“For when we came into Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn—conflicts on the outside, fears within” (2 Corinthians 7:5).

The New King James translation of this verse uses the painfully descriptive phrase “hard pressed” to describe Paul’s trials. “We were hard pressed on every side.” The origin of this phrase comes from the practice of squeezing a fruit or vegetable (grapes, olives) to extract its juice.

Some days (weeks, months, seasons, years) I feel hard-pressed. Like life has me between a mortar and pestle and is pounding me into fine dust. I know you can relate.

You sweat and groan and weep and rage and cannot find relief. The intense pressure doesn’t stop. You plead for rescue, yet the vise of life’s circumstances squeezes tighter and tighter until you think you might scream, and sometimes you do.

“Why doesn’t God rescue me?” you cry, and the question echoes back. “Why?”

I believe there are at least nine reasons why God sometimes chooses not to rescue us. If you’re feeling hard-pressed today or know someone who is, I invite you to prayerfully consider these reasons and ask the Lord to show you which might apply to your situation.