhausting missionary journeys.  He wrote the Corinthian church regarding ministry in “Asia” (today’s northern Turkey): “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life” (2 Corinthians 1:8). This is the same man who mentioned times he had great need as well as “enough,” sometimes well-fed, but sometimes hungry, sometimes having enough to live, and sometimes living in want (Philippians 4:12).  But he’d learned “The Secret”—that he could be content in any and every situation because “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” (v. 13).

Feeling the “squeeze” as a Christian in a non-Christian world was normal for early believers. Another church leader, Peter, had to remind people that enduring a “painful trial” didn’t mean they were following the wrong Leader.  If they were insulted for being Christians, he said, “you are blessed, for the spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Peter 4:14). But make sure, he added, that you don’t have “murderer, thief or any other kind of criminal, or even a meddler” in your resume.  Such behavior, as unconfessed sin, did not belong in the Christian’s lifestyle.

Yes, life can be hard. Paul used strong words to describe feeling “squeezed out”:  hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down (2 Corinthians 4:8). Yet it’s these very times and experiences that are building our faith:

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).

Those are worthy words to write out on a 3x5 card and post somewhere you can see and memorize it. Maybe even the bathroom mirror, right above that steadily depleting tube of toothpaste.