Under Pressure? How to Pray When Life Feels Heavy

When you are under pressure, it is time to watch and pray!

Jesus says to His disciples in Matthew 26:36, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.”

But notice that during this time of pressure He asked three of His disciples, His closest friends, to pray with Him. He became sorrowful and deeply distressed.

He was in the beginning stages of literally pouring out His soul unto death as we find proof of in Isaiah 53:12:

…because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Making intercession wasn’t a prayer! It was a place! He stood in the gap for humanity! He took our place!

Hebrews 7 says that Jesus forever lives to make intercession for us!

But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:24-25).

His life became the intercession. He took our place! Jesus laid down His life, so we could find ours in Him. What a God! What a Lover, and what a Friend! He did that for you!

Thank God there is a prayer called intercessory prayer, which is a prayer that you can pray on behalf of someone else. But this is not what Isaiah was prophesying! Jesus was taking our place so that He could pray for us, and we could eventually pray for others as a result.

Jesus is the only One who could pay that price! It was a price that no one else could afford. Jesus became the only Way to the Father. He bridged the gap forever.

When Jesus was in the Garden of Pressure, He reached out to Peter, James, and John, three of His closest friends on earth. He asked them to pray with Him and stay alert. To watch and pray.

Then as this process of Jesus being divided starts to happen, Matthew 26:39 tells us that “He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.’”

We see the struggle as He was being divided! He had to make a decision! Was He going to do what He wanted or was He going to obey the Father’s plan?

So then He goes back to the disciples, but they are sleeping and He says to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me for one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit [obviously the human spirit] is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:40-41).

Then He prayed the same prayer again in Matthew 26:42 and 44:

Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

What kind of prayer did He pray? It was a prayer of consecration, a prayer of surrender or yielding of self—and it took Jesus three times to pray the same prayer before He was ready to move forward into the will of God. He was committed to the will of the Father no matter what!

What a huge revelation this is for us today!

When we are being tested, when we are in a time of pressure, the best thing we can do is submit our soul to the will of God! Whatever high thing is coming against you, go lower; go deeper; surrender and pray it out as many times you need to pray it, even if you are using the same words! Humble your self and refuse to do anything independent from the will of God.

I want you to see the process here as Jesus was being divided! As His spirit and His soul were being divided, He responded to this process the way all of us should respond.

He was determined to fulfill the will of God no matter what! He wanted to make sure that He was submitted and yielded to the will of God, even if it took Him three times to pray it out.

Dying to Self

By continuing to submit to God and pray and deny self and submit His soul (psuché), Jesus was literally dying to His humanity. His soul was dying even before He went to the Cross and gave His life.

None of us know exactly what we will do when we face death, but it is amazing how important self-preservation will become. It is often in the face of death or in a place of major loss that the soul will want to be in control the most.

One day when my friend Greg Mohr was teaching on healing, he said, “I guess it just comes down to the fact that you have to value the Cross more than your loss!” Wow! That hit me so strong that I wrote a song about it titled “Value the Cross.”

In John 12:24-25, Jesus says:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life[psuché] will lose it, and he who hates his life [psuché] in this world will keep it for eternal life [zoe].

A seed must die to produce! If we sow our natural life into the will of God by giving our life to Christ, we gain eternal life. That starts the minute we give God our yes! Eternal life doesn’t happen when we die physically! It happens when we die to self and give God our yes!

Sure, we are going to have challenges in this life, but look at what we see in God’s Word! Hebrews 12:3 tells us to “consider Him [Jesus] who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”

We need to consider Jesus and what He did so that we don’t get to a place where we want to quit! Notice the soul is where the “weary and discouraged” happens. This is real and no one is immune. The soul is where we can get discouraged if we don’t do what God is saying.

This word consider in Hebrews 12:3 means “to fix your thoughts or to keep your focus on” Jesus. This is so important!

When our heart is being divided with the sword of the Word and we are feeling the process of being squeezed or feeling divided in our soul, even for a short time, it is not pleasant! Even though the kingdom of God is all about righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, this journey we are on is not just about having fun!

Even though Jesus loved the Father and was one with the Father, during this time of testing and separation from the inside out, He could have chosen to not submit. It is the same for us. We always have a choice!

Are you willing to give God your yes even in times of pressure?

Discipline

Our Father God deals with us as sons and daughters and brings correction to us by His word—through Spirit and Truth doing their work. Because you are a child of God, you are going to be corrected. If you want to be a disciple, you are going to be disciplined so you can be a disciple.

You will never have the power to change yourself. The world’s version of behavior modification and trying to be the best self you can be just doesn’t work! Everything depends on you. You are the source, and your behavior is the fruit. Instead, God wants us to deal with the root.

Jesus became the truth and the way for us! Our part is to humble ourselves and allow the Lord to use the Word to separate from us what needs to be cut off.

Hebrews 12:5-11 says,

And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

I’ve heard people ask, “What is wrong with me?” “Why does it feel like I am being disciplined?” Nothing is wrong with you! Don’t be discouraged! The Word of God is revealing something that you don’t need—a wrong attitude or a lie—so that you can see His plan instead of yours. He shows you something in your soul that needs to be brought under control. Again, you don’t have to go looking for what is out of balance. The Holy Spirit will show you, and He will help you!

Have you ever watched a movie that you loved 20 years ago, and thought was so funny, only to realize that it is full of bad language or situations that are not glorifying the Lord? Let that awareness be encouraging to you because you are growing! Those things didn’t bother you originally, but because of the transformation inside you, you don’t even want to waste your time on it. That is awesome! You aren’t where you were!

As Bible teacher Andrew Wommack often says, “No you haven’t arrived, but thank God you’ve left!”

When the Word of God begins to separate you, dividing your spirit and your soul, you will often havefeelings of being pressed or squeezed from the inside out instead of the outside in. It feels like something is being removed from you, because it is!

I will never forget one night when several ministry friends of mine were all in a prayer room and we were laying our lives before the Lord and trusting Him for breakthrough. One of my friends turned to me and said, “This dying thing is killing me!” At that point, contagious laughter erupted throughout the entire group! I am confident that if a merry heart does good like a medicine, we were being totally healed of fear and many other things!

Hebrews 12:1-2 says:

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith….

You need to lay aside every weight! When you see something within you that is not the image of Christ, you need to lay it aside by looking at Jesus so you don’t become discouraged in your soul. You might be asking, “Daniel, how do I do that?” You lay it down by recognizing that the lies you were believing are weighing you down and then replacing them with God’s provision, His promises, and what He says about you. Don’t allow the weight of those lies to continue becoming heavier and heavier. Shake them off! Lay them aside!

Look at this scripture one more time:

And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? (Hebrews 12:5-7)

Words like despise, faint, and endure are all words that deal with the soul.

Hebrews 12:9 goes on: “Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?”

This is one of the challenges in our generation today! A father lovingly corrects and disciplines for the good and growth of the child. Unfortunately, there are so many children today who are fatherless. Many who are living life as orphans or slaves instead of sons and daughters.