Content to just lay there?

I am going to ask a tough question today, but if we are truthful on this one, we may just realize a healing at the end. How long are we willing to live WITH our troubles before we ask God to get us out of those troubles? For some of us, it has taken us a long, long time to come to our knees, admitting we have been dealing with this 'trouble' longer than we ever should have. Trouble in the form of bitterness, anger issues, hurt feelings, or attitudes of deep regret and shame. While we are living WITH these 'troubles' we are 'hoping' for something to be different, but we don't really come out and aggressively seek our deliverance from them! It is time to admit we have been living 'with' them for way too long and we need God's help to finally move us from our 'placement' INSIDE those troubles.

Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! (John 5:2-9)

"I can't" are two words Jesus can deal with, but until we utter the ones that admit we actually want our healing, we aren't really ready for it! We might not be able to get ourselves from our 'placement' inside the trouble, but Jesus doesn't even need to change our 'placement' to begin the healing. He just needs to hear that we know we 'cannot' and he 'can'. Notice that the man was still on his mat beside the waters of Bethesda when Jesus asked him if he desired his healing. He had to admit he had no one to carry him to the water, but that didn't stop Jesus. Jesus told him to get up 'from where he was' and be healed. I think we might somehow believe our deliverance from the troubles we have endured for so long will require us to 'move' from here to there. Jesus just asks us to get up!

Too many of us stay right where we are, INSIDE the trouble we have endured a long time, making all kinds of excuses for why we cannot move FROM there. For this man, he remained paralyzed on his mat, beside the pool, with no one to carry him from here to there. For us, it could just be that we have lived with all this anger, bitterness, or feelings of deep hurt all because we think we have 'no one' to move us from here to there. The truth is that the 'one' who needs to move is us and we just haven't moved from being 'flat on our backs' to our knees in humble acknowledgement of our deep need. We just lay around in our 'self-pity', never realizing our healing is right there in front of us.

If we want our deliverance from INSIDE that troubling stuff today, we might just need to confess our need and stop making all the excuses for why we cannot be healed. Jesus gave some very specific actions the man needed to take - 'admit you need healing', 'get up', 'pick up your mat', and 'walk'. Our healing begins with confession - not the list of excuses. Our next actions should reveal we desire the change more than anything else in the world - get up and walk! We may have weak or wobbly steps at first, but when we finally move from our back to our knees, we may just be surprised at just how 'strong' that position make us! Just sayin!

Life Hack #28: Don't stay down too long

Life Hack #28:

Ever trip up or stumble over something you thought would give you 'no trouble' in life? I have! God keeps a special eye on his people - not letting them stay down too long if they trip up or stumble. This should give most of us (if not all of us) a whole lot of encouragement each time we find ourselves with skinned knees and a wounded bit of pride! We might find ourselves "tripped up" because of things of our own doing - like willful disobedience, compromise, and outright wrong choices. At other times, we find there has been someone in our path who purposefully sticks their foot out in hopes we will stumble and fall. I think there are those who relish the idea of creating a little bit of havoc in the lives of others. A word of warning to these folks - God won't let us stay down long - his hand is already outstretched even before the foot crosses our path to trip us up!

Don’t interfere with good people’s lives; don’t try to get the best of them. No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don’t stay down long; soon they’re up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces. (Proverbs 24:15-16)

Those who think they can get in the way of a child of God, pull them down, or act as a roadblock for their progress are given a warning here. We may stumble a little because of their mischief, but we don't stay down for long! When we get up, it is quite possible our "rebound" may make the one having done the "tripping" look a little foolish! God's care is over his kids and scripture clearly warns not to mess with God's possessions! 

We ALL fall down on occasion. At those times, we want most to blame another for our fall, but this may not always be "fair". Sometimes we find ourselves "down" because we have allowed enough "drift" in our focus to get to the place of falling all on our own. If we are there today, we merely need to look up, for God's hand is extended to all who recognize this is not the place they desire to dwell! 
When we find ourselves blocked by another or thrown a few "sucker-punches" that land a pretty good wallop in our lives, this is when we need to remember God intervenes on our behalf. 

Sometimes he stops the punches before they land, but he might just have a lesson in the one 'punch' that manages to connect. This may not seem like a very loving gesture on his part, but God doesn't violate our will. If we remove our focus long enough from his face, considering other things instead of him, we sometimes find we are squarely in the path of the "punches" that are aimed at taking us down! This is never God's intention for our lives but know this - he stands at the ready to pick us up, dust us off, and set us on our feet again. 

