Crutches

It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. Psalm 11:8 AKJV

Growing up I had the strange desire to have to use crutches. When my dad broke his ankle, my brothers and I took turns playing with the crutches. Strange things we want as kids…I wanted to have to wear a cast haha, I wanted glasses (overrated, as my brief experience resulted in a lost pair of glasses I paid for myself grrr), and I wanted braces (yet another experience I don’t miss but I often consider to further perfect my smile haha). But now as an adult and having had to use them myself after a foot injury and the ugly boot that ensued…crutches are a blessing and a curse all at once.

I guess I’m not meant to find that devotion I wrote…bummer. Anyway, I have had the tendency in life to seek guidance from others. As a consequence, I tend to get dependent and reliant that those people will always be a resource for me. God ALWAYS has a way of snatching the crutches back from me. You see the downside to using crutches for too long is that you become dependent on them, so much that you get comfortable and complacent where you are. You stop challenging and pushing yourself to do better, until you get into a position where you feel stuck. Ah yes, in the past, I got to that place quite often. It was like finally one day God got tired of me and told me enough was enough and started snatching the crutches away–the people I went to in order to seek Him, instead of praying and going to Him for myself. Isn’t that why Jesus died, so that we are no longer separated from the Father? There is no longer a need for sacrifices–well maybe sacrificing time here and there to truly spend that time with God.

And it would happen that either that person who had become my crutch would say something I didn’t agree with, hurt my feelings, or offend me in some way. Then I would go back to God for myself. Now I recognize it is the same thing happening again, some people had become my crutches in Charleston or over the years. Now that I have left, so have the crutches, and I am learning to walk on my own again, except this time hand in hand with God.

Maybe a valued friend or mentor has recently left their coveted position in your life and like me, it has left you confounded, confused, and in disbelief. Rest assured, God’s hand is stretched out to you in order for you to get through, but this time He wants you to come to Him for yourself, beyond the veil. I realize crutches are only supposed to support you in a time of weakness. But how do you know that your legs are strong enough until you try to walk without them?

“Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”” Matthew 28:20 NLT