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Hi! Hope all is well with each of you. The Embrace family is fine--lots of activity! The Lord is merciful and as usual, supplies the energy and stamina we need to continue to minister wherever He sends us. Dane, Marci, Melinda, and Paul have traveled without the rest of our tribe quite a number of times this month. Many of the trips have been long and somewhat difficult with sleeping on the bus and showering in less than pristine truck stop bathrooms. (We have a whole new respect and admiration for these road warriors we call truckers.) We do love our comfortable beds and clean bathrooms. Sometimes we might take them for granted if it weren’t for the rare occasions when we’re denied these luxuries.

There are times like these when the area of ministry we find ourselves in doesn’t resemble anything we thought it would be . In those times the places and circumstances the Lord takes us into might make us feel a little “squeezed”--pressed beyond what we find comfortable or familiar--and we don’t like it! Human beings often respond well to the grand and heroic crisis of life while the day-to-day difficulties can be pretty hard to bear. Been squeezed lately? I have. I’m sure you have too. It’s in these times God can really use us if we’re being obedient to His call on our lives.

As God’s people, we are called to be poured-out wine for Him to a lost world. Oswald Chambers, the great Christian author, said concerning this, “If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed--you cannot drink grapes.” He goes on to explain that through consistent loving obedience to the Master over time we “ripen” and develop the sweetness that God desires from our lives. Am I willing to be squeezed by whatever means the Lord chooses for me? Many times I am not. In my humanity, I want to pick when, where, how, by what and/or by whom the pressure is applied. I pray the Lord will help me to yield even when I can’t see His hand actually doing the “squeezing”--like the next time the kids fight all the way to Sunday School or your ornery neighbor’s dog shreds your garbage all over the yard. Perhaps the “squeezing “ in your life is harder right now, much more painful. You can trust God to apply only the pressure that is needed to yield that sweetness from your life that will flow out and be a blessing to a world dying of thirst around you.

Our prayer should be that as we are pressed by life, that we’ll turn to the Lord Jesus who “… was crushed for our iniquities;…he poured out his life unto death,…For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:5,12-NIV) This same chapter in the book of Isaiah tells us that it pleased the Father to crush him that he might be made an offering for our sins. What a sacrifice for you and for me!

So when the pressure is on and it hurts tell the One who knows what it feels like. I often think of the desperate prayers that were surely offered up by Ruth Bell Graham as she parented rascally Franklin Graham while her husband, Billy, was away preaching As the mother of a 200% boy, my favorite account of her being “squeezed“ is the time Franklin was so tormenting his siblings on a family car ride that his mother pulled over and put him in the trunk of the car for the remainder of the ride home. Although funny now, I doubt there was much humor in the situation at the time, yet we see the heart of a mother who remained faithful. She yielded that sweet wine that would later draw her rebellious son back to the cross and to Christ. Franklin is now following in his father’s footsteps, winning a world for Jesus.

This same Jesus feels our pain and cries with us when life makes us holler, “Ouch!” Let’s turn to Him and let Him press from our life the sweetest wine we can give for the sake of the One who gave His best for us.

Love in Christ from Embrace to you.

http://www.embraceministry.com

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