The following story made the email circuit several times a while back and I see its truth now more than ever:
I heard of an old deacon who always prayed: “Lord, prop us up on our leanin’ 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, cause I figure a lot of us get to leaning, at times. Sometime we get to leaning toward anger, leaning toward bitterness, leaning toward hatred, leaning toward cussing, 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, to glorify the Lord.
I want to thank all of you who have been our pine polls these last few months. You can never know how much each call, visit, email, text message, or Facebook comment has meant.
All of us need to remember that, next to salvation, we are God’s greatest gifts to each other. Let’s not grow weary in doing well and let’s continue to spur one another on to love and good works.
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. – Ecclesiastes 4:9-12