MUSIC BLOG 04-11-2024

MUSIC BLOG

04-10-2024

We All Need a Little Help Sometimes

Ecclesiastes 4:11-13

Holman Christian Standard Bible

¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they can keep warm; but how can one person alone keep warm? ¹² And if someone overpowers one person, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.

I’m not a person who necessarily enjoys doing a big project by themselves. I’m not saying I don’t love coming up with big ideas.  I am definitely a big idea person. I can spit out big ideas all day.  However, I need a crew or posse.  Fortunately for me, God has placed me in His church and blessed me with people with vision.

In my family, I’m the third born of six.  My older brother and sister love nothing better than tackling a huge undertaking and completing it methodically, step by step to the end.  Being third born, I have always had people.  If we were working in the garden, we had 6 able bodies to split the work.  If we were doing yardwork, I might be mowing but there were others to trim hedges, rake grass, pick up trash, etc.  The same process worked inside the house.  If we were cleaning the house, I may have had the bathroom responsibilities, but someone else was dust-mopping floors, dusting furniture, sweeping cobwebs, making beds, or doing laundry.  For every task we had people to complete the task.  Sometimes we all need a little help.

When Ronda and I first got married we were like most other couples in that we struggled a bit on who would do what chores.  Similarly, we also struggled with communication. If one person felt they were doing too much and the other person was doing too little we either overlooked it or just seethed a bit but didn’t say anything.  One instance that I remember vividly was when it came time to make the bed.  I came from a long line of bedmakers.  Ronda came from a long line of people who make the bed before anyone comes to visit. Her reasoning was, If we’re just getting back in the bed tonight why make it? In true Marty fashion, I decided to show her my way was best by making the bed every day. After maybe a week, I soon got tired of all the responsibility.  So I came up with a solution, I wrote a poem and left it on her pillow.  The exact wording I don’t remember, but the essence I have thought of many times since.  “Even in the smallest of tasks, sometimes it just takes two people.”  To this day, I make my half of the bed, and she hers.  For us we are a team.

After Jesus rose from the dead the disciples were distraught and confused.  They truly needed help in understanding what had occurred. Cleopas and a fellow traveler, most likely his wife, were going home from Jerusalem having a discussion and trying to understand it all, when a stranger joined them.  During the walk home this stranger explained everything to them that the Messiah had to endure as He finished his work on earth.  When they got home they invited the stranger to come in and share a meal.  It was at that meal when the stranger took the place of the host by breaking bread and subsequently disappeared that both Cleopas and the other person realized who had been traveling with them.

Jesus knew they needed help.  Jesus took time to walk with them, talk with them along life’s narrow way.  Jesus took time to explain God’s amazing plan using the events that they had both witnessed.  Jesus showed them exactly who He was and then He left.

There are times when we are all a bit confused; times that leave us confounded. It is at those times we must rely on someone to help us.  Jesus left us the Holy Spirit to be our instructor in righteousness, the one who convicts us of sin as well as our comforter in times of trial and persecution.  His promise to never leave us is true. He is here to help. Afterall, don’t we all need a bit of help sometimes? I know I do.

Blessings,

Marty