Last Night I Walked Alone

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I am stepping back in to the world of leading a Precept Bible study. Tonight we will begin a study on the book of Jeremiah with an introductory lesson. Last night I dreamed that I was lost in a crowd and I could not find my room. I walked and walked carrying all my stuff, my backpack, my study book, and my handy dandy white dry erase board but I was just walking in circles. I walked until the pain in my legs became so great I knew I would never make it. I was in a silent-in-my-head panic because I knew that by the time I got there everyone would have thought I was not coming and they would have left and joined another class or no class at all.

Here’s the thing…

I kept seeing familiar faces and strangers and I would ask them for directions. I would ask them how I could get to my room from where I was presently at and every one of them… EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM… smiled at me and welcomed me and they POINTED me in the direction I needed to go.

However…

Not one… NOT ONE… was willing to stop what they were doing and take the time to walk with me. Not one was willing to lay aside there own agenda and make sure I got there. Not one offered to take some of the burden out of my hands or off of shoulders and go the distance with me. Last night I walked alone.

In the church… I walked alone.

No one was mean.

No one was snotty.

No one was self-righteous.

No one was condescending.

No one ignored me.

Yet, no one would walk with me and help me to carry my burden. I walked alone.

Bear one another’s burdens,

and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2

I woke up this morning exhausted. The fear of being lost, burdened, and in pain still fresh in my mind. As I began to analyze my dream, because dreams I remember aways come from somewhere, I realized that part of that dream was my nerves and concern that no one is going to show up to be a part of the Bible study I will be leading… but the other part came from the fact… not fear… the proven fact… that so many of us in the church are not as mean, hypocritical, and condemning as so many post on social media… but we are unwilling to actually walk with someone and help them carry their burdens.

We will point them in the right direction all day long, we will gladly hand them the map, we will encourage them and pat them on the back, but we are too busy and too concerned with our own “missions” that we simply do not even see the need to walk with this person. We will smile and wave and watch them walk off… alone.

What if they can’t understand the map?

But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem toGaza.” (This is a desert road.) So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Acts 8:26-31

God never intended for any of us to walk alone…

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2:18

 

Although we who believe can be sure and secure that God never leaves us or forsakes us (Hebrews 13:5), He never leaves us to walk alone, He still chose the church (Matthew 16:18), each of us individually filled by HIM (Romans 12:5), to link arms and be joined together in the unity of the faith (Ephesians 4:13) to ensure that we do not do this justified redeemed life alone and He never intended for us to have to find the way to this justified redeemed life alone either…

I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

Malachi 3:1

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“…as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

John 20:21

Jesus does not let us walk alone… maybe we shouldn’t let each other walk alone either. Maybe we need to stop and take the time to not just point out the right direction, but offer to grab hold of one end of their burden, just enough to make it bearable, and take them by the hand, and be willing to sacrifice our own agenda’s long enough to walk with them… at least part of the way.

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