Day 30

Looking Ahead — The Deeper Crushing

Today's Scripture: Matthew 26:36–39 (NLT)

You have come to the last day of June. Thirty days of walking the road of death to self. Thirty days of laying down, climbing onto the altar, putting off the selves that wanted to rule, welcoming what only the cross can do in a human soul. And now, on this final day, we must lift our eyes and look ahead, because the journey is not finished. July is coming. And July, in this year of Wrapped in His Presence, takes us into deeper waters still. The theme of July is brokenness — the blessed poverty of spirit, the crushing into wholeness, what we might call humility part two. And the bridge between June and July is built in a garden called Gethsemane.

Gethsemane is the place where the dying of self meets the crushing of the soul. The word Gethsemane itself means oil press — the place where olives were laid on a great stone press and crushed under enormous weight until the oil ran out. It is the perfect name for what was about to happen to Jesus in that garden. He was about to be pressed under a weight no soul had ever borne. He was about to be crushed to the point where blood, mingled with sweat, ran down His face onto the ground. And out of that crushing would come the oil — the anointing, the salvation, the very life of God poured out for the world.

What was happening in Gethsemane that is so important for us to understand at this hinge between the months? Jesus was facing the deepest dying any soul has ever faced — not just physical death, but the bearing of the sins of the world, the experience of forsakenness by His own Father, the cup of divine wrath that He alone could drink. And He went into a garden, He fell on His face, and He prayed the prayer we have already met in this month: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Same words as before — but on a different level. The same surrender, now applied to the deepest possible dying.

This is what July will be about. The lesson of June was to die to the selves we can name — the comfort self, the reputation self, the control self, the resentment self, the ambition self. These are real, and they had to die. But there are deeper crushings that come not at the level of the named selves but at the level of the soul's own foundations. The Lord, having walked us through the death of the surface selves, often takes His more serious children through a deeper press — the press of brokenness, where He grinds away at the deeper places of self-sufficiency, self-confidence, self-reliance, until what remains is a soul that is no longer leaning on anything in itself for anything. This is the brokenness of the Beatitudes, the blessed poverty of spirit (Matthew 5:3), the condition Jesus calls the door into the kingdom.

If June has been the daily crucifixion, July will be the deeper crushing. If June has been the laying down of what we could identify, July will be the breaking of what we could not yet see. If June has been our cross, July will be our Gethsemane. And the same prayer that has carried us through this month — "not my will, but Thine" — will carry us through the next. But it will be prayed at a deeper level, over a heavier weight, under a more sustained press.

This is not bad news. This is the gracious progression of God's work in His children. He does not give us the deeper crushings until we have first walked through the daily crucifyings. He does not lay on us a Gethsemane before we have spent time on Calvary. He prepares us, layer by layer, for the depths He intends to take us into, because He loves us and He knows what He is forming. And those of us who have walked faithfully through June will find that July, while harder in some ways, is also richer in ways we did not know to expect.

What rises from Gethsemane? The same thing that rose from every crushing in the life of Christ — the oil. The anointing. The poured-out life that, having gone through the press, now flows freely as the very means of healing for others. The oil of Gethsemane became the salvation of the world. And the oil of your own crushings, in their measure, will become the means by which God brings life to those He has placed around you.

So as you close this month, do not close it with relief that the cross is behind you. Close it with gratitude that the cross has done its work — and with humble willingness to walk into whatever July brings. The Father who has been faithful through every day of June will be faithful through every day of July. The dying that has begun will continue. The rising that has begun will deepen. The work that He started is the work He will finish. And you are not walking it alone.

He goes before you. He stands beside you. He is forming you for a glory that no eye has yet seen.

Prayer

Father, I thank You for every day of this month. For the dyings that have been real. For the risings that have begun. For the strength You have given when I had none, and for the grace You have poured out when I deserved none. Now lead me into July. Lead me into the deeper crushing. Lead me into the brokenness that I cannot manufacture and would not choose, but that You know I need. Whatever the press will yield in me, let it yield Your oil. And let the oil, in time, become the very means by which You bring life to others. In the name of the One who walked through Gethsemane for me, Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.

Today's Challenge

Take time today to write a short prayer of thanksgiving for what God has done in June, and a short prayer of consecration for what He will do in July. Read both aloud to Him. Step from this month into the next with open hands, a steady heart, and a renewed yes to the One who is leading you deeper.

"The oil of Gethsemane is pressed from souls who have already learned to die on the cross of every ordinary day."