Troubled Times? Go to the Lord!

September 21,2025

As a football fan, I have discovered that many games billed as “classics” often turn out to be duds. However, one game that lived up to its billing was the Georgia-Tennessee game last Saturday. As the clock wound down to the end of the fourth quarter, Tennessee found itself with an opportunity to kick a game-winning field goal. The kid attempting to kick the field goal was just that, a kid. He is a sophomore at UT, which would make him around nineteen or twenty years old. There he was with the game on the line in a stadium full of 100,000-plus rabid Vols fans cheering him on. Just as he got ready to kick, a Vols player jumped offsides, forcing the young man to kick the ball five yards further. Talk about pressure. For those who care, the kid missed the kick, and the Vols went on to lose the game in overtime. I really felt for the kid who missed the kick, and I’m pretty sure the kid who jumped offsides was probably not allowed back into his dorm room. Pressure points. We all face them. Some of them occur through no fault of our own, while others (like the kid attempting the field goal) are of our own making. As a kicker for his football team, this young man will most likely have other opportunities to redeem himself. Some of the pressure points we face in life don’t carry extreme consequences. Yes, the kicker missed the kick, and his team lost the game, but when all was said and done, the situation was just that, a game. Other pressure points have bigger consequences, some of them critical and life-changing. You get a pink slip from work, or a life-altering diagnosis from your doctor. The question isn’t if we will face these kinds of pressure points because we will. The question is, when faced with these major pressure points, where do we turn? A case study for dealing with pressure points is found in 1 Kings 1. The king of Israel was in an upper room and had somehow fallen through some lattice work at least one story, and maybe more. We don’t know how tall this building was. What we do know is that this fall had left him in bad enough shape that King Ahaziah seriously thought he might die. Ahaziah had his men go to Ekron, which is in Philistine territory, and ask the Philistine God whether he would live or die. In contrast to Ahaziah, I am reminded of another person who faced a life-altering pressure point. The night before His arrest and crucifixion, Jesus faced such a pressure point that the record tells us Jesus was sweating drops of blood while in the Garden of Gethsemane. Where did Jesus go when faced with enormous pressure? Contrary to Ahaziah’s actions, Jesus went to the One who could make a difference. Ahaziah went to a useless idol, while Jesus went to God. So, beloved, when faced with pressure points, turn to the One who can make a difference. Turn it over to God. Like the words of a comforting old hymn remind us, when faced with times of trouble, where can we go but to the LORD?

Be blessed and be a blessing . . . Bro. Andy