We all know what it feels like to watch someone we care about struggle and not know what to do about it. Sometimes it is a friend making choices that are slowly tearing their life apart. Sometimes it is someone carrying pain they refuse to talk about. Sometimes it is a person who has closed themselves off to God, to help, to anything that might actually change things. You see it, and chances are other people see it too, but everyone keeps their distance because stepping in feels uncomfortable. It feels safer to stay quiet and hope things somehow work themselves out. Nobody wants to risk the relationship. Nobody wants to be the one who says something that might be taken the wrong way, so people wait, and while everyone waits the situation usually stays the same.
That is what makes the story of the men who carried their friend to Jesus so striking. They had someone in their life who could not help himself and they believed healing was possible if they could just get him to the right place. When they arrived the house was packed and the doorway was completely blocked. There was no clear path to bring him inside. Most people would have looked at the crowd, shrugged, and said they tried. Instead they climbed onto the roof and lowered him down into the room anyway. It interrupted everything. Dust falling, people staring, the whole moment probably felt awkward and disruptive, but they were not thinking about how it looked. They were thinking about their friend and they were not willing to leave him where he was.
That kind of faith still matters today. Faith is not just believing that God can change something. Faith moves when love refuses to give up on someone. It shows up in the person who keeps praying for someone others have already written off. It shows up in the friend who checks in again when someone insists they are fine. It shows up in the hard conversation that nobody else wants to have because everyone is trying to keep the peace. Every one of us has had a season where we were the one on the mat, the one who could not see a way forward, and someone else cared enough to help carry us through it.
Fans of Jesus admire the miracle from a distance, but followers are willing to carry the mat. Sometimes the door looks closed and the path forward is not obvious, but when you believe God can still move in someone’s life you do not walk away just because it is difficult. Sometimes if you cannot find a way, you make one.
Leave a comment