Marty Friend’s Blog

The Hebrew word for press is ‘Gat’. The Hebrew word for olive oil is ‘Shemen’. It’s where the word ‘Gethsemane’ comes from. Gethsemane was the place where olives were crushed into oil. It was also the place of crushing for Jesus. He could have easily stopped what was about to happen, but chose to follow through with his ‘crushing’ for our sake.

Crushing is not something we would choose. It is not pretty. Crushing hurts. Crushing humiliates. But crushing extracts what is truly valuable from what is worthless. When olives are crushed the essence of what’s inside comes out. The same is true for us. If we are full of bitterness, mistrust, envy and pride, then those things come pouring out. But if God is truly at the center of your being, his essence is released in you.

Ecclesiastes 12:1 says “Remember your creator in the days of your youth before the time of trouble comes”. The time of trouble is coming to every human being. The question is… what will come out of you when it is your time to be crushed?

…but we find another longing within our hearts… a longing for that which the world never answers. We long for the perfect, for a perfect love, a perfect happiness, a perfect contentment, and a perfect peace. We long for that which doesn’t fail, that which never disappoints, or grows old, or passes away. We long for the eternal and the perfect. But the world can never answer those longings … and still they stay with us all the days of our lives. We long for it even though we’ve never tasted it. And our very longings bear witness that what we have never seen or tasted is real.