✝ Daily Encouragement (1/17/23) “When Your Grip Slips"
Published: Tue, 01/17/23
A daily, Bible-based perspective of hope, encouragement and exhortation. The online Bible teaching ministry of Stephen & Brooksyne Weber.
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Tuesday, January 17, 2023
"When Your Grip
Slips"
Message summary:
When you feel like you are you losing your grip. Here's encouragement!
Listen
to our message on your audio
player.
"He (God) gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak" (Isaiah 40:29). "Therefore, strengthen the hands that
are weak and the knees that are feeble" (Hebrews 12:12).
When the valley is
deep
When the mountain is steep When the body is weary When we stumble and fall
Today we have a young father on our hearts who is going through a very difficult time. He has been beset with a variety of serious health crises
during the last two weeks and doctors are struggling to find the answers. He needs to experience healing of course, but also spiritual strength and power and an assurance of God's steadfast love and care. He needs his grip
strengthened.
Yesterday we wrote a message about "holding on with a tight grip", using the illustration of the ropes I climbed in my high school PE
class over 50 years ago. I stressed the importance of having a tight grip on the rope and drew an application to having a tight grip in the Christian life.
Pete, a PE teacher who retired this last June responded to the message and shared how "the kids get real excited when they see the ropes
(grades k-5) until they have to actually get on the ropes and climb. I would say only 20% can actually climb halfway to three quarters of the way up. Our youth were out of shape before covid and now it is just a runaway train!" (Sad but not
surprising)
God in His grace provides a "rope" for each of us. When we choose to follow Christ by faith we take hold of the rope and begin our climbing journey of Biblical instruction, faith, obedience and perseverance. The children's song, "Climb, climb up sunshine mountain", comes to mind although they're climbing a mountain rather than a rope! Climbing a rope is not easy and the ascent will challenge even the best of climbers whose duty it is, with just the grip of his or her hands and arm strength, to pull one's entire body weight in one motion. Or in my case shimmying up the rope using my legs as well was still quite a chore even in my prime! ![]() ![]()
When the choices are
hard
When we're battered and scarred When we've spent our resources When we've given our all Stephen Escedy, a longtime friend who is now with the Lord, was a part of the church we pastored in upstate Pennsylvania over 30 years ago. Stephen was an alcoholic prior to his commitment to Christ and had a lot of hurts due to the many poor choices he made in his past. He once told me, "I am hanging on a rope and at times slide down it a little but at the end of the rope Jesus has placed a strong knot." ![]() As you lift them up in obedience I believe you will experience the uplifting spiritual, physical and mental revitalization that Isaiah writes about in 40:29, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak".
In Jesus' name, we press
on
Dear Lord, with the prize Clear before our eyes We find the strength to press on To press on
Be encouraged today, (
Hebrews
3:13)
Stephen and Brooksyne
Weber
![]() Today's Suggested Music and Supplemental Resources
"Press On" Video
Selah
"Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me" Video
CityAlight
To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus
All the glory evermore to Him When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat Yet not I, but through Christ in me
Brooksyne's Note: "So take a new grip with your tired hands and stand firm on your shaky legs"
As I was editing
the message today the most vivid memory I have in all my years was the time I was so discouraged I not only felt spiritual paralysis but physical paralysis as well.
In 1992 Ester was three years old we began paper work on adopting a second child from Guatemala. Juan was about six months old at the time and we
had been working with a Guatemalan attorney over a period of six months or so in our adoption process. During that time we had moved from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts and gone through a great deal of legal documents, each that came with a hefty price tag as any adoptive parent would
know.
In the mail we received a notification that our attorney had a nervous breakdown and would no longer pursue our adoption. Everything fell through
and we were given no recourse. We were both very saddened but I was devastated. I couldn't sleep through the night and wept uncontrollably.
Early the next morning I went for my aerobics class in thelower level of our church. I was working out with my friend, Lorna, who was a school
teacher so we met early at 5:30 am. It was a short trip for me since I simply walked out the side door of our parsonage and the church was only a few feet beyond our deck.
The aerobics CD with an energetic praise theme started and I tried to exercise but my arms and legs felt like lead. I wanted to keep my situation
private at the time so I tried to hide my emotions but after about three songs I could hardly move a muscle. Lorna caught on as she must have been observing me and came right up to me and asked, "What's wrong?" Of course, it all spilled out and Lorna began calling on the name of the Lord in prayer. The words I remember most about her passionate prayer was this, "Lord, help Brooksyne not to see what the devil wants her to see, but help her to see what You want her to see."
It wasn't necessarily a profound statement but it seeped deep into my heart and changed my mindset so that I came out of my "spiritual and physical paralysis" I was trapped in and very intentionally invited God to show me that His way is best and "all things work together for good to those called according to His purpose". The circumstances did not change but my heart
did.
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