Burdened

I believe I took this image in South Dakota. It pictures what life can be like sometimes for an individual. It's as though you can't move. But you can, as long as you move perfectly in the process. Squeezed in from all directions. Halfway into something you can't back out of. Others depending on you in the process. Perhaps you are a fairly new believer and you're discovering that there are battles to be encountered as you journey forward in your faith. It speaks well of you if that's the case. No believer goes very far in their Christian walk without some kind of hindrance. I'm reminded of Paul writing to a little church in Thessalonica where he had only spent three weeks before having to leave. He later wrote them a letter telling how he was trying to get back for a visit but how "Satan hindered" him from doing so multiple times (1 Thess. 2:18). That word, "hindered" is enkopto meaning, "to cut into or to detain or to impede progress." It was used as a military term describing the process of cutting into the road in order to keep it from being used.

I don't know your story, but I know if you're seeking to honor God, Satan is seeking to hinder you as a roaring lion seeks to devour. He did so to Job. He did so to Paul, to Peter and others. Let's remember there is only one Satan and multiple demons. You and I may never encounter Satan but there's little doubt that the more we seek to represent the God of the universe the more we should expect resistance. I'm not saying there's a demon behind every bush or wall. Let's not give credit to the other side simply because we felt the pain of hard work in the process of "pressing on to the high calling."

One of the best things we can do, however, is take the time to help others in their journey in the faith. Maybe it's another believer who is simply trying to figure out what the different books of the Bible are about. Could you have a cup of coffee together and spend just one hour to take that burden away? Perhaps it's someone trying to go to a Christian college, and the Lord lays it on your heart to pay for his books for a semester. There's a specific for you. Is it a young person stepping out in faith to serve as a missionary needing support? Perhaps you have carpentry skills and the church is trying to figure out how to partition a larger room into two smaller ones for teaching purposes. That's rather specific.

Find a specific this week that can prove that you want to bear the burden of another.