Have you ever felt overwhelmed by circumstances outside of your control? It’s a frustrating feeling, isn’t it? I don’t like that feeling of helplessness, generally, but when the situation looks like it is not heading in the direction I want it to go, and when the outcome is of great emotional importance to me…well, I can get quite panicked and distressed.
Have you ever been there? How do you respond when you are distressed? Usually, my default is to internalize my feelings. I may look calm outwardly, but inside there is chaos and fear!
Recently, the Lord reminded me of a phrase that was spoken to me almost 32 years ago, when the level of chaos led to some external screaming, and He applied it in a new context.
Like most people in the early days of 2021, I found myself overwhelmed and discouraged about by my inability to change several circumstances that were out of my control. Political upheaval, a pandemic that doesn’t want to quit, ongoing health issues for family members with no answers or solutions in sight, and financial stresses, combined with the needs of so many around me. I was walking around thinking about all of these situations, frustrated by that powerless feeling, when I heard the Lord say, “Stop screaming and push.”
Let me set the scene for you, 32 years ago…
I was in labor with my 2nd child. The pains were pretty intense, but I was breathing through them, and listening to some instrumental music on the headphones of my walkman. (Remember those?) I was doing pretty well, but I knew I had a long way to go, based on my first labor experience a few years prior. (My 1st baby was finally born after 23 1/2 hours of back labor + 4 1/2 hours of pushing. It was intense, and traumatic, and exhausting!)
The nurse came and checked me, and I was surprised to hear I was already about 3cm. At that time, you had to be 4cm to get any pain medicine, so the nurse said she would come check me again “in a little while.” Hallelujah! This is a piece of cake!
About 30 minutes later, she came back, and was chatting with my husband at the end of the bed. While they were chatting, I got a contraction that jolted me out of my focused tranquility and jerked me up to a sitting position. I think I might have even yelled, and I remember the nurse saying, “Well, folks, we’ve entered the transition phase!”
What I remember after that is total chaos. The pains became excruciating for about 5-10 minutes. In the meantime, a nurse checked me and said, “Oh wow! The baby’s coming! Get her to delivery!”
They threw some scrubs at my husband and told him to go down the hall and put them on.
They pumped up the bed I was on and started running down the hall with me, telling me not to push yet. Well, suddenly, my whole body was overtaken by the most powerful urge to PUSH!
I was panicking, wondering where my husband was, and thinking he wouldn’t be able to find me and was going to miss the birth. So, I got up on one elbow so I could turn and see behind me, and I started screaming as they rushed me down the hall,
“M I I I I I I I I I I I KE!”, breathe, … and again, “M I I I I I I I I I I I KE!”
I’m not a screamer, so I nearly gave him a heart attack, but that all-powerful energy to push needed an outlet! I’m sure I must have sent shockwaves of fear that turned the rest of the floor of soon-to-be-moms white with horror, but I couldn’t help myself.
I had never felt such a powerful energy! (I had an epidural for my first delivery, so my urge to push was more like an “if you have any energy left to push, now is when you should do it” kind of subtle inkling).
I had also never felt such an exhilarating release, as I did after screaming my lungs out! The great thing was, I was no longer in pain, and I was hitting my stride! (Is this what a runner’s high feels like?)
My husband followed my cries and found the delivery room. The doctor was in position, and now this baby can come. The problem was, he wasn’t coming, and I was still in chaos mode. Finally, the doctor said to me, “Cathy, stop screaming and PUSH! You are wasting all that energy, and I need you to push this baby out.” That was the gentlest slap in the face, that brought me back to where my focus needed to be. And he was out in about 4 pushes!
So that was the original context, and it is a clear memory for me of chaos and panic, but also of an all-encompassing power that, when I surrendered to it, facilitated the birth of new life, and peace, and overwhelming joy.
I knew when the Lord whispered those words to me this January, “Stop screaming and push”, He was reminding me to stop the panic and start plugging in to the “urge to push” through in prayer, prompted by the only Source powerful enough to move mountains, defeat giants, heal diseases, bring down walls, feed the multitudes, make the barren fruitful, restore the prodigal, and bring the dead back to life.
If you are a born-again believer, “the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.” Romans 8:11 Could there be anything more powerful than the Holy Spirit of God, Himself? He is urging you, and is ready to assist the prayers that you pray, with His overwhelming power! But even if you don’t know the words to say, the fervency and earnestness with which you plead on behalf of the burdens of your heart, will produce the answers to prayer, in accordance with the will of God.
If you are not seeing results, could it be that you have gotten too comfortable with “screaming” and need to channel that earnestness and fervency back into “pushing,” by getting back into alignment with the power source that is just waiting for you to ask for His help?
“And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groaning that cannot be expressed in words.” Romans 8:26
“…The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.” James 5:17-18
Friend, even if your inner world is not experiencing chaos right now, the world we live in IS in chaos. I think if I said to you, “The whole world has gone mad!”, you would be in agreement, even without getting into specifics. There are powerful spiritual forces at work, and we are not going to be able to battle them and win if we are too preoccupied with “screaming” about the things we feel powerless against, or worse still, if we are turning the sword on each other.
WE ARE NOT POWERLESS! But we can render ourselves powerless if we grieve the Holy Spirit by fighting with each other over the best strategy to win the war. Do not be deceived! Divide and conquer is still a very effective battle plan, and our enemy is using it on us, today! Don’t think about how “they” need to change and see things your way. Your way is not the answer, and neither is their way. Only God’s way is going to bring about victory. Let’s not presume to know what God is doing, but in humility let’s make ourselves a part of His plan by praying for His will to be accomplished here on earth.
Imagine what could be accomplished if we would all “Stop screaming and PUSH!”