Come with me
Recently while receiving prayer someone felt God give them a picture when they were praying. She explained it like this; "Kara I see this pit that you are stuck in and God has lowered down a rope ladder"
Silently, in my mind I said, "Well God, if there is a ladder, why is it so hard to get out of this pit?"
And she continued "You are only climbing with one hand, and with the other you are holding onto other people and helping them to climb out of the pit". Wow. Firstly as soon as she said the word pit, it really resonated inside me as if my spirit agreed, and secondly it felt like God directly replied to my question through someone else as soon as I asked it.
What a blessing that picture was to me, and what a concept. It made my struggles seem more useful. Imagine if, as I struggle I can help someone else who is struggling. That is pretty cool.
I have always believed that God can use our experiences for good, to help others but I had never thought that in the struggle we could be used. It always seemed like a far off idea, one day when this is sorted then I can help someone going through it. I wonder if anyone else has that idea or if it is just me? I had fallen into a trap of thinking that I have to be a better person and have conquered before I could be useful. It is so easy to look at ourselves and see the flaws and to think that "one day" I will be able to help someone else. This trap may have caught more than just me. It might even be a way of excusing our behaviour, our lack of actual movement toward changing our world. We put it off, until we are better, until this awful thing I am struggling with is fixed, then I can help someone. I mean what if we started to try to change the world and someone found out that we have a constant battle with x, y or z? Wouldn't that represent Jesus poorly? Wouldn't it show hypocrisy in our lives? If we have presented ourselves as having all the answers this would be a huge problem. If we have presented ourselves as being perfect or as better than them. If we were acting as if we had no challenges we struggle with. Transparency is our protectio, being honest.
When we reach out to share in someone else's struggle maybe we should share what our struggle is and admit that we are working on stuff. Just like they are! That we have bad days where the struggle seems too hard and we give in momentarily.
We can say to them, come struggle with me and we can overcome together. Come with me and we can find hope together. If we wait until we are fixed and have come through our challenges before helping others, the world will be missing out on what we can do, now.
So I admit right now that I face challenges that sometimes overwhelm me. But come with me and we can journey together. Together we will find hope.
KG
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