Today's Devotional

March 28, 2005

Subject:  Who'll Move The Stone?

Mark 16:1-4 - "And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.   And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great."

I grew up short and skinny.  Nevertheless, I had great dreams of playing football, even though, by the time I graduated high school, I was still only 5' 6" and 152 pounds.  At least that's what the football program said.  My dreams of playing Div 1-A college football were quite pie-in-the-sky for someone out of a small high school with a small size to go along with it.  In the meantime, my parents wondered how they would pay for my education.  These were seemingly large obstacles to us.  However, I knew that I wanted to play college football so that summer I thoroughly prepared and got in the greatest shape of my life up to that point.  In the end, after a week of training, the head coach of the football team at the Div 1-A college I was going to attend called me in and told me that they would give me a full scholarship.  The worries about how my parents would pay for school were gone in an instant.

While this is a devotional about preparation, it's more about God's ability to take the huge and humanly insurmountable obstacles in our lives and move them out of the way to accomplish His purposes.  However, God's ability doesn't diminish our desire to prepare ourselves for His moves.  I remember a quote somebody told me once that said, "work at it as if it depended on you, but know that it always depends on God."

The Mary's had done the preparation necessary to anoint the body of Jesus at the tomb on the first day of the week.  Though they had done the preparation, there was still a huge obstacle to overcome; the stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb.  Of course when they arrived at the tomb, they found the stone rolled away.  I like the part of the passage above that adds, "for it was very great."

What is the  great stone that you need moved today?  It could be financially-related, health-related, relationship-related or a million combinations of those things.  In any case, prepare for the move of God, but know that it's up to Him.  Like the Marys, God can always move the "great stones" in our lives if our desire in the end is to see Jesus. 

Carlen