🙌It's the Friday Call to Worship!🙌

In Mark 2:1-5, the dramatic story of a paralyzed man lowered through a roof by his friends always stirs up questions in me. There was too big of a crowd to get to Jesus that day, so they just went through the roof. 

I wonder how the man on the mat felt. He was fully exposed, could do nothing for himself, and the text never said anything about his faith. 

Did he believe? Was he afraid? What would Jesus say when he got down there? What would happen if He said no? It was a lot easier for his friends to lower him on that mat than raise him. 

My family and I have been on a long, long journey of hoping for things to be different. For the last 7 years, I've also felt fully exposed, helpless, and paralyzed by circumstances out of my control. I don't know how the man on the mat felt during his lifetime of immobility, but I know he wasn't a sinless saint. Jesus himself said he needed to be forgiven just like everybody else. 

In my circumstantial paralysis, I wrestled with hard questions, got angry, tired, shut down, and finally just stopped praying about it. It had to change, but I couldn't see it changing. I stopped taking it to Jesus because what felt like a silent response was harder than not showing up in faith.

My friends never stopped. They saw me on my mat, and they carried me with their faith. They lowered my hope-weary heart to the feet of Jesus even when I didn't really want to be there. 

It was the faith of the friends of the paralyzed man that moved Jesus to release a life-changing miracle. He only laid on the mat. It was his friends! It was mine too.

If you find yourself immobile, hope-weary, hurting or without faith today, tell a friend. Jesus sees you on that mat, and He holds nothing back from borrowed faith. If you can, carry someone's mat. Faith, hope and healing were never designed to be individual activities. God is 3-in-1, and we were made to know Him fully together. 

Listen to Israel Houghton's Jesus at the Center and remember the One we put our hope in and the grace He extends when it's hard to.