Sometimes I watch animal rescue videos. You know the ones, where the dog is lying half-dead in the ditch and someone comes along and picks it up and takes it to the vet where it gets treated and lives?
I find them encouraging. It seems like the dog doesn't just lie there wanting to die. It opens its eyes, it laps a little water. But it has been so beat up by previous owners, or sickness, or pain...that it just can't find the energy to get up. But still it's hanging on. Maybe just waiting for a rescuer to find it and...care?
At any rate, I don't know what the dogs are thinking, but whatever it might be, I'm pretty sure I can relate. I can relate to wanting to live, and not wanting to die, yet not having the energy or strength to stand up and fight.
I'm tired...so tired...of lying in the ditch. I'm tired of feeling so broken and useless and void of anything but the basic intake and expel of oxygen.
How do we choose life, when it seems that life has been our abuser?
There is a story in the Bible, book of John, chapter 5, about a man with an infirmity, who lies by a pool that is known to have healing powers when an Angel stirs the waters. The man has been lying by that pool for 8 years. Every time the waters stir, he can't make it to the water in time, and nobody will help him.
Jesus comes along, sees the man (finally, someone SEES him!!) and asks if he wants to be made well. The man says he has no one to help him into the water. Jesus says to the man "Stand up and walk" and immediately he does, and was healed.
Like that man, I want to know Jesus sees me. I want to hear his voice of encouragement telling me to stand up and walk.
But let's face it. If I'm being honest, today I just want Him to pick me up and rescue me...like the dog...in the ditch...
I'm pretty sure that's OK too.
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