Tag Archives: help

Groanings

praying hard

The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Romans 8:26

Sometimes all we can muster up from within us when we pray is a sigh, a breath, a groan. But the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit can take these sounds and make them into groanings to God that capture everything we mean to say to God the Father through them. You see, we never need to have just the right word or phrase. We don’t need to recite familiar prayers from our childhood verbatim. We should never be afraid to just come to God and moan a little over everything that is happening to us and around us. Our every utterance to God, intelligible to the world around us or not, is a prayer. And it is those deep and longing noises from within us that often say the most to God about what is going on in our lives and where we really need some critical help.

I am reminded a little in all of this of Jacob wrestling with God in the Old Testament (See Genesis 32:24.). Our moans and groans are a kind of wrestling with God over issues that are not easily resolved or very clear cut. But God does not mind wrestling with us; in fact, he wants us to be real and honest with him about how we are feeling. So let out your sorrow, your pain, your anger, your frustration in prayer. Don’t hold back. God can take it. The Spirit will express it to him fully. We will be heard and understood by God, even if it feels like no one else is getting the reason or reasons for our wrangling.

No matter how intense it gets, when we walk away from prayer, we will have the assurance from God that he is with us always and he is in the struggle with us. Christ’s moans and groans from the cross on our behalf prove that to us.

When the Wheels Come Off…

bike

But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. Luke 15:33

I recently had the back wheel of my bike come off while I was pedaling up a steep hill. My chain fell off the gears and the axle broke. I limped off the road, not sure what to do. Then members of my bike team came by one by one to stop and help me out and calm me down.

After many attempts by my fellow bikers to get my bike back together, it turned out that the bike was completely unrideable and unfixable, so one member generously said she would come back and pick me up and put my bike in the back of her car, which she did. She even assisted me in putting the various pieces of my bike into the back of my car.

We all ended the day with a delicious meal at a nearby restaurant, where I could thank everyone personally for their kindness.

The experience was a reminder to me of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In my case, though, there were many Good Samaritans and no one passed by on the other side. It’s a good sign to me that there are still many people in the world today with servant hearts who will drop everything to help a friend in need when “the wheels fall off” in life literally and figuratively. Our role as Christians continues to be to serve as neighbor anyone we see who needs help. Never be the one, even now, who passes by on the other side when you see someone in dire straits. Christ will give you courage to go over to them and do what you can.

Body of Christ

body of Christ

I have recently begun to work with a coach to help me with strength training since my body is so out of shape. One thing I have noticed after each workout session is that I can feel soreness in certain areas of my body a day or two later. That pain, that ache is my body telling me which part of it is the weakest and needs some special attention to become stronger. So my coach has helped me to focus on exercises that help those areas of concern to become better and more useful to me in my daily living.

This makes me think about what the Bible tells us about the Body of Christ:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty,  which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. —Romans 12:21-26

As with our own physical body, we as the Body of Christ work together to help and support each other for the good of the whole body. So if a fellow Christian is going through pain of any kind, we exercise our caring muscles to bring them relief. If another Christian is feeling weak, we stretch out our hands to encourage them with the message that we each can be strong in the Lord in the role that he has given us to advance the Body’s abilities. Be a blessing today to the members of the Body of Christ around you, and give them a leg up, if you will. The Body of Christ will be better for it.