As scripture promises, the righteous may fall, but we don't stay down long. His grace awaits us. Things or people we trust in may not always be there for us, but God's grace will be! How long we determine to "stay down" is often a matter of our own will. We must look up in order to see a way "up". We must reach out in order to take an outstretched hand. We must exert enough will to rise again if we are ever to stand again! 

When we fall, how we "handle" the fall in our minds and emotions plays an important part in determining how quickly we will rise again. If we are down on ourselves, bemoaning our choices and generally having a pity party because we have fallen, chances are we will stay there a whole lot longer than God wants us to! When we admit we have been tripped up and fallen, without getting all caught up in how "wrong" we were, God is free to begin to point out how to avoid the fall the next time we are distracted or duped into tripping. Just sayin!

Permitted vs. Beneficial

We sometimes can be guilty of trading our eternal freedom for a temporary freedom here on this earth. We get to die on our own terms - think on that one a bit and you may just understand why the Apostle Paul reminds you and I that some things are not all that beneficial to us. We might not be 'sinful' in our actions, but are our actions always that beneficial to us? Comfort is not always the end result of following Jesus. The life of Christ within us means we aren't going to experience comfort when we try to slip back into our old ways of living. In fact, we will begin to experience our 'comfort' is quite 'disturbing' to us because God has so much better planned for us!

Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands! ...When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God. (Romans 6:6-14)

Just because something is permissible in our lives doesn't mean it is beneficial for us right now (or ever). We might justify our behavior because we know something is 'permitted' - but we don't stop to consider if God is actually giving us the 'go-ahead' to engage in that behavior. Permissible differs from beneficial, but we don't stop to consider the cost of 'permissible'. For example, we may be 'permitted' to drive at speeds up to 75 mph on the interstate, but it is not 'beneficial' to do so when it is highly trafficked, the weather is bad, or the wildlife is attempting to get from one side to the other. 

Sin speaks, but we don't have to listen, choosing to listen to God's voice instead. God speaks, but we may pick and choose what we hear. Did you hear that? We 'pick and choose' what we will hear when God speaks to us. Why? We aren't willing to let go of some of the things we know are 'permissible' in our lives that God is saying are actually holding us in places of bondage we may not even recognize. How can something 'permissible' hold us in bondage? God is asking us to leave it behind so he can bring us into something greater, but we are holding onto it because are in a place of comfort right where we are. 

We should not rely upon what God says is 'permissible' in our lives. Always ask him what is 'best' for our lives. What is it he says is 'beneficial' for us? The two may be the same, but there are times what we know he permits is really keeping us from ever moving forward to what is totally beneficial and beyond our imagining. Just sayin!

Not down for long

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. 

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Back in the day, Hasbro toy company introduced a simple little toy in the shape similar to an egg referred to as a "Weeble". There were firemen and doctor Weebles - dogs, cats, kids, and other barn animals - families and townsfolk alike. Small villages of these things could keep young children amused for hours. The whole 'draw' for these things was their marketing jingle - Weebles Wobble, but they don't fall down. Sure it would tilt from side to side, but it would 'right' itself rather quickly, making it quite easy for little hands to set up those townsfolk and barn critters. They were created with a very specific way of maintaining equilibrium - gravity causing it to return to an upright position without any real effort. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have such a center of equilibrium that we always came out 'righted' every time we started to fall?

The Lord saves the godly! He is their salvation and their refuge when trouble comes. Because they trust in him, he helps them and delivers them from the plots of evil men. (Psalm 37:39-40)

We actually do have the ability to be 'righted' before we fully fall, bringing us back to a place of internal equilibrium. We probably don't understand in much better than we understood those tiny toys of yesteryear, but it is there within us. The presence of God's Spirit in our lives makes it impossible for us to stay down long - he is that force that re-centers us and 'rights us' when we begin to fall. The thing is that we don't always have to understand something to trust how it will perform. I didn't understand the wobbly little play toys at first, but in time I came to understand they were created specifically to withstand the falls. I wonder if we might also have been created specifically to withstand the many trips and falls along the way in our own lives? After all, we were created with a void in our lives only capable of being filled with the Spirit of God! 

His presence doesn't assume we won't ever topple over - succumbing to some force that overtakes us at a moment in time. It does mean that we won't remain in that toppled state for long, though! We might 'wobble' a bit, but we don't have to stay down - his presence is there to help us be 'righted' in that upright position once again. Here is the lesson of the day - nothing needs to keep us down. God's presence within us gives us authority over every force pulling against us. The heavy base in the Weeble used gravity as a means to 'right' the toy. There is much more to God's Spirit than the ability to always help us be 'righted' when we are about to fall or have fallen already, though. His Spirit is there to actually help us recognize when the opposing forces are about to launch the attack that would like nothing more than to see us down for the count! Just sayin!