“Just hang on,” he told me.
I was at the wrong end of a washing machine stuck cattywampus in the stairwell half-way down to the basement. The heavy metal box towered above as I tried to hold it from sliding on top of me.
I did just as he said, I hung on.
I didn’t have much choice.
The narrow stairwell didn’t really leave much of a path to go around. I vaguely remember his suggestion he could climb over the top and be “right with me,” while I hung on below.
There may or may not have been some marital distress at that point.
The washing machine incident happened a long time ago, but, I’ve been in that position of just hanging on many times in my life. Most of us know the feeling of teetering in between, unable to change course, and of facing fearful consequences when hanging on becomes almost impossible.
So what is to be done in life when going backward is impossible, but so is going forward? Feeling stuck hurts.
David hung on in dark damp caves while Saul hunted him down.
The spies on Rahab’s rooftop had no place they could go. They hid under drying stalks, holding their breath, stilling their beating hearts as their enemies searched for them.
The Apostle Paul swung like a cable car through an opening in the city wall, lowered in a basket by friends to escape certain death from his enemies.
A fish vomited Jonah out on dry land, helping him know which way to go.
A widow’s only son was raised to life again when she most certainly must have wondered how to go on.
And, an angel opened locked doors so Peter could walk out of prison.
God provided a way when there was none, over and over again. And He has done the same for us whether or not we recognize it.
But when life seems it can go neither forward nor backward, and we are hanging on, Jesus never leaves us.
Stuck places, those claustrophobic situations from which we want so very badly to escape, are the very places God wants us to hang on to Him. Those are the stories He fills with Himself.
In Luke 18 Jesus tells a parable about a persistent widow. She needed justice, but the judge was corrupt. Although her situation neither moved forward nor backward, she persisted. She was persistent in her request. She hung on, and finally because she didn’t give up, the judge gave in.
The story got my attention because of the first verse in the chapter.
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. (Luke 18:1 NIV)
The parable’s principal point isn’t in getting what the woman wanted, the injustice she suffered, the political powers she fought, or the victory she finally achieved. It’s about prayer. The kind that doesn’t let go.
Jesus wanted His disciples to pray persistently because their Judge, Our Judge, is just and loving. His character, unlike the unjust judge the woman confronted, is good and pure.
In those stuck places of life we learn the preciousness of prayer. We become acquainted with the Righteous Judge who has the power to answer in the right way. We learn to let go of the heavy weights and claim His will as best.
Persistent prayer demonstrates faith in the character of our God who listens to our needs and hears our hearts.
In reality, the washing machine heading my way was truly stuck. It wedged itself into the rungs of the stairway and was not going anywhere at that point. Although I expected it to crush me like an insect, in the end, I was virtually only offering a bit of balance to the situation.
My husband did manage to get around it and we brought it down together. Although “together” may be a relative word here as well as a slight exaggeration.
Persistent prayer, like the woman Jesus spoke of in Luke, “to show them that they should always pray and not give up,” tightens our grip as we hang on. To “always pray” places faith in the only One helps us go forward and takes our eyes off of crushing situations.
Don’t give up. God holds every impossible and stuck circumstance in His completely capable hands. He will never let go of us.
*Feature Photo by Hu Chen on Unsplash
I recently had an article published on Crosswalk.com about a subject which I found fascinating. I hope you do too.
How Does Knowing How the Chiasm Works Transform Our Bible Reading?
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