"Break Through to Jesus"

"When they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through...". Mark 2:4

Second service ended, the sanctuary doors flew open, and within seconds, the lobby of the church resembled my last experience at Walmart on a Black Friday. I know I'm not the only one who longs for more space. Ever since I was nearly trampled by a stampede of people in Chicago years ago, my instinct is to avoid wherever crowds gather.

Not good for a pastor's wife.

But there are many pictures given to us in the gospels where people would have to make a brave decision to press through, crawl under, climb above or shout over the crowd of people that surrounded Jesus to reach Him. I can just imagine Zacchaeus hoisting up his Pharisaical robe, strapping his leather sandals tighter, and getting a splinter while climbing up a road-side tree to get a divine view. Can you feel the pointed pebbles and dust that pressed into the knees and scraped the palms of a woman weakened by years of hemorrhaging, merely to touch the hem of the Savior's seamless robe? I can hear whispering condemnations and feel the disapproving glares that a sinful woman had to endure as she wept in front of a crowd. Her perseverance enabled her to hear Jesus' audible affirmations of forgiveness that blanketed her shame with grace and rebuked all self-righteous and religious rejection.

What do you need to press past today to get to Jesus? What obstacles stand in seeming defiance to your reaching Him? Are you craving for a spiritual "break through"? Though the Lord's presence fills heaven and earth, even Jesus would rise before dawn to go to a solitary place to be with His Father (Mk.1:35). Every day will have its obstacles, (maybe not a rooftop that needs to be disassembled) but I pray your heart presses past, through, over and above to meet with Him. The One that has and is and always will be; the answer to every problem, the supplier of every need, and the filler of every longing in our soul.

"And there I will meet with you, and I will commune with you 

from above the mercy seat...of all things..." Exodus 25:22