To you I say, Rise, take up your mat and go to your house.
Mark 2:11
Many of us can attest we’ve been so immobilized or panic stricken, it was almost like being paralyzed. Restricted. Unable to move. Modern stories of fear, war, opposing parties, pandemics, unforgiveness, a shady past, and unconfessed sin can carry such a grip in our life, we are crippled. And the amount of time varies from person to person.
A passage in the Scriptures, indicates a time in which Jesus would encounter a particular individual, in order to show that He had authority to forgive sins, He had said to the paralytic, “Rise, pick up your bed and go to your house.”
This healing of the paralytic is quite practical for any and all of us. The Lord’s salvation not only forgives our sins, but also makes us “rise and walk.” It is not rise and walk first, and then be forgiven of our sins. No, that would be by works. Instead, it is to be forgiven of our sins first, and then to rise and walk. Walk out of a voice or position of paralyzing fear or some type of debilitation.
Is it possible the strain and struggling against that which has been keeping us down, could one day become that which we’ll be able to carry?
I find myself in this story. Paralyzed by burdens. Fear of failure. The addictions, fear of success, etc. Being held captive keeps all of us back from living. We end up without peace. Void of enjoyment. Fear and failure, honestly can altogether cripple us. Causing our ‘trying harder’ to try harder, which will make our bed worse. Definitely much more difficult to lay on.
That bed, whatever it’s called for you, for so long has had a way of bearing us. For many, a burden; an excuse; a Paper Wall. A reason to go on to the next program, and maybe just keep trying a little harder. Does the ‘bed’ then become what we want it to be?
Christ, who has the ability to forgive us of our sins also affords the freedom to be delivered from fears, addictions, and whatever else paralyzes us. We will soon realize that bed which bore us – we can now bear the bed instead. Hurray! You and I are capable to bear and carry the load, the fear, the addiction. And by being able to bear it, we can also get rid of it when we feel we no longer need it to identify with what was past.
Let’s applaud all those men and women who have done just that. Who’ve now borne what was painful, not as a memory. But as a testimony of what the Son of Man, who has Authority to forgive and then the healing follows. Because they are the lights and testimonies of what God can do in a yielding heart, and shine influentially .
