The breaking point

The breaking point

Surely you have been there. The challenges have piled up, the bills keep coming, the hits are landing harder and harder. The proverbial straw that will break the camel’s back is floating in the air just waiting for the precise moment to land. What unfolds before you isn’t the issue that snaps you, it is all that has come before it; what is before you just happens to be the final load that you can carry.

The spilled milk.

The backtalk from the kids.

The bounced check.

Being overlooked, underappreciated, disrespected….one more time.

That is when that straw stops hovering and settles in right on your last nerve, then you lose it.

You go blind with rage and explode with the pressure that has building long before the last event that broke you.

“Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!” ~ Matthew 21:12-13

Jesus had experience being celebrated just the day prior.

He wasn’t in the parade; HE was the parade.

He knew these accolades were to be short lived and it did it’s grind on his patience. He was aware that that the crowd that swelled around him, as if he single-handedly won the Super Bowl, would soon be shouting for his demise.

I remember reading this chapter as a child in my illustrated children’s Bible. The picture showed this angry Jesus throwing tables, coins flying, and birds escaping from cages, while people ran for cover. I was so mystified by it. The One that who we were taught was love and peace was angrier than an wild hornet.

I somehow felt comforted by this.

I had lost my temper. I had thrown things, yelled at my siblings, thought some pretty harsh thoughts and with this picture and verse I realized that Jesus understood how I felt.

As an adult I am still comforted by Jesus’ humanity being revealed to us. It wasn’t “left out” when they wrote the Good Book, it was written into all four of the Gospels to make sure we read it multiple ways.

He was dealing with jealously, dishonesty, brokenness, death threats, and deception. It was boiling within him until he couldn’t contain it any longer. He saw His Father’s “house” being denigrated and allowing that final straw to land, and his frustrations to be exposed onto all who were committing the disrespect.

Oh how I’ve tried to contain that boiling point and failed.

I’ve said things I shouldn’t have.

I’ve walked away when I should have stayed.

I’ve been impatient within someone who I should have been more patient with.

I made more of a mess of a situation as I had my melt down.

The reality is that we are a soda bottle, or a tea kettle. We can only handle so much pressure and so much steam before we release that out of our being all over everyone around us.

This is not the end all, it is simply a setback.

A stall.

A moment we need to try to avoid, and to surely atone to if we’ve allowed the break to occur. But it’s not the end.

Jesus didn’t call on God to remove him from this situation and take him home, he had a journey to complete and he stayed the path.

We do as well, and we should as well.

If you’ve hit your breaking point, take a knee.

Regroup.

Be still.

Allow the one who created you to refill you with peace, patience, and endurance to continue your journey.

That Monday night, long ago, He did just that.

He cleared out a cluttered space that was intended for peaceful prayer and meditation.

He hit his knees, then he continued forward to rise above the challenges that were to be set before him.

Clear out a space, take a knee, be still, allow the peace from the One who understands you, and understands breaking points, to empower you to move forward to conquer the challenges that will be before you.

There is such much good to come.

“The comeback is always stronger than the setback.” ~ Catherine Plano

#justachapter

#notthewholestory

#bestill

#breakingpoint

#restthenrise

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