Discipleship Network Forum

For those of you who feel like you’ve tried everything to lose weight, I have a solution I bet you’ve never considered: Move to the moon!

I’ll admit, it’s not a great environment there. Restaurants and other amenities are sorely lacking at this point.

However, because the gravity on the moon is only 16% of the earth’s gravity, you would immediately experience an amazing drop in your weight. No crash diet necessary. No personal trainer required. While maintaining the same strength, you would be carrying around far less weight.

Pretty awesome, right?

Perhaps you’ve seen the old videos of astronauts walking on the moon. They skip around like giddy gazelles, amazed by their suddenly lightness of being. Even saddled with their bulky spacesuits, they move around like little kids on the playground.

I’m convinced that a trip to the moon would do us all some good. We would soon conclude that we’ve been carrying around lots of unnecessary weight on earth.

And there’s a spiritual point to all of this…

I recently talked to a friend who said his girlfriend seemed to be “carrying around the weight of the world.” That’s a lot of weight! I thought to myself.

But we’ve all done that at times, haven’t we? We shoulder concerns about our health…our finances…our spouse…our children…our career…our future. Little by little, these weights increase until they’re unbearable, even back-breaking.

Fortunately, God has a solution that doesn’t require migrating to the moon. He says we can cast the weight of the world upon Him! Why? Because He cares about us (1 Peter 5:7). And as the old song says, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” No need for us to carry it on our backs.

Jesus made a very important offer to those who are struggling under earth’s gravitational pull, “heavy laden” with the cares of this life:

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

When I read these beautiful words, I feel like doing some moon walking, don’t you? I want to cast off life’s unnecessary burdens and concerns, learning to frolic again like a little child. And when I do, I know I’ll rediscover an astonishing fact: This is exactly what it feels like to experience the unencumbered joy of God’s kingdom (Matthew 19:13-14).

Moon walking will surely feel odd at first, especially when you’ve lived your whole life as an earthling. But I’m betting we could get used to it. Will you join me?

Lately I’ve been thinking of an old chorus we used to sing 30 years ago in our church in Columbus, Ohio:

“Here I am, wholly available. As for me, I will serve the Lord.”

That was pretty much the entire song. But we sang it over and over, with great gusto.

The song got so much traction back then because it accurately expressed our hearts toward God. Back then most of us really were “wholly available.” Many of us were single or recently married. Either we had no kids, or else our kids could be easily transported from meeting to meeting in a basinet or stroller.

Our time commitments and financial encumbrances were few back then.

I remember the time our church had a guest Bible teacher come for two nights of meetings—on a Monday and Tuesday night. Everyone was there. We were hungry for God, and no one wanted to miss out on what was happening.

If your church today had a guest preacher on a Monday and Tuesday night, what percentage of the congregation would come?

Things have changed, it seems.

Our church in Columbus changed too, especially as we all got older. Eventually nearly all of us were married, and the financial commitments had grown considerably. We had 30-year mortgage payments to make, not to mention car payments and credit card debt. Soon we all had multiple kids, complete with even more financial responsibilities and all the normal activities of childhood.

Life was a lot more complicated and cluttered by then. And we quit singing the “wholly available” song, because it no longer reflected our current situation.

A decade after the Bible teacher had preached to a packed house on Monday and Tuesday nights, we hosted an international preacher who had a highly acclaimed healing ministry. Overseas his crusades often drew crowds of 50,000 or more, and we were hopeful for a big crowd during this special midweek meeting.

However, people weren’t as available or as hungry as before. Only about 30 people showed up to hear this man of God who was used to preaching to thousands. The response was embarrassing, but it showed us that times had changes.

I’m now an empty-nest Baby Boomer, contemplating how to become wholly available to the Lord once again. Hope is rising in my heart, and I may even start singing that old chorus once again.

After a week that fit one of the seed groups from the parable of the sower -choked out of my morning quiet time by the "cares of the world" - I'm asking myself: Is  time with Lord more meaningful if it was a habit or not a habit?

How meaningful could/would the time be if my mind was constantly on the clock? Would it really be a time for the Lord to speak to me if after 15 minutes I said, "Ok, next item!" and moved on to something else? Is it just a justification to say that I can get the time by meditating on the hidden word when I know that meditating is going to be impacted by the day's schedule as well? Who does the weeding around here anyway?