Cry Out

Read:  Luke 18:35-43

In today’s story we hear about a blind man who was sitting along the roadside begging.  If you were to picture what life had been like for this man, how long do you suppose he had been blind?  Where was his family?  What led him to finally find himself sitting along the road that day?

Maybe he had been born blind and rejected by his family.  Maybe he became blind later in life, and when he could no longer support his loved ones or himself, he lost everything. Whatever the circumstances that led to his blindness, it is clear he had been abandon and left alone to fend for himself.  The only thing left for him to do was to sit by the roadside and beg those that passed by for a morsel of food. 

Day after day after day, it was the same thing.  Nothing changed, blindness has become a way of life.  It was his new normal.   How do you suppose he must have felt?

Frightened?  Degraded?  Dejected?  Helpless?  Desperate?  Hopeless?

What circumstance in your life have led you to felt like this man? 

Then one day he felt something different in the air.  There was a commotion and excitement all around him.  He asked what was happening, he heard that Jesus was passing by. 

His heart lit up with a glimmer of hope and he desperately cried out to Jesus.  When those who were passing by tried to silence the cry of his heart, he shouted out all the more!  

Then Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

He could have passed it off and just asked for something small, maybe a morsel of bread, or a warm place to sleep.   But instead, he asks for the deepest longing of his heart, to be able to see!

When life has gotten me down, when I feel despondent, helpless, desperate, or hopeless, like thing are never really going to change, may I remember that the deepest longings of my heart is exactly where Jesus wants to meet me.  He wants nothing more than to hear the deepest cries of my heart.

We may be tempted to silence our cries, to push them down and pretend they don’t really matter. 

But Jesus invites us to ask big, to audaciously shout out all the more the desires of our hearts, knowing He will hear our cries!  He knows how best to supply all of our needs according to His goodness and mercy.  Will you trust Him with the deepest cries of your heart?

A Cliff Hanger

Matthew 5:1-11

When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.
“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you.

Over the years, I have learned that God is most evident to me when I am crying out to Him for help. I love how The Message states the beatitudes, like…”You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.” If I hadn’t arrived at the ‘end of my rope’ so many years ago, I don’t know where I would be today. I don’t think I want to know.

It was as I was dangling off a cliff and hanging on to the end of a rope that I was brought to my knees. I began to search for a meaning to my life, a purpose or reason to go on. That was when God showed up. And because my fingers were torn and bleeding from the rope burns I was open to the healing balm Jesus extended to me. Blessed...

Many years later as my husband was facing his final hours, Jesus made Himself known in a big way. The words, “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you,” became clear. During that season Jesus was sitting between Dave and me, listening in on our conversations and painting a picture of the new home that was waiting for him. Blessed...

Read over the rest of the Beatitudes and see if you can identify with a few and recognize blessings that happened to you because of those situations. Share them here if you like, or in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you.