The dictionary says, "pick up sticks is a game of physical and mental skill. A bundle of 'sticks', between 8 and 20 centimetres long, are held in a loose bunch and released on a table top, falling in random disarray. Each player, in turn, must remove a stick from the pile without disturbing the remaining ones".
It becomes a challenge and fun to see if you can win the game. In life, many things challenge us and it i not a game. There are challenges that help us to pick it up and begin again. Let me take this into a spiritual world of Jesus who heals a lame man. Read his story:
John 5 New Living Translation (NLT)
Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.
5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”
8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 10 so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”
11 But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.
13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.
PICK IT UP ~ PICK UP YOUR MAT AND WALK
Jesus spoke words of actions to his life. Jesus still speaks words of actions to our lives as well. Taking a leap of faith and believing big toward what we need in life. It isn't as simple as the pick of stick game, but it is a challenge to be careful of our next move in life. To walk softly and count blessings along the way. A slight warning by God in many areas. Such a blessing and we might not even see it.
It is often when things crumbles apart that we listen. Forces us to pray and trust God even more. When each day, we can simply thank God for what we do have, praise him in the middle of things and live in today! I have my own moments in life when I remind myself of miracles Jesus did in the Bible. The man who was blind and believed big enough to ask Jesus. His faith went into action and much more.
Let us believe today for our own lives and move forward. Praying for you, your families and friends.
~ Sparkie
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