Pressing Points

By Lucy Kyllonen

Is there anyone out there that hates olives as much as I do? Ugh! I find them to be so distasteful and unappealing as well. And, I absolutely hate when I bite into one by accident. I’m that person that usually doesn’t fuss when my server doesn’t get my order to my exact specifications. I can live with it and go on, especially if I am starving. But if I forget to mention to remove the olives or the server forgets that one important detail, then hands down, we’ve got to fix this error immediately! There are no exceptions to this rule for this girl right here!  But if I am honest with you, once I found out the story behind the olives, I learned to admire them, even from a distance. Especially since, I actually love the end product - olive oil. I won’t eat the olives, but I absolutely love the oil that it produces. This tiny little fruit produces such a powerful punch and what it endures to produce its unique oil needs to be noted. 

Olive trees and the abundance of oil they produce were very significant in the lives of the people of the Bible. It was a leading agricultural product, an important part of their diet, and part of their religious practices.

 The most common use of olives and the oil they produced was the source of light for the people-lamp stands and in the temple, the light of this flame symbolized God's presence.

Do you know that your life right now can be compared to that of an olive?

But do you know what an olive has to go through before it produces oil?

Before we experience breakthroughs in our lives, there will be pressing points in our lives. These are points where there is a heavy weight upon us. When we are being squeezed; our bodies are manipulated or extracted by the intense pressure. Think of it this way, when you go get a massage, they ask you what are your trouble areas and what kind of pressure do you want? They ask because they are going to deliberately press into your trouble areas, the knots in your body, and smooth them out with their body massaging techniques. And if you have gotten a massage before, you know it’s quite possible to feel a little sore or tender before you begin to feel like a million bucks again.

So what if I told you that your pressing points can be a gift from God that feels nothing like a gift at all?

What if I told you that Jesus knows all about your pressing points, your crushing heart feeling that you are so desperately trying to avoid?

What if I told you that the kind of breakthrough you experience all depends on how much you allow God to press out of you?

John 18: 1-2 says, “When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side, there was an olive grove, and he and his disciples went into it. Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.”

 The olive grove mentioned above is in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is the night that Jesus was arrested. It is no coincidence Jesus was surrounded by olive trees in the moment of deepest sorrow. A pressing point for him.

In this garden is where Jesus, surrounded by olives, just before his arrest said to Peter, James and John, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Mark 14:34).

I don’t know what your pressing points are. Maybe you are overwhelmed with life and all the depressing current events. Maybe you lost someone you love dearly. Maybe you are going through a divorce or maybe the children that you love are pressing points for you. I may not know your pressing point but I know that you have gone through some and that you will experience new and maybe even unexpected pressing points in your life.  

This is why I want to share with you that the olive tree is such a perfect picture of why our hearts must go through the pressing points before we experience breakthroughs in our lives. 

Did you know that in order for the olive tree to produce olives it needs wind? The harsh hot dry winds from the east - from the desert. It also needs the refreshing winds of the west. This is the wind from the Mediterranean that brings rain and life. The olive tree needs both of these winds to produce fruit… and so do we. We need both the winds of hardship and winds of relief to sweep across our life if we are to truly be fruitful and have our purpose be fulfilled.

Did you know that in order to get the bitterness and hardness out the olives it has to go through a process? The olive tree is naturally bitter and for the olive to be edible it has to endure a lengthy process of….

washing,

breaking,

soaking,

sometimes salting,

and waiting some more.

If we are to escape the natural bitterness of the human heart, we have to go through a long process as well… the process of being washed by living water, broken of our sin, soaked in living water, salted with God’s Word, and waiting for all of this to take effect in the garden of our heart. If you are waiting for a breakthrough and you are bitter, then you are not ready for the breakthrough.

And lastly, did you know that in order to extract the oil from the olives, they must be crushed? When you are harvesting olives for oil, you must pray for soaking rain to come. It needs a hard rain of at least 2-3 hours so the water can make it all the way up the roots, through the tree, and to the olives.

Plenty of rain softens the olives and prepares them for extraction. Then they will be ready to be crushed and the oil extracted from them. The same is true for us. The Biblical way to be preserved is to be pressed. And being pressed can certainly feel like being crushed.

We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:8 & 9 (NIV)

So what does this all mean? Crushing isn’t the olive’s end.

Keeping this perspective is how we can be troubled on every side yet not distressed… pressed to the point of being crushed but not crushed and destroyed. The olive is useful before it is crushed, during its crushing, and after it’s crushed.

Your pressing point is not your end. When you feel pressed on each side, remember, that God is getting ready to release something beautiful from within you. Without changing your perspective on olives and your perspective on your pressing points, what’s the point of a breakthrough, if you can’t see it for all the goodness that it is for you and in you?

I may not eat my olives, but I do appreciate what they go through so that I can enjoy the immense health benefits of its oil.

Hey friend, your oil is coming!