Obstacles can have one of two effects on a person. They can cause you to decide it’s all too hard and give up, or that can make you all the more determined to persevere. The reality is we are all going to experience obstacles in our Christian life.
It might be people at church who are not welcoming and don’t seem to appreciate or even recognize your gifts. It might be a spouse who doesn’t want you to go to church. You have been praying for them for years but nothing seems to change. I know the experience of praying for someone for years. Mine was not my husband but another family member but the premise is the same.
When you don’t see any changes, you begin to wonder if God is even listening or cares. After a time you might stop praying but then God lays it on your heart and you start to pray again. And still nothing happens.
Then when you least expect it, God intervenes, not the way you would have liked or chosen, but still He intervenes and answers that prayer.
When we read the bible, we see some men who brought their friend to Jesus because they’d heard he could heal. Their hopes must have been high as they set out with their friend to Jesus. But when they got to the place where Jesus was they encountered obstacles. They could not even get into the house because of the huge crowd. At that point, they could so easily have given up. They did not. Instead they weighed up the situation and found a way into Jesus.
Jesus answered their faith and plea for help for their friends even more wonderfully than they could have anticipated. He not only healed the paralytic physically, He healed him spiritually and forgave his sins. You can read his story in Mark 2:1-12. It shows how important it is not to give up because there are obstacles.
We have a God who can do the impossible. We need to be faithful in bringing our prayers to God and bringing our friends and family and those who don’t know Him, into His presence on a regular basis. Will you choose to keep praying and keep expecting God to answer despite the obstacles? Will you choose to keep going forwarding the Christian life despite the obstacles?
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