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How to Handle Pressure and Difficulty Pressure

Dr. Jack Hyles

Pressure often arrives with a phone call, a diagnosis, a broken marriage, or a loved one facing a serious illness. Difficulty will come, and the tragedy is waiting until it arrives before learning how to face it.

Jack Hyles taught that preparation for life's hardest battles happens in ordinary responsibilities. His central instruction comes from Ecclesiastes 9:10: do whatever your hand finds to do with all your might.

Pressure and heartache will come

Hyles spoke plainly about the burdens people eventually face. A doctor may call with bad news after a medical test. A daughter may call to say that her husband has left her. A grandchild may be diagnosed with leukemia.

The issue is not whether pressure will come. It is whether a person has developed the habits needed to face it.

"The tragedy is you wait till it comes before you know how to handle it."

Hyles did not speak as a young preacher giving an untested theory. He spoke as an older pastor who said he had faced heartache, difficulty, and pressure himself. His message was about preparing before the battle begins.

Ecclesiastes gives the command to give your best

The sermon returns repeatedly to Ecclesiastes 9:10:

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."

For Hyles, this command applied to every responsibility, whether it appeared important or small. A person should not wait for a major opportunity, a large crowd, or a crisis before giving full effort.

If a hand finds a broom, sweep with all your might. If it finds a hammer, hammer with all your might. If it finds a paintbrush, paint with all your might. If it finds a trowel, lay brick with all your might.

The task may be ordinary, but the effort should be complete. That pattern of effort becomes preparation for the difficult days that will come later.

Luke 15 shows the same care for every loss

Luke 15 begins with publicans and sinners coming near to hear Jesus. The Pharisees and scribes complained because Jesus received sinners and ate with them.

In response, Jesus told three parables about what had been lost: a sheep, a coin, and a son. Hyles found two repeated patterns in all three stories, diligent effort and rejoicing when the lost thing was found.

The shepherd searched for the lost sheep

A man had one hundred sheep, but one went away. Hyles pointed out that the shepherd left the ninety-nine in the wilderness, not safely sheltered in the fold as the familiar hymn says.

The shepherd went after the one sheep until he found it. Then he put the sheep on his shoulders, rejoicing, and carried it home. Afterward, he called his friends and neighbors and said, "Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost."

Hyles applied the picture personally. He said that he was the lost sheep, and when Jesus found him, Christ did not tell him to hold on and try to make it back. Jesus put him on His shoulders and brought him back.

Jesus then said that there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.

The woman searched for the lost coin

The second parable concerns a woman with ten pieces of silver who lost one coin. Although a coin was not as valuable as a sheep, she did not treat the loss carelessly.

She lit a candle, swept the house, and searched diligently until she found it. Then she called her friends and neighbors together and said, "Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost."

The response may seem unusual. She did not merely put the coin away after finding it. She called others to rejoice because something that had been lost was found.

Jesus connected this story to the joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

The father received his lost son

The third story in Luke 15 is the parable of the prodigal son. A lost boy came home, and his father called others to rejoice.

The father killed the fatted calf, put a ring on his son's finger, shoes on his feet, and a robe on his back. He celebrated because his son had been lost and was found.

A lost coin, a lost sheep, and a lost son cannot be measured as equal losses. The father's pain over a lost son would have been far greater than the loss of a coin. Yet Hyles stressed that the stories show the same diligence and the same rejoicing.

The same diligence and rejoicing appear in every parable

The woman gave full effort to find a coin. The shepherd searched until he found the sheep. The father rejoiced when his son returned home.

Hyles's point was not that a coin, sheep, and son have equal value. His point was that people should learn to handle every loss and every duty with care.

Treat every task as important enough to receive your best.

The rejoicing also remained the same. The woman rejoiced over the coin. The shepherd rejoiced over the sheep. The father rejoiced over his son. In each account, something lost had been recovered.

Hyles admitted that he had never lost a sheep, but he had lost coins and other belongings. He told of misplacing his Bible after setting it on a divider in a washroom. He retraced his steps, even returning to his car to think through where he had gone, before finally finding it where he had left it.

The lesson was larger than a misplaced coin or Bible. Something had been lost, so it deserved diligent searching.

Do the easy as if it were difficult

Hyles stated the sermon's main principle this way:

Undertake the easy as if it were difficult, and undertake the difficult as if it were easy.

