Day 42-pressure

 Two things happened yesterday.  Rory won the Masters and I had to sit at the gate of the dump for fifteen minutes waiting for the truck to pick up the massive skip things and move them about. This was somewhat annoying. But it enabled me to watch the process which involved a huge hydraulic crane thing picking up the container and dragging it onto the back of a big lorry.  It made me realise that I dont know how hydraulics work.  So when I got home I looked it up.

Im sure you know this cos you are cleverer than me. But hydraulics work on the principle that a stable liquid put under pressure can exercise a much greater force under the right conditions.

Somehow in my head this relates to Rory McIlroy spending 14 years going back to Augusta again and again trying to win the elusive green jacket which was going to put him in the history books.  His talent is unquestioned but its probably no greater than the talent of all the other players on the tour.  The talent is the liquid in the diagram.  The tournament is the container holding the liquid.  The difference between Rory and the other players was probably the pressure that was being exerted,  Everyone is under pressure in a major sporting event, but for Rory each time he came back to compete, the pressure to win must have been greater.  Because each time he was closer to retirement, to losing his edge, to no longer being one of the best in the world, and to some youngster coming up on the inside lane to steal the glory.  There was massive press speculation about whether he was able to do it.  Lots of golfing greats giving him advice. His 4 year old daughter sinking a put in the middle of the week when he kept missing them at crucial moments! 

In the end the huge amount of pressure produced a monumental result.  

We can all feel under pressure at times.  Our circumstances constrain us and the weight keeps piling on.  We can choose to find some sort of valve to release the pressure - and sometimes thats definitely the right thing to do.  But maybe sometimes we need to focus on what we are trying to achieve and allow the pressure to be channelled in such a way that it ultimately moves mountains.

Im reminded of childbirth and the monumental amount of pressure which a woman's body somehow manages to generate in order to push a baby out.  It is agony and literally blood sweat and tears, but in the end that pressure produces life.

So if you feel under pressure just now stop and ask yourself what is about to be born or what is about to be won.  And hang on in there, because , as Rory says , you should never give up on your dreams.  

And as Jesus says   ''He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.'' (Rev 3:5)