#129 PRESSURE

Ever try to clean beef stew off the kitchen ceiling?  One fellow had to do it and he tells about it: During World War II, a hardware dealer in his home town had told him that he had unexpectedly received a pressure cooker in his stock and he'd sell it, if he wanted to buy it. So the fellow telling the story said he would.  Listen to his story.  He says, "Well I bought it and took it home.  It was a great help, the cuts of beef we got then needed a pressure cooker to make them tender enough to eat." He says, "My wife was preparing stew one day, and a bang and a call from the kitchen brought me running." He says, "The pressure cooker had blown up and what was suppose to be in the cooker was on the ceiling.  It had a safety valve," he says, "that's suppose to cut off the excess steam but some how that safety valve had become clogged, and the pressure built up until the little rubber plug that was in the safety valve let go with a bang and that pot emptied itself through that quarter inch hole." You know there are a lot of us, I guess, that have looked at that pressure cooker on the stove and we've seen ourselves in that pot -- you know what I mean.  Sometimes pressure builds up inside of us and it comes to the point that, well we honestly believe if something doesn't let go we're going to fly apart -- we're' going to explode.  Pressure it gets to all of us.  Sometimes it seems that all of our release valves have some how clogged up and we can't let off any steam and we think we're just about to explode.  I guess that what makes the pharmaceutical business so profitable.  More and more of us these days are under some kinds of pressures -- so we take tranquilizers, we pop the aspirin, we try to take things that will honestly help us to get rid of the pressures.

You know where pressures really come from?  There are a lot of us who think that pressure is generated from those things that build up on the outside of us.  But pressure doesn't come from the outside, it comes from inside.  In other words, no person alive can put you under pressure.  That is, except you; you're the only one that can do that to yourself. If you've got pressure, it came from inside you.  Now sure, the pressures we're under are our responses to, we'll guess we could say, to those external circumstances -- you know those things that happen on the outside.  The internal pressure comes from our response to what happens to us externally.  But the point is, if there's pressure it's because we have allowed ourselves to build it up.  That means wives can stop blaming their husbands for the pressure they’re under.  Parents can stop blaming their children.  Employees can stop blaming the boss.  Citizens can stop blaming their country.  The only one you and I can blame for the pressure we are under is ourselves.  I don't know how many times I've heard, "If my circumstances were different," or "If my job were different," or even, "If my income were more (and so on) then I'd get rid of all these pressures." Nope, you wouldn't.  If you're the kind of fellow who lets the things that happen to you get to you then it won't matter what happens to you it'll always get to you.  That's right - you'll always be under pressure.  You know, even Jesus Christ had to get away from some pressures.  When He walked the earth, a lot of people crowded around him wanting to hear what He had to say.  Even those friends of His that he had sent out on missions had to get some relief too.  So one day as His friends crowded around Him to tell Him all they had done and taught, Jesus noticed that so many people were coming and going that His friends didn't even have a chance to eat.  So He said to them, "Come with me, by yourselves, to a quiet place and get some rest." Jesus knew what they needed; He has a way of knowing everything we need.