Day 21 - Going My Way?

Read Mark 2

On the scene comes these four guys bringing their friend who is paralyzed.  There is part of me that   wonders how did this guy who couldn’t move get four friends to begin with!  Maybe he was a funny guy, an intriguing person, a great personality.  It doesn’t say. Maybe it was that these guys were involved in an accident together with their friend doing some kind of crazy stunt.  In light of the stunt that they would pull off shows they were not your typical group of friends.  The place was a packed house and the guys’ friend was paralyzed.  They could have easily given up right there, right then.  This can wait, we’ll get it another day.  It would have been easy to make an excuse and say, ‘we’ll try again later…’  When it comes to talking about our faith, we like to give ourselves excuses as well.  I don’t feel ready to share, I don’t feel ready to act in love. However, these guys knew all about going out of your way.  They knew that   Jesus was the only hope, He had a ministry of healing and they knew that He gravitated towards the soul sick.  They didn’t have all the answers, but they took him to the one who did.  Jesus had come back to his hometown and they knew he had a huge following.  This might be the closest they would ever get.

It was their friend who was paralyzed and today many people are paralyzed by fear, lonliness, anger at God and it keeps them from coming to Him.  Our friends are spiritually paralyzed and what are we doing about it?  The god of this age has blinded their eyes to the light of the glorious gospel.

They came up with a plan, a very unorthodox plan to get their friend to Jesus, they made an opening in the roof.  Ripping open someone’s roof could call for a lawsuit, but they went for it and Jesus is incredible.  Someone was asking me where is the contagious laughter in the Bible.  I have to believe that Jesus had to be smiling with a laugh watching this happen as parts of the roof probably fell on him.  He doesn’t focus on the hole in the roof or even the interruption in the meeting.  His focus becomes crystal clear and He sees the eternal and their spiritual responsiveness.  So, He responds not just to the paralyzed man, but to all of them…. He saw their faith!!  Mark 2:5  May God give us that kind of  contagious faith.

When it comes to bringing people to Jesus, does God see our faith?