“Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.” (Luke 5:18-19 NKJV)
Story #1: The scene is a championship football game. The home team has the lead by five points. The visiting team has the ball at midfield. If they score a touchdown, they win. The defense must hold. The visiting teams runs an end around play. A defensive player has the runner in his sight and is set to hit him hard and save the game. However, out of nowhere, an offensive blocker hits the defensive player, knocking him to the hard green turf. It would have been easy to just lay there, but the defensive player pops right back up and begins tracking down the visiting team’s runner. He is running at a speed that no one has ever witnessed him run like before! The time clock has expired, so this will be the last play. The runner is too confident. He slows down at the ten-yard line. There is another hard hit, so hard you can hear the thud sound in the most distant part of the stadium stands. The offensive player is stopped by the unrelenting, home team defensive player and the runner only reaches the two-yard line. Game over! The home team wins because the defensive player overcame that initial hit! He did not roll over and accept defeat, but he recovered, ran fast, and ruined the hopes of the opposition.
Story #2: While a college student is studying for a final exam, all of a sudden, the power goes out. She looks out the window to see if it is an outage across the neighborhood, knowing she had paid his utility bills. It’s completely dark. Not even the moon was providing light, inasmuch as a thick cloud cover prevented it from illuminating the night. The college student paused for a second, not long at all. She did say the HMJ prayer, “Help me Jesus!” Then, she pulled out her cellphone and turned to the utility app and clicked on the flashlight. Staying focused, she immediately resumed her preparation for the final exam. That is after she said, “Thank you Jesus!” The next day she was able to get a high score on her final exam. It would not have happened if she did not overcome the power outage. As a side note: There is a greater Power that can never be shut down.
Story #3: And this one is about you! You will have to write the ending. Today or perhaps tomorrow, you are going to be hit hard by a situation, tackled by a problem, blocked by limited resources, challenged personally to persevere or overcome, stymied by something internal as opposed to external, and you will have to face every molecule of darkness that can be found in this world! How is Story #3, your story, going to end? Will you be an overcomer, or will you be overcome? Will you say, “No way I can avoid defeat,” or will you depend on the Lord to make a way out of no way? How will your story end? You start work on the ending, right away without delay! Be blessed!
“Every God-born person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world’s ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of Go.” (I John 5:4-5 The Message Bible)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King