Good morning, brothers and sisters.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 4:6, “Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family.”
There is no way that Peter and John had any idea that such a fuss was going to be made of their encounter with the lame man outside the temple. Nor can we know why they happened to heal him this time, when it’s safe to assume they had seen him there many times before as he begged daily for handouts. But for reasons unknown, Peter and John paused along their way into the temple at prayer time to give this man what he wanted more deeply than the denarii he asked for. They gave him what he wasn’t able to ask for, what neither Annas nor Caiaphas nor any of the family of the high priest could render to him. Imagine if for forty years this man had asked all who came and went into the temple, priests and worshippers alike, to give his legs the strength to walk. Picture the scene as he would cry out to them to do something to him that might make his legs work, these people who went back and forth daily and weekly into God’s meeting place, and they just looked at him with helpless consternation. If they tried to appease him by giving him money, he would refuse in disgust, desiring not their pity but their help. That might describe a man who thought that someone out there could make him walk, if only they would. But this man had no such hope. Forty years of being carried everywhere he went took care of that.
But for some reason, God gave him what he longed for his entire life but couldn’t ask for anymore. Even as he begged for sustenance to make it through another one of his frustrating, depressing days, God reached in and delivered to him a whole new world where he can now move instead of everything else moving past him. And that is kind of a big deal. There are many ropes at which many people are at the end. It might not be as obvious as a man begging who has never walked, but many of us walking into God’s meeting place have long since stopped asking for what we really need. It’s now become a labor to make it from today until tomorrow. I know God can still help them, I just don’t know how. Perhaps that can be a mission we followers of Christ can trek together.
As we seek Him today, consider that those around you may not have it as together as it appears, and maybe you can do something about it.
Have a sweet Thursday.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
