Then Jesus said to him, “Get up!  Pick up your mat and walk.”  John 5:8

Sometimes we need to be told to get up off our rears, clean up our messes and take a step in a new direction.  Jesus told people to “get up” all the time.  For instance, He said these words to a paralyzed man (Matt. 9:6), a dead 12-year-old girl (Mark 5:41), a boy in a coffin (Luke 7:14), and a man who had been crippled for 38 years (John 5:8), just to name a few.  How in the world were these people supposed to “get up”? 

It’s a good question for those of us who get stuck on our mats from time to time.  Like the man in John 5, I can get paralyzed by circumstances and lie around hoping for someone to come along who will lift me up into a place of healing.  It can be a long wait.  If I’m not careful, I can begin to get comfortable on my mat. 

I’ve been there the past two weeks.  Partly from the recent death of my dad, partly from reliving the loss of my mom (I was 13 when she died of cancer), partly because I’ve had a miserable head cold, and partly because it’s April and it’s snowing.  But this morning I heard a voice say, “Get up” and it didn’t matter if I felt paralyzed, crippled or even dead, there was enough power in the words themselves to get me on my feet and moving.

It helps knowing that the man who spoke to the cripple (and to me) is the same One who got Himself up out of the tomb.  As Keith Green wrote,

“Jesus rose from the dead. 

Come on, get out of your bed.”

“…so that you may know his incomparably great power for us who believe.  That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead.” Ephesians 1:19-20

“They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved.”  Psalm 78:18

When I was pregnant with our first child, I remember sending PB out in the middle of the night for Honey Nut Cheerios.  There was to be no peace, no sleep, no satisfaction until that bowl of sweet, crunchy goodness was in my hands and in my tummy.  I just had to have some.  

Occasionally, I still get a hankering for something sweet and find an excuse to drive down to the gas station for some licorice.  We live in a world where it’s fairly easy to satisfy our cravings.  In or out of season, we have an array of fruit and vegetables in our stores all year round.  Restaurants show off their revolving dessert cases and we are bombarded with tv ads that create an appetite for thick, gooey, cheesy pizza that’s just a phone call and 15 minutes away from our salivating mouths.

After almost a year of a steady diet of manna (that heavenly food that showed up outside their tents every morning) the Israelites out in the desert began to complain.  Again.  Only this time they took it up a notch.  “Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent.”  (Numbers 11:10)  The folks were wailing, and why?  Their mouths were watering for a taste of home: “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost – also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.” (Numbers 11:5)

They seemed to be forgetting that along with those yummy leeks and onions came slavery, bitter hardship and beatings from the hands of ruthless slave masters.  It’s odd what we remember when looking back at the “good old days”.  The Bible says that God caused the people to hunger and then fed them bread from heaven.  He had to drive out the old cravings in order for the people to develop a taste for divine food.  I think God’s still in the business of training our taste buds.  My desires for security and significance can only be satisfied by Him, not a person, or a career, or a new toy.  Or Honey Nut Cheerios.

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart.  Deuteronomy 8:2

When I was in school, tests were given in order to know what was in my head.  I was pretty good at memorizing lists of information the night before a biology exam.  Making up acronyms to help recall facts was kind of fun and I would pace back and forth across the living room reciting my secret codes until I had them all down.  (For instance, Fly Away Right Before Midnight = the vertebrates in the animal kingdom: Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, Mammals.  Oh!   And ToMMY was a real fun guy – fungi – get it?  Toadstools, Mold, Mushrooms and Yeast. Hey, it worked for me – I remembered that one after 30-some years!)

The next morning I could walk into the classroom and regurgitate the data onto each correct blank; by afternoon, however, most of it was forgotten.  The system got me through high school with pretty good grades, but, unfortunately, not much real knowledge.

God’s tests are run a little differently.  He’s not as interested in what’s in our heads as much as what’s in our hearts.  And the only way to find that out is to spend some time wandering around in a hot, dry desert without food and water.  When we are in a position where we can’t make it on our own and our only hope of survival is complete dependence on God, it won’t be long before whatever is in our hearts comes leaking out: either grumbling and defiance or surrender and obedience.  It’s true: when you are being squeezed, whatever is inside will come out.

The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and all your soul.  Deuteronomy 13:3

“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.”  Exodus 32:9

Our women’s Bible study continues trekking through Exodus with Moses and all those “stiff-necked” Israelites.  That’s a term we don’t hear much anymore.  It means rebellious, stubborn, haughty, unbending, difficult, pig-headed.  The image of an ox unwilling to yield and refusing to put its head through a yoke by stiffening its neck captures the meaning of this word.  I happen to know a few “stiff-necked” people; in fact, I know one really well: me.

But what if I put that rebellious streak to good use?  Instead of rebelling against God and His great goodness, what if I rebelled against evil and sin and all the bad stuff in this world?  What if, when I’m tempted to give in to my flesh, I say, “You can’t make me”?  What if, when I want to fly off the handle and let some hurtful words fly, I say, “Self, I refuse to give in to you”?  What if we were pig-headed and became intensely difficult people for Satan to deal with?  What if our Enemy just got sick of us because of our rebellion against him?  Can you and I be stubbornly committed to following Christ and put that stiff neck to good use? 

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:29-30

“As for God, His way is perfect.”  Psalm 18:30

I like people with crooked teeth.  I enjoy being around women who don’t have a totally “put together” look.  I love my friends who have a few gray hairs and a few extra pounds.  It must be hard to be perfect – it just isn’t my thing. 

That’s why I didn’t mind when Christina Aguilera made a little mistake when singing the National Anthem at the Superbowl.  My goodness, how would any of us do singing a solo in front of 107.5 million people?  In ridiculously high heels, no less?  But this is what poor Christina faced before she even got “home of the brave” out of her mouth:

Christina Aguilera “mangled”, “botched”,  “goofed up”, made a “major mistake”, was a “disaster”, and “screwed up in the worst way”.  Those words must have made her mom mad.  I would have been. 

My younger daughter once sang the National Anthem at a high school football game.  When she finished, there was the usual applause that translated, “Let’s get this game started.”  But my husband and I looked at each other and said, “Wasn’t she great?!  She got a standing ovation!”  Never mind that everybody always stands up for the Star Spangled Banner and the clapping wasn’t really for her so much as for the team running out onto the field.  As parents we tend to see things differently, I guess.  It’s our right.

Mistakes are refreshing, in my book.  Goof ups are endearing.  I hope Christina blew it off.  I hope her mom told her not to listen to all that talk.  I hope we all face the fact that nobody’s perfect, except God. 

He is God and I am not.  What a relief.

The other morning, the 5:30 a.m. alarm set off a debate.  It went something like this:

Flesh:  Go ahead and stay in bed for another half hour.  You deserve it.  Besides, it’s still dark, and outside this nice comforter it’s c-c-c-cold.

Spirit:  But I need this time with God. 

Flesh:  You can get time with God later today.  Just nestle down in this warm, soft bed and sleep a little longer.

Spirit:  But I really like to start my day off right with prayer and devos.

Flesh:  Well, you can pray while you’re in bed, can’t you?   Take another fifteen minutes.  It won’t matter that much. 

Then, just as I was beginning to drift into dreamland, a picture burst onto the theater screen of my mind.  I was in an airplane, about to jump (only in my dreams!) and the pilot turned around and said, “Don’t jump without your parachute.”  “Of course,” I thought, “how stupid of me.”  Fully awake, I got up and hustled into the other room.  Flesh almost talked me into jumping into the day without my parachute. 

The Lord upholds all those who fall… Psalm 145:14