What are those weights that are handicapping us? Are we about to drop out of the race?
Faith
Is your handicap a lack of faith and courage to respond to God's call to take the high road less traveled? Coach, call Abraham from the balcony for an encouraging word! For "He went not knowing where he was going" and became our model of faith and a father of nations.
Christian faith is an adventure. Such faith I have seen demonstrated in persons I have conversed with across the years: Thomas Merton, Carlyle Marney, John Howard Griffin, Martin Luther King Jr., W. O. Carver, and Clarence Leonard Jordan who translated faith in
Hebrews 11:1 as "Turning your dreams into deeds; it is betting your life on the unseen realities."
Advertisement
Is God calling you? Are you at the fork of the road in your ministry? Is God challenging you to take the road less traveled? To the mission field? To a downtown church? To a bi-vocational ministry until you can build a church that can support you?
Depression
Is your handicap the common cold of mental disorders, namely depression? Call Elijah, who after destroying the prophets of Baal was threatened by their chief sponsor, Jezebel. Elijah was so frightened that he ran to Beersheba and on into the desert so fast, according to J. McKee Adams, that you could "shoot marbles on his coattail." There in the desert Elijah laid down under a "broom tree" and manifested all the signs of a major depression: lack of a sense of self-worth, paranoia, and meaninglessness. On to Mt. Horeb he entered into a cave. The "word of the Lord" came to him and said: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
God's therapy for the depressed is: (l) get back into creative activity. God called Elijah to face the wilderness and on his way anoint a king over Syria and a king over Israel, and Elisha to be a prophet (
2 Kings 19:1-18); (2) the assurance that God has many other people who have not bowed to the evil one (v. 18). Awareness that there are others who share your suffering can be reassuring and encouraging. Responding to God's call to action can be healing.
The Besetting Sin
Some say that they are not eligible to run the race because of an immoral past. Call David for encouragement. David was guilty of adultery and murder. This story is told so plainly in the Bible (
2 Sam. 11-
12). In the spring when kings went to war, David stayed home. Next door he saw a beautiful woman bathing. He sent for her, slept with her, and she became pregnant. Her husband was in the war. David sent for him hoping that he would sleep with his pregnant wife and think that it was his child. But he refused to see his wife. So David got another idea. He sent Uriah, the pregnant woman's husband, back to battle with a letter to his general which instructed the general to put Uriah at the front of the fight, then withdraw and let him die.