A person who handles easy responsibilities with seriousness develops a way of life. Then, when a genuine burden or crisis comes, that person does not have to begin learning diligence for the first time.

Someone who searches diligently for a lost coin develops the same kind of persistence needed when the loss is greater. Someone who gives full effort in small duties will be better prepared when a hard duty arrives.

On the other hand, carelessness with easy things leaves a person unprepared for difficult things. Hyles warned that people often fall apart in a major battle because they never learned to give their best in smaller battles.

When the easy has been done as if it were difficult, the difficult can be done as if it were easy.

Train before the battle begins

Hyles's first observation was direct: Do not wait until the battle to train for the battle.

He recalled his service in the Army during World War II. While other soldiers faced combat in places such as the Battle of the Bulge, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, he and others trained on maneuvers.

Those maneuvers mattered because training prepared soldiers for the battlefield. A soldier could not wait until combat began before deciding to become serious about preparation.

The same principle applies to pressure in life. A person who breaks during practice will not be ready for the battle. Daily responsibilities are training grounds for the burdens that may come later.

Practice develops instinct under pressure

Hyles said a person does not have time to think through every move in the middle of a battle. Instinct takes over.

He used Michael Jordan as an illustration. With the score tied and only seconds left, Jordan did not stop to plan every dribble, step, and shot. He acted by instinct because he had practiced with the intensity of an actual game.

The player who wins the game is often the player who practiced as though practice mattered. The same is true of people facing pressure. Their response in a crisis often comes from what they practiced when there was no crisis.

A basketball reflex saved his sister

Hyles told of walking with his sister in downtown South Bend, Indiana, near sunset. They were crossing a street when a driver, blinded by the setting sun, began turning toward them.

His sister was in front of him. Hyles saw the danger, jumped, grabbed her, turned in the air, and pulled her in the direction the car was moving. The car still struck her, but the motion reduced the force of the impact and saved her life.

A bystander asked whether he had played basketball. Hyles had not stopped to reason through a series of steps. His response came by instinct.

He said that every basketball game he played had mattered to him, whether it was a serious game or a casual game of horse in the driveway. Because he practiced movement and effort in small games, he was ready when his sister's life was at stake.

Carrying others' burdens prepares you for your own

Hyles's third observation was that consistent concern for others prepares a person to face personal suffering. He said he had cried repeatedly in the previous few days because of the painful stories people had brought to him.

Some of those situations, he said, were so serious that people would later read about them in newspapers. After hearing those burdens, he put his head on his desk and wept.

When his own burdens came, he said he could carry them because he had spent a lifetime carrying the burdens of others. He had learned to hurt when others hurt.

The concern shown for a lost coin in Luke 15 was not only about the coin. It was a pattern of taking loss seriously. Hyles connected that same concern to the greater pain of a lost son.

Your best should become normal

Hyles's fourth observation was simple: Your best should be your normal.

Full effort should not appear only when the crowd is large, the job is visible, or the pressure is intense. A person's normal way of working should be to give the best effort available.

Hyles said he had preached for decades and would preach to one hundred people with the same intensity he used before thousands. He did not preach his best because of the size of the audience. He preached his best because he was preaching.

Preach to a small group as faithfully as a large one

Hyles recalled preaching in East Texas as a young country pastor with nineteen people. He said he preached with the same fervor and vigor that he used later.

He also told of speaking in Nebraska to fewer than one hundred people. As he sat listening to Dr. Dean Miller preach, Hyles initially thought the crowd was smaller than expected. Then he remembered that he was about to stand and represent Jesus Christ before people who had burdens, heartaches, and problems.

That thought changed the size of the crowd in his mind. He preached to those sixty-five, seventy, eighty, or ninety people with full effort.

The same message went to seventeen people

Dr. Ray Young often told a story about Hyles preaching in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. On a Monday night, the building was packed, extra chairs had been brought in, and Hyles preached with vigor.

The next morning, only seventeen people came. The pastor placed a small pulpit near the front pews rather than using the larger pulpit.

Hyles still preached with the same intensity. He ran, stomped, and preached as he had the night before because his effort did not depend on the crowd.

A preacher who learns to preach faithfully to seventeen can carry the same habit into a meeting with thousands.

