You Are Next

It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.

As you might have guessed by now, I like initiative, efficiency, and organization in others and certainly in my own life. Moving from one household to another inherently undermines those practices at every turn. With my schedule before me, I can choose what gets on my calendar, when to slot it, and what to turn down. I can pray and read the Word and follow God’s guidance about how I prioritize my time, seeking to be a good steward and doing what He wants me to do each day. But with moving, especially from one side of the country to the other as we did when we left Pennsylvania for California, so many variables spin out of control. My wife, Eva, and I make a fantastic team, and we both appreciate how well we work together. She knows I value productivity, and she does an amazing job getting things done and keeping our household running smoothly. And while we both begin the process of a move with a detailed timeline, endless lists, and an arsenal of packing supplies, we inevitably feel as if we have lost the battle.

Our last move spanned the shortest distance but felt the hardest. Maybe I am getting older and more “set in my ways,” as my father used to say about himself, but this last time I became more and more impatient with the moving process.

First we began the purging process and coming to terms with how much stuff we needed to get rid of—everything from our kids’ baby clothes and favorite toys to that broken smoothie machine someone gave us for Christmas last year to that baby jogger we used decades ago when our children were small. Then we went through the books and camping equipment.

As much as I tried to be ruthless about throwing things away, giving things away, and putting things away, I struggled as much as anyone with the flood of memories attached to specific items: a high school yearbook, the suit I wore when I preached my first sermon, the crystal platter—now cracked—we received as a wedding gift from a beloved aunt and uncle. If I am not careful, packing up my home office ends up taking twice as long as I planned. And the slower I pack, the more likely I am to keep things I really do not need to keep.

I do not merely want to own few belongings and organize my home life more efficiently; I believe how I handle material possessions reflects my relationship with God. When I get wrapped up in stuff, I find it easy to inadvertently give possessions and their acquisition more attention than I give the Lord. I would never intentionally create idols out of my numerous pairs of running shoes, a new set of golf clubs, or a Swiss-made diver’s watch, but when they take up space inside me that I want God and only God to occupy, well, “Houston, we have a problem.”

Please do not get me wrong—I am not saying that owning or enjoying possessions makes a person less spiritual. All good things come from God, and He blesses most of us with an abundance of all we need and more. It is simply that I do not want to rely on anything to give my soul life except the Spirit of the living God. I do not want to cling to any object that prevents me from stepping out in faith when I hear the voice of Jesus saying, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!”

SOUVENIRS OF SUFFERING

I wonder how long the man lying there beside the pool of Bethesda had been carrying his mat. John 5:5 tells us he had been an invalid for thirty-eight years, so I wonder if he had been carrying around the same mat for that long. It would not surprise me if, impoverished and uncared for throughout his entire life, he dragged around the same mat as a kind of security blanket—like Linus carries in his interactions with Snoopy and Charlie Brown in the Peanuts cartoons.

After nearly forty years the man’s mat would have been tattered and threadbare, dirty and dusty. He may have hated his mat, viewing its necessity as a symbol of his own infirmity that required a cushion while reclining on the hard ground for most of the day. But he may have also loved it, regarding his mat as a souvenir of the suffering he endured for most of his life, a familiar comfort to soften the discomfort and discouragement of his disease.

We all have our mats—those possessions, souvenirs, reminders, and remnants of our ordeals and disorders—do we not? In many cases we cling to them because they have identified us to ourselves and others for much of our lives. The scar from the childhood surgery that left us self-conscious and insecure. The cane or walker we need to assist us in our ambulatory ambitions from one place to another. The pain medication that helped us endure the excruciating ordeal of our surgery after the accident, medication that we have come to rely on long after our bodies have healed.

Many people create a mat from items and objects that help them compensate for their personal insecurities and infirmities. I know so many people living in mansions and driving beautiful luxury cars who grew up in the clutches of deprivation. They swore that someday they would escape the paralysis of their poverty and never know the shame of being homeless or the pangs of hunger, so they accumulate money and fine possessions as their mats—security blankets to insulate them from the pain of the past.

Other people cling to mats of their own making that symbolize their success and self-worth. For some it might be jewelry—a Rolex watch or diamond stud earrings; for others it might be designer clothing or a Louis Vuitton bag. Regardless of the objects, people take them wherever they go, reminding others of who they are—or who they want others to think they are. This kind of mat might feel like their security blanket, but others often see these items as “insecurity blankets”—indicators of status used to compensate for someone’s self-doubts and insecurities.

