Taking It to the Rooftop...

"Keep pressing forward until you break through..."

Just recently a dear family friend and spiritual mentor pulled me aside after our Sunday morning church service and began to tell me that he felt God was asking him to share something with me. He opened up his Bible and read the parable in Mark 2 about the four friends who took their paralyzed friend to Jesus with faith that he would be healed. We then began to discuss how those four friends pressed forward with such determination and faith to reach Jesus because they knew He would be able to heal their friend. Their faith was so strong that they were willing to climb to the rooftop of the house in which Jesus was teaching and tear apart the roof to get to Him!

That Sunday morning my friend from church had no idea that I too have been pressing forward in hopes of a breakthrough... honestly, until our conversation that day, I am not even sure if I knew how to describe what I had been feeling. I knew my relationship with God had been changing and I knew my hunger to be closer to Him was growing; but it wasn't until that moment that I knew what I had been looking for was a breakthrough. For some time now, I have felt that I need a breakthrough in many different areas of my life; and it was then that I realized that with this hunger and desire to be more in God's word, will, and presence... that I am "pressing forward until I break through!"

I am so thankful that my friend listened to God's instruction to share with me that parable. After we read the passage from Mark, he turned to me and said, "Corbie, just keep pressing forward until you break through." Immediately I felt tears well up in my eyes (yeah... I'm a crier) because without me even realizing it, I had been feeling discouraged and tired of pressing forward in some areas. It's a daily struggle to press through all the chaos, confusion, and distractions of this life to break through to true communion and fellowship with our God. Thankfully we have the gift of the Holy Spirit with us at all times and we don't have to fight crowds of people, climb trees, and tear apart stranger's roofs to reach our Jesus. But nonetheless, we have to press through moments of wavering faith and past disappointments until we break through to unwavering trust and complete dependence on Him. We have to take our situations to the rooftop, tear it apart, then lay it all at His feet and trust that His will for us is best and will be done. It is then that He will meet all our needs unconditionally just like He did in the parable of the paralytic and his four faithful friends!

I WANT to be like those four friends... I want my faith to be so strong and my determination to be closer to my God to be so overwhelmingly present that I would do anything to be in His word, will, and presence! I mean... I'm talking... willing to tear apart a stranger's roof STRONG!!!