Lean on Me

For quite a while now, I’ve been fascinated by pictures of barns. Well, actually barns and railroad tracks…but for now we’ll just focus on the barns. It was part of an email my dad sent me. It read as follows:

Every time I am asked to pray, I think of the old fellow who always prayed, “Lord, prop us up on our leaning side.” After hearing him pray that prayer many times, someone asked him why he prayed that prayer so fervently He answered, ‘Well sir, you see, it’s like this… I got an old barn out back.  It’s been there a long time; it’s withstood a lot of weather; it’s gone through a lot of storms, and it’s stood for many years. It’s still standing. But one day I noticed it was leaning to one side a bit. So I went and got some pine poles and propped it up on its leaning side so it wouldn’t fall.

Then I got to thinking about that and how much I was like that old barn. I’ve been around a long time.  I’ve withstood a lot of life’s storms. I’ve withstood a lot of bad weather in life, I’ve withstood a lot of hard times, and I’m still standing too. But I find myself leaning to one side from time to time, so I like to ask the Lord to prop us up on our leaning side, ‘because I figure a lot of us get to leaning at times.

Sometimes we get to leaning toward anger, leaning toward bitterness, leaning toward hatred, leaning toward not forgiving, leaning toward a lot of things that we shouldn’t. So we need to pray, ‘Lord, prop us up on our leaning side, so we will stand straight and tall again”

That’s it my friend. Leaning today? There are some big arms there to lean on and they’re also able to catch you when you fall. “Come to Me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” ~ Jesus (Matt. 11:28-29)