Even not having a mat can become a kind of mat! Lately I have been fascinated at the way not having a lot of stuff has become a badge of honor for some people. An entire movement, generally known as minimalism, has been devoted to eliminating clutter and editing possessions down to a bare minimum. This trend toward decluttering and downsizing our possessions continues to emerge online, especially in social media, popular podcasts, personal blogs, and lifestyle sites. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, first published in Japanese in 2011 and in English in 2014, still pops up on best-seller lists, having sold millions of copies and spawning numerous similar books and lifestyle gurus.

Perhaps it makes sense that minimalism offers itself as a kind of antidote to the poison of prosperous paralysis often plaguing millions of people. When you consider the number of storage unit sites that continue to mushroom across the country, perhaps minimalism seeks to swing the pendulum of popular culture in the opposite direction. In fact, in a recent New York Times magazine article, writer Kyle Chayka explains, “Part pop philosophy and part aesthetic, minimalism presents a cure-all for a certain sense of capitalist overindulgence.”¹

But in many ways minimalism ironically seems to be just as trendy as collecting designer purses. Some people do not seem interested in letting go of their stuff as much as they want to be at the center of the latest hip trend in our culture right now. Last year everyone owned an enormous house; this year they all want to scale back to a tiny, environmentally friendly dwelling. Nonetheless, this still amounts to following trends instead of following Jesus.

They may have let go of their mat and sold it in a yard sale, but now the fact that they do not have a mat has become their mat! They take pride in the fact that they consider themselves just as cool as some people and cooler than others. Their identity becomes contingent on the absence of possessions in their lives, not their accumulation. Anything we let get in the way of our relationship with God becomes an idol. Idols usually grow into addictions.

Idols and addictions do not necessarily depend on tangible objects or material items. Many people who do not seem to have a physical mat to carry around often lug an invisible mat woven from the threads of their own attitudes, emotions, insecurities, and entitlement. Their past crises, wounds, traumas, and scars accumulate into a mat as unique and distinctive as our individual fingerprints. Instead of taking responsibility for their choices, these mats become a glue trap for the excuses, justifications, and personal loopholes they create for themselves.

WELCOME MAT OR MINEFIELD

As a third-generation Latino from a middle-class family in the working-class suburbs of the former Steel Belt, I witnessed so many people transform the pain of prejudice and the injury of injustice into their personal mat. These people’s mats of anger, anxiety, and absorption simmer just below the surface. They use their mat as both shield and sword, a mask as well as a mirror, a welcome mat in a minefield, constantly defending and sustaining their own personal paralysis.

Having faced bullies and bias myself, I know the temptation to become a victim based on your demographic profile. You may not see yourself as a victim, but you use your status as a trump card in the game of life. Because our culture stereotypes so many people based on gender, race, ethnic background, economic status, and education level, you attempt to use the perceptions of others to your own advantage, inadvertently perpetuating the very stereotype you despise.

Sometimes the mat we must pick up goes to the core of our identity. As we have discussed, we can be tempted to cling to our past, to false labels based on what others think of us or who they want us to be. We easily remain in our paralysis and hug our mats as a kind of security blanket. But if we intend to move toward what God has for us, we must learn to travel light. We must let go of old loyalties that no longer serve us. We must embrace the journey of faith that God asks us to take.

One such sojourner called by God to walk in a different direction intrigues me: Rahab, the prostitute whose legacy of faithfulness eventually led to the birth line of Jesus Christ. Even the way Scripture refers to her denotes who she used to be before surrendering to God and choosing to serve Him. Rahab faced a choice between a past complacency facing destruction and a new future fueled entirely by faith. As the Israelites prepare to conquer Jericho, the city where she lived, Rahab had no time to deliberate.

Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.”

But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.” (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.

—JOSHUA 2:1–7

COURAGE IN A RED CORD

In a dramatic scene straight out of your favorite spy show or espionage movie, Rahab acted quickly and decisively. In a matter of mere moments, Rahab had to decide whether she would trust these foreigners who claimed they would conquer and destroy her hometown. Shrewd and savvy, Rahab struck a deal: she would help them as long as they saved her and her family during their siege (vv. 12–13). She acknowledged that she had heard about them and their God, how He delivered them from Egypt and parted the sea so they could escape Pharaoh’s army.

But we must not overlook the fact that to strike this deal, something more than self-preservation motivated Rahab. She basically betrayed her friends, neighbors, and clients. She chose to place her faith in the God of the Hebrews rather than the idols worshipped in Jericho. She decided to give up her profession and go with strangers upon whom she would be reliant for her survival and that of her family. In other words, Rahab demonstrated unparalleled courage in picking up her mat!

