Who Are You Carrying?
Do you know that Finland host the global Wife Carrying Championship? I kid you not!
All I really have to say about that is…Wow.
I was studying for this Sunday’s message. A sermon from Acts 3 that I thought was completely baked and ready to go! Until I looked over the Scripture again. This is what it reads:
“And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate…”
When many of us read this story, the only people we see are Peter, John, and the lame beggar. I have so often missed those that carried him. I wonder who it was? Was it his family or friends, or just people who had sympathy on him? In the Jewish culture any ailment would have been seen as the cause of sin and at the least anyone seen with this many would have been given the stink eye if not outrightly judged.
And yet, there was a group of people who didn’t care. Day after day they carried him to the temple. In the face of ridicule and public shame they carried him. Knowing that Jesus, the man of miracles, had died and already ascended, they carried him. After years of continued support and possibly no end and reward in sight, they carried him.
Someone around you is hurting. Chances are they have been hurting for a very long time. It’s even possible that they are incapable of walking and making it to where they need to be. And all they are waiting on is someone who is willing, no matter the outcome, to carry them.
Who are you carrying?
So how do you handle it when you carry some much for everyone else and you need to be carried once in a while?
Oh! That’s a good question. The main definition of ‘carry’ is this: “to move while supporting.”
I think the only way that Christians find the support to continue carrying, even after a lengthy period, is the knowledge of what we are carrying to. To ‘move’ toward Christ while ‘supporting’ others who are doing the same.
For you and I, as Christians, it would imply that someone is carrying us. hopefully the church that we are involved in. Through study and fellowship and such.
And I would believe that when we are most exhausted in our carrying, that by the very nature of what we are doing and whose kingdom it is for, the strength will be provide to carry on.
It helps to know where we’re going when we’re carrying someone, too. I usually get so focused on the weight I’m bearing to realize it’s not about me. It’s not about my strength helping them. It’s just about me carrying them to the One who can heal them, like in the passage. With His guidance and His strength. =)
Wow, I needed that one. (Definitely worth the read!)