Carrying my Mat
Forgive me, my friends…today we’re going to church. If that’s not your thing, that’s cool…just come on back tomorrow. Today we’re preachin'.
My church is growing so fast, we’ve had to add a third worship experience and I decided to attend Saturday night’s service this week. Pastors Justin and Heather Enoch are young, vibrant pastors who bring the gospel to life for me. The praise team is absolutely amazing and uplifting. I love contemporary Christian music. I always leave there absolutely on fire.
Last night’s message was based on John 5:1-17. Jesus has gone to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals and stops at the pool known as Bethesda, by the Sheep Gate. God sent angels to this pool regularly to “trouble the water” , make it bubble up, giving it the power to heal. There were five platforms surrounding the pool and the crippled, maimed, and infirm would gather there. When the waters were “troubled”, they would quickly get into the water for their healing.
There was one particular man who’s infirmity had him lying on his mat for 38 years on one of the platforms. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned how long he had been by the pool, he asked, “Don’t you want to be well?” The man replied that indeed he did but, every time the water was troubled, someone jumped in over him and he couldn’t get his healing. He had no one to take him to the pool. Jesus told the man to stand up, roll up his mat, and walk. And the man did. The scripture goes on to talk about the controversy of carrying your mat (i.e. “working” on the sabbath.) But, I want to focus on the mat for a minute.
Jesus didn’t ask the man to merely stand up and walk. He asked him to pick up his mat and take it with him. The mat represented everything that man had been through for 38 years. He slept and ate on that mat. He may have even soiled it when he had no way of carrying himself to a facility. It represented every illness, every thought, every bad thing. If he was healed and he went out walking without the mat, people might have thought he looked somewhat familiar but may not know where they’d seen him before. With the mat, it gave others the opportunity to recognize him and place him at the pool as that man they had seen for all those years. It gave the man the opportunity to share the story of his miraculous healing and of the Man who healed him.
My stories are my mat. I tell you where I’ve been. I share openly parts of myself that most guard tightly. I speak frankly about drugs and alcohol, depression and anxiety, PTSD, divorce, death and grief. These are parts of my life I share merely so you can know Who carried me through all of them. Without God in my life…as the focus and singular most important part of my life, I surely would not be sitting here writing this to you good people.
Two years ago, God told me to tell you where I find my peace. In this day and age, if you tell someone you “hear the voice of God”, you are likely to be given a psychiatric diagnosis. I am here to tell you, I have…most assuredly…heard the voice of God. And, while there was a time when you might have questioned my sanity, I am as sober as a judge and in my right mind. My journey through grief in the last four years has brought me into an intimate relationship with God and I love that I walk my path with Him.
When life has knocked you down, don’t be afraid to ask for a hand up. And, carry your mat for all to see so they might know Who made you well. ❤️
“Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”” John 5:1-3, 5-11 NIV