Also, please do not miss that God selected Rahab just as He chooses each and every one of us for His glory and power to shine through us as we impact and advance His kingdom. Out of all the individuals to whom God could have led His spies, He picked a prostitute. He could have chosen a wealthy man, an innocent child, or an upstanding lady from a powerful family. God could have chosen a soldier, a carpenter, a merchant, a teacher, or even the king of Jericho. Instead God chose a woman whom most people probably despised and held in contempt.

The Bible not only identifies her as someone who had been a prostitute in her past, it equates her name with her profession. She worked as a prostitute still, allowing men to objectify her, use her body, and pay her money when God directed His spies to hide out in her home. And this non-Jewish woman—undoubtedly looked down upon by many Jews at the time—deceived the king’s soldiers in order to save these strangers’ lives and advance their plan for domination.

I love the way God gave Rahab a choice just as Jesus gave the man at Bethesda a choice: Do you want to get well? And instead of picking up her mat, Rahab picked up the scarlet cord the spies had instructed her to hang from her window as a sign to spare her household during the Israeli assault (v. 18). No longer would she be who she had been. The moment she hung that red rope from the top of her house, Rahab chose to walk by faith into her future.

Because of her faith, this lowliest of the low, a non-Jewish prostitute, received the blessing of the Lord. God saw her future, not her past. He looked at her heart, not her reputation. He offered the choice of life versus death. Like so many of the underdogs within the pages of the Bible, Rahab reminds us that no matter who we are or what we have done, if we will trust Him, God will save us. He will heal us and empower us to let go of the mats we once used and instead follow Him by faith.

FROM CRUTCH TO CROSS

Rahab also reminds us that even when our past reputation continues to follow us, we can still be redeemed and used by God. She went from being someone most people loathed to a heroine lauded in the pages of God’s Word. Her past way of life, while still part of how others saw her and identified her, did not prevent her from becoming who God made her to be. For in the genealogy of Jesus at the beginning of his Gospel, Matthew identifies Rahab as the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz. And Boaz, you might recall, married another amazing woman of faith, Ruth.

Curiously enough, though, the other two references to Rahab in the New Testament include her old identifier.

By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

—HEBREWS 11:31

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?

—JAMES 2:25

Even for writers of Scripture the former label Rahab once had in Jericho continued to stick to her like gum on a shoe. But I do not believe Paul and James identify her this way out of carelessness or disrespect to her or other women. I am convinced they refer to her as a prostitute to highlight the contrast between who she had once been and who she became by following God. Rahab became a trophy of God’s grace as He used her weakness to manifest His strength.

Her legacy calls to mind Paul’s words as he struggled with “a thorn in my flesh,” as he called it (2 Cor. 12:7).

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

—2 CORINTHIANS 12:8–10

God loves to shatter stereotypes and reverse our expectations. As we have seen with so many people in the Bible—Abraham, Jacob, Gideon, Rahab, Paul, and the paralyzed man at Bethesda—the Lord delights in allowing His eternal light to shine through the cracks caused by our brokenness. Feeling paralyzed and shattered by circumstances can make us feel unfit to be used by God. But nothing we have done or can do disqualifies us from the love, grace, and power we have through Jesus Christ!

When we pick up our mats, we demonstrate our faith that despite who we once were, despite who others think we still are, despite our own fears and insecurities, we will no longer wallow in our past. Instead we will rise up and walk strong in the Lord! Our mats, which we once considered souvenirs of our suffering, have become trophies of grace, allowing others to see God do the impossible. The crutches we once clung to now become the crosses we bear as we become more like Christ. Through the power of His Spirit we walk upright in strength with a divine purpose to fulfill.

YOUR MAT, HIS MASTERPIECE

I realize you will rarely find it easy to pick up your mat and refuse to rely on it as you once did. Picking up your mat means picking up after yourself and facing the consequences of past decisions. It means taking responsibility for your life instead of blaming others or waiting for someone to come through for you the way you have always wanted. If we want God to transform our mats into His masterpieces, we must master the pieces!

As you rise to your feet and consider your journey of faith, it may be tempting to think, “If I pick it up and start walking, those who knew me before might recognize the mat and assume that one day I will go back to it! If I carry it with me while I am walking, then I might be tempted to throw it down and collapse on the ground again. As hard as it seems to imagine, I might grow so weary of walking that I long for the days when I was paralyzed and could throw my mat down and lie on the ground.” Like the people of Israel delivered from slavery in Egypt who hated wandering through the desert in pursuit of the Promised Land, we might become so uncomfortable depending on God’s power and not our own that we complain and think we want to go back.

My friend, we must all learn to do one thing: pick up our mats! When you pick up your mat, you tell both heaven and hell and the people on earth that you do not live in the past anymore.

When you pick up your mat, you bring closure to the chapter of paralysis in your life. When you pick up your mat, you say that you no longer need this pallet of paralysis. Like discarded junk from the back of your spiritual storage unit, you have no need to save it!

