Pick up your Mat
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It’s no secret that I am a Christian, child of God and a devout follower of the Lord. While I may not discuss my faith on a daily basis and don’t write long drawn out posts about scripture and sermons, it is—nonetheless—a very big part of who I am.
God always speaks to me in the most seemingly mundane ways. He knows that I’m a person who is impacted and influenced most through words and sermons. That’s why I take notes in church. Seriously. Some of the notes I’ve taken in the past easily fill up front and back sheets of notebook paper. Jotting down sentences on the church bulletin doesn’t cut it for me. I use entire sheets of paper.
The anchor’s I wrote about yesterday have been hindering me and causing me grievance for a few weeks now. Over the course of those last few weeks, he’s spoken to me little by little…bringing me to blog posts, scriptures and even random photos online that have convicted my heart and left me nodding with excitement that God hadn’t forgotten about me. And that he was speaking to me.
Yesterday morning was no different. I set my Anchor Hold’s post to go live at 5:00 am. By 5:45, I’d received nearly a dozen emails and comment notifications. And at 6:00 I was sitting on the couch sipping my coffee and watching Joyce Meyer’s Enjoying Everyday Life [a favorite past-time from waking early with a baby and a husband who leaves before sun up…read past posts on Joyce Meyer’s show HERE]. She was preaching on Lazarus {John 11:1-45} and the Valley of the Dry Bones {Ezekial 37:1-14} and how FAITH worked miracles. In each of these passages, it was through Faith that the work of Christ was carried out.
But the section of Scripture that got to me the most, was John 5:1-15…the story of the Lame Man beside the pool. In case you’ve never read this [and up until yesterday, I hadn’t either], there was a pool of water in which those who were sick, injured and in need of a miracle would lay down beside. From time to time, an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the water and whoever jumped in first was healed of whatever disease he had.
This one man in particular was paralyzed and had been laying beside this pool for 38 years. When Jesus arrived he asked him simply if he even wanted to get well. When the old man answered, he simply gave an excuse to the Lord saying that “no one would help him” and that everyone else always got there before he could. Jesus told him to get up, take his mat and walk…and he did.
While this is just one of many, many miracles Christ performed, this one spoke to me because it’s so similar to the paths we [myself especially] we walk down in life.
We claim we want things. We claim we have ambition and dreams and things we want to accomplish. But instead of doing something about it, we sit and wait. We wait on someone to “help us” or for someone to do it for us. We wait for the easy rode to get us there. Just like when Christ asked the paralyzed man if he even wanted to get well, I felt like he was asking me simply: Do you want to accomplish anything in life?
And all too often I answer God with the same kind of excuses that the lame man gave: I don’t know how; someone is better than me; it’s already been done; I’m scared…excuse after excuse after excuse.
The only way to move forward it to just do it. The only way to achieve our goals, our dreams, our ambitions, is to simply pick up our mats [figuratively speaking] and walk. It’s by taking these tiny steps of faith, that God’s will is revealed. It’s only when we walk forward unknowingly that he chooses to reveal his path to us.
What about you? Have you found yourself laying beside the pool? Are you making excuses not to move yourself forward? Are you waiting on someone to help you in, or are you going to just pick up your mat and walk?
(Post inspired by Joyce Meyer Ministries and the Enjoying Everyday Life broadcasts.)
Don’t forget to check out today’s photography post: Faces of a Boy!
