Lifted…

     Recently I saw a video depicting the weight we so often carry around with us. A little girl appears on the scene and scoops up a big rock, lifts it over her head and let’s it fall into her backpack. She is happy, she does this a couple of more times still smiling.

In the distance young children are jumping into a lake, laughing, carefree…

As time goes on she is no longer happy about adding rocks – big or small – to her backpack. She hears the laughter out by the lake.

Others come along contributing their bricks and stones to her backpack. Barely able to walk she makes her way to the dock watching the other children. A little girl motions her to join them. She shrugs her shoulders asking how? Her new friend helps her take her backpack off dropping it behind her, they run to the dock’s edge…

The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. (Psalm 145:14 NIV)

Do you have a backpack full? I did and I didn’t even know it. After all these years I finally realized that is my way, I pick up everybody’s brokenness because I want to make it better.

But we can’t carry our own broken pieces let alone other’s. So I took a day, I gathered rocks and markers. I thought through what felt heavy and wrote on rock after rock. Then I set out to water’s edge to where I first felt cool water and sand slipping out from underneath.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. (James 4:10 NIV)

I pulled out a rock lifted it to Jesus and said ‘You are stronger, more capable, and are healer’ and hurled it as far as I could. ‘You are forgiver, more understanding, and accepting’ and away went another. Giving each to Him who carried all our burdens to the cross so that we would never have to be weighed down again.

Oh, if we could grasp our freedom in Him. In our backpack He only puts what He made us for: smiles to lighten another’s load, kind words to touch a hurting heart, joy in spite of circumstances, love big enough to shine His light, peace that only finds its way to us through Him, gentleness when the world is harsh, His Holy Spirit filling us up and lifting us far above all we perceive to be ours to solve…

An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up. (Proverbs 12:25 NIV)

 

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October 13, 2014 Thought Life…

     One day a family with two handsome sons moved into Ruth’s neighborhood. She heard that the farmland where the family used to live had dried up and they were starving. Over the years Ruth and her good friend came to know the boys and their family well. When all of them were grown the two young men took Ruth and her friend to be their wives. Not long into their marriages each of the young men became ill and within a short time died, as did their father. The girls had come to dearly love their mother-in-law, knowing she was heartbroken and was talking of moving back to her homeland, they offered to go with her. Although the mother-in-law was able to dissuade one of the girls, she could not convince Ruth to stay. They began the long, dangerous journey…

My mother always said “Into each life a little rain must fall” – but into some lives torrents drench. In our story today, when everything fell apart in Ruth’s life, despite her fears of the unknown and the dangers lying ahead, she committed to be there for another. What enabled her to do that? The simple answer: her thought life. Instead of looking for troubles that were not yet happening,  she focused on being there for someone else.

So it is with us, our thought life can get us into the doldrums of trepidation – if we let it.  Right now I know of a little 6 year old boy diagnosed with Leukemia. Lots of big needles, and painful treatments have already happened and the years ahead are full of the same. But, through the wisdom of his God loving parents, his thought life has been directed outward. He is focusing on how he can raise money for orphans in India. He came up with the idea of getting friends and family to donate a little bit of money for each of the 65 shots he will receive between now and January. (Go to:   http://teamquiverfull.com if you would like to read more about him or donate.)

 “…take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2Cor. 10:5 NIV) Live braver in your thought life…