With A Little Help From My Friends – Thursday

Week 1 | Jesus Gets Us

Listen instead of reading

Take a Moment

Ask God what He wants to show you before reading today

Read The Daily

Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. While he was preaching God’s word to them,  four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. (Mark 2:2-3)

Confession time…I don’t mind helping people out.  I’m usually glad to do it.  

Unless…I hear the dreaded words, “Hey we are moving and I…” 

Ugh…anything but the dreaded we need help moving pleas.  But it is simple math, the more people you can get to help the more time keeps getting cut in half.  At C3, we have to move chairs in the auditorium all the time.  It always fascinates me that it will take 2-3 people 30-45 minutes to take down or set up chairs.  However, if we ask a group after one of our Sunday morning gatherings, it usually takes less than 5 minutes for every single chair to be stacked on each side.  

Similarly, doubt is a scary thing to navigate on your own, and Jesus wants us to bring it to Him and to trusted friends in our lives.  When we handle our doubts on our own, it can lead us to become angry and cynical. Sometimes, we’re even tempted to leave everything in the house because moving seems so overwhelming.   But the house or our stuff  isn’t really the problem. Similarly, in our faith, questioning our beliefs doesn’t mean we forget or burn the house down to save time. Along the way, we may uncover some beliefs that don’t line up with the Bible, and just like Peter, we may need Jesus to correct us along the way. But just because you believed a few things that weren’t true doesn’t mean the Bible isn’t true. But trying to navigate our questions on our own is a recipe for disaster. Or, when you are in the middle of deep doubt, like Thomas, don’t deal with it alone. Find some friends who will carry your faith for you. In Mark 2, we see another example of this. A paralyzed man couldn’t get himself to Jesus, so his friends carried him and literally dug a hole in the roof to get him near Jesus. If you don’t even have the faith to get to Jesus, trusted friends can carry you there. They can hold on to your faith when you feel like you don’t have any left. So it’s okay to doubt. Just don’t doubt alone.

Prayer for the Day

God what are you  showing me?  What am I going to do about it? 

God help me to see one person that I can serve through a kind word, random act of kindness, or simple gift today?

Make sure you complete the reading or comment today.

Read The New Testament In A Year

4 x 6 Plan | Read: Matthew 8:1-17 & Romans 5:12-21