Being Lifted

Last week I was watching a one-year old.  We were walking out the door to go outside when he reached out his arms.  He wanted me to lift him down from the step onto the ground.  I’m sure we’ve all experienced this.  When a small child needs help, he will simply look toward you and hold out his arms, waiting to be picked up.  Toddlers know they cannot do certain things on their own and they know that we will provide the help that they need.  This is how it is with God, or at least how it should be.  When we find ourselves in certain situations, with struggles we are trying to work through and problems we are trying to solve, do we reach out to God?

For some reason, it seems as if a lot of us think we have to do everything on our own.  When life gets busy and we feel overwhelmed by the world around us, we somehow think that we can handle everything ourselves.  It is easy to find ourselves complaining about the problems we have and all the tasks we need to accomplish.  Why do we think we can do it without the Lord?  We load up our plates with all this stuff.  This is when the stress, worries, doubts, and fears build up.  We start to get buried underneath the weight of the world and call out, “don’t worry, I’m fine!  It’s all good!”  We like to make things harder than they need to be.  It would be a whole lot easier if we reached out to God and cried out, “Lord, please help me!”  

​If only we fully knew that Christ will provide the help that we need.  He died on the cross with His arms stretched open wide.  Every day, He waits for us to come to him, and reach up to be lifted.  He can lift us up from whatever struggles we find ourselves in.   We may walk along thinking everything is going well until we hit roadblocks.  These different roadblocks along the way cause us to stumble and fall.  We feel as if we are stuck, not able to get up again, and forced to crawl to continue on.  Our other option is to reach out to Christ, asking Him to lift us up and walk with us.  This does not guarantee that we won’t have struggles and that we will never fall.  It does however, guarantee that we will always have someone there to pick us up and help us along our way.

​Invite God into your life everyday.  Look toward Him with open arms, trusting that He will pick you up and carry you through whatever it is that you ask of Him.