When you pick up your mat, you say, “I am no longer an invalid. I am no longer paralyzed. I am no longer trapped by my circumstances. That no longer defines me or describes me. I am not going to live there, and I am not going back there ever again.” Instead we wear the garment of praise formed by the celebration of our healing. We revel in the revelation of our redemption, the fulfillment of the promise God makes to us in His Word: “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Cor. 5:17, NLT).

Jesus asks us if we want to get well. Then He tells us to stand up, pick up our mat, and walk. While we instantaneously receive freedom, salvation, and restoration, we begin a journey of walking not by sight but by faith, not in our own power but in the power of the Holy Spirit within us. We have not attained perfection like Christ yet, and we have not completed our time here on earth.

We have work to do, a divine purpose to fulfill, and a race to run toward the eternal reward awaiting us with God in heaven. Many times we see Paul describe this journey of faith as a process in his letters to other believers: “Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead” (Phil. 3:13, GNT).

When you pick up your mat, you begin a new chapter of your life, a new season of salvation, and a new journey of jubilation. Standing on your feet and walking by faith, picking up your mat and casting it aside, you signal to the world and everyone around you that you follow Jesus. You no longer cling to the past, but you engage the present in the presence of God, trusting Him for the fulfillment of your future.

When you pick up your mat and begin walking in the power of the Spirit, you telegraph to every devil, demon, legion, principality, and power of darkness that they no longer have any claim on you. You have been set free by the power of Jesus Christ! You do not live within their prisons of paralysis.

How can you be sure you do not live there anymore? How can you refuse to turn and look behind you the way Lot’s wife did and instead embrace your new identity, as did Gideon, Paul, Ruth, and so many others? How can you know the time has come to pick up your mat and surrender it at the foot of the cross? How can you live in the certainty that you will never go back to living a life of paralysis where you once were?

WALK THROUGH THAT DOOR

Some people have been believers so long that they act as if they never had a mat. They may have forgotten what it felt like to have a mat, or they may refuse to recognize their prior paralysis. They try to behave as if they have never been through anything messy, dirty, broken, or battered, which basically means they try to act as if they have never experienced real life!

Others attempt to follow Jesus but still lug their mats behind them like an old mattress. They know the Holy Spirit dwells within them and that Jesus has healed their paralysis, yet they continue to cling to remnants of their past, allowing old baggage to slow down their progress. Their mat might be an ongoing struggle to forgive someone who has offended or betrayed them. It might be feelings of shame or guilt over someone they themselves have hurt or betrayed.

Regardless of whether you struggle with the temptation to pretend you never had a mat or you still drag it behind you, you must acknowledge it, pick it up, and put it aside. The Bible reminds us, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Heb. 12:1). Allow God to transform your crutch into a cross.

In light of the abundance of blessings, in the face of such enormous healing, in consideration of all Christ has done for you, praise becomes the only fitting response. You must celebrate your new status with praise and thanksgiving, with joyful noise and worship music fit for the King! You see, praise expresses thanksgiving. I am convinced the size of your praise directly correlates to the magnitude of the hell you went through to get here now. The heights of your praise directly relate to the depths of the pit from which God took you. The sweetness of your praise directly corresponds to the bitterness of the storm He rescued you from.

Pick up your mat and walk as Jesus commands you. Obey your Master and honor your Savior through your loving response to His sacrifice on your behalf. Walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh (Gal. 5:16).

I recently remembered this imperative to walk when I went shopping with Eva. As we approached the big box store, I watched a lady standing in front of the automatic doors with a confused look on her face. She did not know what to do.

Maybe you have had a similar experience. You head into a store when you suddenly stop and try to figure out how you get in. Then before you can think about it, the doors open by themselves. Maybe they startle you because you are thinking you have to open those doors yourself. Or perhaps you stand there out of range, waiting too far away to trigger them to open. Regardless, you simply have to walk through them. They wait to fling themselves wide, inviting you to step in.

My friend, right now you must walk through the doorway God has opened for you. You may have been straining and stretching to open the doors of your future for yourself. Or maybe you find yourself lingering, still processing the paralysis from which you have been delivered. My friend, you have been waiting for the doors to your future to open when God has been waiting for you to arrive! He has been waiting all along for you to get it, pick up your mat, let go of who you used to be, and embrace who He made you to be!

You stand before the door of possibility, the door of the abundant life Jesus told us He came to bring. You stand before the door you had to fight to find. You stand before the door you had to overcome paralysis to reach, the door for which you had to defeat the powers of hell tugging at your legs and trying to bring you down.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

—ROMANS 8:38–39