Worship in the Pressing

This week, I shared with a brother that I was feeling intense pressure as I stood upon the ground given.  His response wasn’t NLT or NIV, it was from the posture of surrender for the wisdom I needed in the very moment.

Focus on the oil, not the press… Wow.

The pressure is the means, the oil is the fruit. How many times do we spend our energy fighting the instrument press when we should be worshiping our way through it?

Our natural response is to focus on the pressure itself, the unfairness of it, the weight of it, the demands, the pull of pressure, the loud noise, and the focus as it attempts to drain.

When the focus is on the pressure, we forget to worship, and we end up fighting the season and fighting ourselves.

The oil is where the GLORY is being secreted,  where authority is deepening.   

Let’s resolve to worship through it rather than resist it.  Let it be worship. 

Not resignation.

Not white-knuckling each moment.

Focus on the raw worship that cultivates from the press. 

The joy in knowing what’s being formed in and through the tool God chooses to multiply HIS GLORY through us as Sons and Daughters.

Pressure on rock produces a diamond. Pressure on an olive produces oil. Pressure on grapes produces wine. What are we producing in the moment? 

The press is not the enemy, it’s an instrument, and our job isn’t to escape the press. Our job is to keep our focus on what the press is creating within each one of us.

I am learning that when I feel the intensity, it’s not screaming "failure" for doing something wrong. It’s the evidence that something valuable is being extracted. The glory of the Lord is landing in these moments and seasons as they make way for the truth and the life within our surrendered posture. 

Don’t fight the season, worship your way through it.

2nd Corinthians 4:7-11

We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body, the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

This is the press of scripture producing the oil. The affliction extracts the life of Christ.

Isaiah 53:5

He was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed. 

My goodness, this is Jesus in the press himself!  Jesus becomes the oil poured out, and this is the oil that heals the nations as we tip and pour.

1 Peter 1:6-7

In this, you rejoice, though, now for a little while, if necessary, you’ve been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory in honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 

The fire is in the press, and the tested faith is the oil being produced.

The press isn’t punishment. It’s the instrument of extraction.

Let’s worship our way through today and the days ahead.

—Christy Jo White

April 2026