Team Work

When we pray for someone we love, let’s always go the distance. Let’s build a stretcher to carry them on and fight through the crowds. Let’s climb to the top of the house carefully carrying them to Jesus. Let’s dig through every layer of the rooftop till we see Jesus and can safely get them into Jesus’ presence. See Mark 1-12.

Those we love who cannot help themselves, who are paralyzed by fear or addiction or lust or greed or pain or just the unbearable weight of living in this fallen world, must have someone to carry them to Jesus, the only One who can truly save them.

More often than not, it takes more than one friend to carry someone else to Jesus. If the one we love can’t get there alone, most of us will not be strong enough to carry them through the crowds and onto the rooftop alone. And if we were strong enough, we would surely drop them along the way.

But if we commit ourselves to seeking out others to love our loved one with us, we can get them through the crisis, through their aversion to help, through the lies of the enemy, through the minefields of this world, and carry them into Jesus’ presence.

And then! Jesus will not just heal their disease, strengthen their bones or restore their physical health. He will heal them to the uttermost–He will go to the root cause of the problem and shine His love light on it so they can see down deep where the problem started. With the tenderest love and compassion, Jesus will show them all sins that lead them to fall into the pit from which they couldn’t climb out, where the disease or paralysis or blindness seeped into their body like acid. Seeing the place where they fell or leaped into that pit will hurt their hearts just enough to cause them to cry out to Jesus, asking His forgiveness for having turned their backs on Him before the fall.

And then! Just because they came to Him and honestly asked for His help, Jesus tells them what they most long to hear: “Your sins are forgiven.” Mark 2:5. Hearing that gives them the ability and willingness to arise, take up the bed of pain and sorrow they had been confined to, and walk home. As they go, everyone they meet will see them and be amazed, knowing who they had been before-paralyzed and unable to walk on their own.

What a privilege to be part of that team! What joy to hear others say, “We never saw anything like this! Mark 2:12.

Amen and amen.