stand |stand|

verb 
1 have or maintain an upright position, supported by one’s feet:
• rise to one’s feet: .
• move to and remain in a specified position:

 

To stand is harder than we think because we don’t remember learning to stand.

We don’t remember the strength building because our focus is always on the move.

Sure, its easy for us now as adults because we’ve done it so many times that its become routine. We don’t even have to think about it anymore. When we want to stand, we just do.

But if we remembered, it took focus, strength, and practice.

It took falling over and over, yet being determined enough to pull up again…as our legs trembled and shook, until we become strong enough to stand.

But thats not where we started.

We started weak. Unable to even crawl. We would lay there on our mat waiting for someone to pick us up. We too had to learn to stand before we walked. We pulled up on the coffee table or the fridge or anything we could get close to and lean on to hold us up.

The problem was, anytime we leaned upon anything that wasn’t able to hold us, we’d slip and fall.

This same thing happens to us now.

And even worse, the very thing that we lean on for support and we KNOW will not hold us, we so easily lean on again and again.

Hebrews 12:1~Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that SO EASILY trips us up. 

Just like the man on the mat did.

He leaned on his mat.

It was all he had.

It was familiar…. it was “easy.”

He was surrounded by a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, however, he had lost his.

He hated it, but he also held on to it because in the darkest hours, when know one was around, at least he had his mat. At least the pain he felt would stop for a little while when he moved around.

After 38 years of laying there, I’m sure he even had his favorite spot. The material had worn and visibly had holes, tears, and shredded seams, but to him, it was home. It was comfortable, yet he still cried over it.

But what it doesn’t talk about was how he got there. I’m sure he wasn’t a baby that was abandoned by his mom, left there to survive on the mat. He wouldn’t of made it.

Something put him there.

Something that each and every time he leaned on it for support, he fell to the ground because it wasn’t strong enough to support him.

Something that so easily tripped him up. Each time, putting him right back, flat on his back, on the mat.

Something that his enemy sat back and watched while laughing because it was the same thing every single time that made him fall!! It wasn’t even hard for satan. He didn’t even have to try a new thing to get him down. It had become “so easy” to make him trip and fall right back to his mat.

So he gave up.

He would just lay there waiting for someone else to pick him up, watching…as the others got up to get in the water ahead of him, moving place to place, because he now believed he “could not” do it.

He even said it. “I can’t sir,”.

But the reason wasn’t because he couldn’t, it was because he had no strength!! When Jesus healed him, what He gave him was his strength back!!

Are you ready to get your strength back?

Are you tired of watching everyone else move forward and walk away healed?

Then you must learn to stand. 

No matter how many times you’ve fallen before or how much your legs tremble.

Stand up.

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for the strength to stand when everything in me wants to quit! Forgive me for leaning upon anything or anyone that so easily leads me back to my mat. I want to believe that “I can” be healed from this weakness that has entangled me all of my life. I want to be healed. I know You can heal me and I believe that You will! I will continue to stand on Your Word as You rise me up in YOUR STRENGTH to be the woman You’ve made me to be.

In Jesus name, Amen.