Let’s face it. Stress knows your address! No one is immune to adverse and strenuous situations. But we do not have to allow ourselves to be driven to despair!

“In my distress, I prayed to the LORD, and the LORD answered me and set me free” (Psalm 118:5 NLT).

Press and breathe!

“There’s an evil wind blowing no good.” The stress of that evil wind leads to distress which expresses itself as extreme anxiety, pain, or sorrow. At the same time, “There’s a righteous, mighty wind blowing Holy Ghost power, and it feels so good!” Those (emboldened) lyrics are from an old song, “Let My Jesus In,” by the Beautiful Zion Missionary Baptist Church Choir, the first gospel choir to have a crossover hit, “I’ll Make it Alright,” 20 years before Kirk Franklin. Click the link below to listen to “Let My Jesus in.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzaDcDh8–g

Now when you are beset with anxiety you are stressed. But when you add pain and sorrow, you are distressed! I have been distressed as recently as this week. Yesterday, I met with my gym trainer, “Ernie,” for my weekly one-hour training session. He put on something called a Converging Chest Press machine.  It had me lifting heavy weights in a controlled manner while strengthening the core muscles in my upper chest. As I struggled, Ernie kept telling me to “press and breathe through it.” “Breathe in through your nose while lifting and breathe out through your mouth while releasing,” he instructed.

I wondered why it was called a converging press machine, so I looked up converge which simply means to come together, to meet at a certain point. When we breathe, we inhale clean oxygen through our nostrils which meets and causes us to exhale stale air, carbon dioxide, through our mouths. In Genesis, God blew His Ruach and breathed into man through his nostrils! That’s when man opened his mouth, freely exhaled, and began to live.

We are stressed by stale air in our lungs, the evil wind of the devil that causes extreme anxiety, sorrow, and pain. We feel bound, weak, and weighted down. BUT, when we inhale, fresh, pure wind, oxygen converges with stale wind, carbon dioxide. The Ruach (wind) of the HaKo’desh (Holy Spirit) meets the stale carbon dioxide of the devil. Then we open our mouths, breathe, release the weight, and live!

Psalm 118 is called a “Hallel” or praise song. In it the psalmist tells us what he did when he was in distress. First, he called on the LORD! That’s the press. When we pray, we are doing something. We are pressing and strengthening our core! The LORD answered and set him free. I believe God blew into his nostrils. The psalmist then breathed. He opened his mouth and halleled (praised) God, thus expelling that evil wind of the devil. 

Listen! If you are distressed by your life’s circumstances, pressed on every side by troubles, on your job, in your home, poor health, financial difficulties, relationship failures, lack of growth, and unable to move forward, just Press and Breathe (pray and praise God)!

Focus Quote: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair” (2 Corinthians 4:8 NLT).

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Reminders: I would love to hear from you!!!  If you would like to respond to any of my thoughts, share a praise report, a prayer request, or share something I can include in the next weekly focus, please just email or text me at the number below.

Project 2024: “If My people who are called by my name would humble themselves and pray…”

Also, please do not neglect to VOTE in November!

And please continue to join us at 5:14 p.m. each day as we pause to pray.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14). 

Just pause and pray wherever you are. There is no call line or Zoom link to which you need to remember or retrieve and connect. Just connect to God and pray! I will also be praying with you.