Thought for the Week - 21/09/20
“We Will Get Through This!”
We will get through this!
At the moment, that may or may not be easy for you to believe. We are in what appears to be an ever-increasing crisis.
We will get through this. One day, this day too will join history.
I don’t know if you ever did sport at school. I have been blessed by God with two left feet and a complete inability to work out where my elbows are in relation to anything else. Sport was not fun for someone as clumsy and well, unfit, as me.
Long after leaving school I thought I would give exercise one more chance and entered a fun run. After all, what could be more fun than a fun run?
It turns out that pretty well anything could be more ‘fun’ than a fun run.
The problem was that not only had I missed much of my PE classes at school, I had also done incredibly badly at maths. Turns out that a half marathon was much further than I had calculated.
Much further.
I really thought I would never get through it.
When I focused on the problem the issues seemed insurmountable. Every step was becoming increasingly painful.
But then I looked around. Lined along the route were crowds of people. They were cheering and clapping. At the time I thought it was to encourage – but it may have been out of sympathy. Either way, it meant I couldn’t quit.
Do you ever have one of those moments when you think – I am not going to get through this?
Being part of church can help us face those difficult to face moments. In a book of the Bible called Hebrews, the author speaks of church as being like a crowd of people encouraging one another on.
Have you got people like that in your life? Encouragers. People who will keep you going when all you really want to do is to give up?
This is the impact that being part of a community of encouragement can have on us.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run…fixing our eyes on Jesus...”
I never did manage the running bit. It was more a long walk that gradually became a painful hobble. But encouraged by others I made it to the finish.
We will get through this. One day, this day too, will belong to history.
Who can help you through today? And who might you encourage?
Keith Wilson, 21/09/2020