Monday Reflections...Trusting God is sometimes hard...inspiration from an image

I think the key to the above picture is that there are 5 men who are working together to move the large stone.  Maybe it started out with the man in the center.  He is struggling and pushing all alone.  The man to the far left notices his struggle and starts pulling from a different direction.  The man behind the center man comes at just the right time to get the edge of the stone slightly off the ground.  The two men to the right see a way to help and run to find a couple poles to put under the stone.  The poles provide more leverage and soon the seemingly immovable object is toppled over.  This would be my layman interpretation of this artwork.

Trusting God can sometimes look like the above pictured block of stone.  The task of following after Him requires great strength of faith.  Jesus, Himself, said this of those who would follow Him after stating the block of stone that was in front of Him,

...saying, "It is necessary that the Son of Man suffering many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, 

be killed, and be raised on the third day."

Then He said to them all,

"If anyone wants to follow after Me,

let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me."

Luke 9:22, 23 (CSB) 

Sometimes I am the man in the center putting my whole body into this task and then something wonderful happens.  Someone comes along and starts tugging on my stone.  It is usually my beautiful wife.  She sees that her husband is serious about moving this mountain of an idea that is related to following after my God.  I am also thankful that God has brought into my life some tremendous brothers and sisters in the Lord who come running with their strong arms of faith and poles of the leverage of God's Word to help me with this task to completely trust in Him.

As thankful as I am for those who come running to my aid, I realize that I am to be aware of being one of the ones coming to the aid of another.  At times I am not the center man but one of the others coming alongside to push, pull, of lift with someone who is striving to trust God with all.  What better thing to do in life than to help with another to grow in trusting in the Lord.  

I saw this last night after a church business meeting.  We brought in a new member into the fellowship of the church.  A glorious testimony was given of his devotion to His risen Lord, Jesus Christ!  Following the meeting, he was with another member of the church going over the huge task of knowing God's Word better.  The Bible is a foreign book to him and they were working on memorizing the order of the books of the New Testament.  The huge stone this man was leaning against was the Bible, and he was receiving the help of another who was grabbing ahold with him.  His Sunday School class, men's group, and the Morning Worship services of this church could be some of the others in his picture when it comes to growing in His knowledge of what God has written for him to know and live by.

Friend, which person are you?  I think we probably are both at the same time, the center man and the others coming to his aid.  We all have our stone that we are pushing against.  God has something in front of us that He wants us to do for Him.  The team of God's family assists us at the right time and we in turn run to do the same for them.  

What are you more aware of today?  

Are you pushing hard to be faithful or are you running to help another to flop his or her stone of faith closer to its destination?  

I am thankful I found this image today.  I think I might try to have it blown up and framed to put in my office.  It would be a great tool to ask others, "Which one are you today?"  I want to use it to remind myself and others to be thankful for those God has brought into our lives of faith and to be used of God to help others with theirs.  I am so thankful I saw this image in action last night too.

Adam

(p.s. - Here is a great song to go with this devotional.)