Small responsibilities deserve full preparation

Hyles applied the principle to many ordinary tasks. A small responsibility becomes part of a person's training.

A Sunday school teacher should not study the lesson on the way to class or fail to make visits because the class has only a few children. Those children are souls bound for eternity, young lives growing up in a wicked generation, and people who need faithful teaching.

A student should prepare for a small test as seriously as for a final examination. Then the final does not produce panic or last-minute cramming. The student who studies for every quiz can rest while others struggle to remember facts they ignored.

Hyles also said that a person should mow a yard well, make hamburgers with care, clean buildings thoroughly, and vacuum church carpet as though the work matters. The cleanest buildings in town, he said, should be those at Hammond Baptist Schools. The cleanest carpet should be at First Baptist Church.

Treat your family like company

Hyles gave a practical example from home life: treat your family as well as you would treat company.

When a family treats one another with care every day, they do not need to scramble when visitors arrive. A home should not be cleaned only because company is coming. A husband and wife should not reserve their best manners for guests.

He criticized careless habits in the home, including unmade beds, dirty dishes in the sink, sloppy clothing, and treating home life as less worthy of attention than public life.

The woman who lives in the home should receive a husband's best treatment. The man who shares the home should receive a wife's best care. Parents should receive honor and kindness from their adult children.

Regular preparation removes the panic of unexpected company. Hyles even joked that his home was spotless and that he hoped someday to use the towels displayed on the racks.

Treat poor people with the respect given to the rich

Hyles also taught that people should treat poor people as they would treat rich people.

He referred to Saul Ruin, a visiting attorney whom Hyles considered one of the best attorneys in America. He then spoke of people in the church who had slept on Chicago streets in below-zero weather.

His response, he said, would be the same. He would greet a person coming to be baptized with the same friendliness whether that person was a respected attorney or someone who had slept outside in severe cold.

A person's character should not change according to another person's social position or wealth. Those who learn to treat poor people well will know how to treat rich people well.

Those who are rattled under pressure ignored ordinary pressure

Hyles's fifth observation was that people who become rattled under pressure often failed to practice steadiness when life was easier.

He put it this way: if you are rattled when you do not need to be, you will be rattled when you do need to be. However, someone who learns to face ordinary responsibilities with seriousness develops a habit that carries into major trouble.

He said America was full of people who had cracked under pressure because they had not given their best when they were not under pressure. They did not treat easy responsibilities as difficult ones, so they did not know how to handle difficulty when it arrived.

The hard task itself does not cause every collapse. Hyles said unpreparedness is often the greater problem.

A practiced life prepares a person for hard days

Hyles returned to the examples of athletic training. World Series championships are not won only in large stadiums. NFL championships are not won only on the day of the Super Bowl. The habits that matter are formed in practice and training camp.

Likewise, a student who studies hard for each Friday quiz will not panic during final examinations. A player who gives full effort in an inter-squad game will be ready to play with intensity in January if the team reaches the Super Bowl.

Hyles mentioned his daughter Cindy and her husband Jack, who had said they had not faced serious heartaches. He reminded them that their parents were getting older and Jack's father was not in good health. Difficult days would come.

Yet he also pointed to Jack's preparation. When Jack preached in chapel at Hyles-Anderson College, he preached with the force of a man speaking before a major convention. In his Bible class, he gave the same kind of effort.

The person who gives full effort in a small task, whether mowing a yard, playing pickup basketball, or making hamburgers at McDonald's, develops a way of life that prepares him for greater burdens.

The final lesson on pressure and difficulty

Hyles did not say that anyone should enjoy heartache or be glad when suffering comes. His point was that a person can be ready for it.

He said he could remain calm in storms and comfort others during battles because he had spent his life treating every skirmish as a major battle. As a boy, he played softball as though it were the World Series. In ministry, he preached to small crowds as faithfully as large ones. In daily work, he believed every responsibility deserved his best.

Do the easy as if it were difficult. Then, when the difficult comes, the habits formed in ordinary life will help carry the burden.

When the difficult day comes

Pressure will come to every life in some form. The preparation for it begins long before the phone call, the diagnosis, the loss, or the battle.

Give full effort to what is in your hand now. When the easy has been done as though it were difficult, the difficult can be faced as though it were easy.