STIR YOURSELF!!

It's so hard to stir yourself from a warm, cosy bed on a very cold night when you're half asleep but you hear a child coughing.   It takes every ounce of willpower to make yourself get up and respond.   You hope they'll stir enough to pull the blankets up themselves but no, you have to drag yourself up and out at 3am.

I'm joining with writers at Five Minute Friday and today's prompt is STIR.  

And I find myself in a similar funk in my spiritual walk.  I'm tired, really tired, of the journey through a long valley.   I'm kinda comfortable with how things currently are, though I've tasted enough healing and freedom to know that there's more if I'll press on.   But it seems easier to stay put and rest.

I'm always fascinated by the story of the man at the pool of Bethesda who waited again and again for the angel to stir the water so he could get healed.  But each time, something or someone prevented him.

Until Jesus shows up.   When Jesus shows up,  the man is faced with a choice to shift his mindset and stir from his bed of many years.    

The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”  And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

John 5:7-9

I always find it fascinating that Jesus tells a paralysed man to get up.  Like, how?  But he does.  In response to Jesus, all of a sudden, the impossible becomes possible and the man rises.    The man who couldn't get into the pool in 38 long years, can now walk and carry his bed because Jesus showed up.  

So, Jesus showed up on Sunday while our pastor was working hard to stir up faith in his listeners - faith to press on and press in to Him, to not settle for what we've always known, but to cry out to Him, to wait on Him, respond to Him, to expect good things, to stir up our faith in worship, the Word, in prayer and get hungry enough to move forward.

Nobody got obviously healed, but we were stirred and challenged to not settle for the valley, to not stay put but to follow Him out.   I want out of this valley; I've walked it long enough but I have to stir myself up to follow Him through and push past my own tiredness and old mindsets, and follow His footsteps.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.    As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs;  the autumn rains also cover it with pools.   They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.  Ps 84:5-7

This song is one I will put on if I need to stir up my faith and expect good things from God. 

Let faith arise
Let faith arise

I lift my hands to believe again
You are my refuge, You are my strength
As I pour out my heart, these things I remember
You are faithful, God, forever