The Hole . . .

To explain to you about how one can have good intentions in helping someone, yet find themselves in just as much trouble. I like to explain my experience as 'THE HOLE'.

Imagine you are walking along one day and you hear someone calling for help. You follow their voice until you come upon a hole. There they are sitting in this deep, dark hole. You see that it is someone you care about dearly. You ask if they are ok, they say they are fine but they can't get out. So you look at the side of the hole and see there are divets and cranny's that they could use to climb out. You start to point them out to them but they say they can't do that, they aren't strong enough.

So you decide to go and get a rope. You find a rope, tie it to a tree, and throw the other end down to the person in the hole. You encourage them to climb out, but they don't think they can do it and don't even try, they say they aren't strong enough.

Now you are really concerned about them and how they will get out of this dark, dirty hole. So you go and find a ladder. You put the ladder down the hole and tell them to climb out. They just sit. They don't think they can do it. You try and coax them out of the hole by telling them how warm and sunny it is outside of the hole, but they don't budge, they sit in their hole and won't come out.

Because this is someone you love and you want to help them YOU decide to go down in the hole and get them out. So you slowly climb down each step until YOU reach the bottom of the hole, it's dark, cold, dirty and you can't even see the sun anymore from the top of the hole.

You grab their hand and say, "let's get out of here". You give their arm a tug and they don't budge. They say they can't do it. You are going to have to CARRY THEM! You try with all your might, but you are not strong enough to carry both of you up and out of the hole.

So you sit.

You sit in the hole with this person and while they are there with you, you feel all alone, cold and dirty. So you decide (after a long while of sitting and getting dirty) that you are going to get out of the hole and in order to do this you must leave this person in the hole. Because you aren't strong enough to carry both of you out, you barely have the strength to make the climb yourself.

So you say goodbye and you start to climb out of the hole, as you climb the sun starts to meet your skin, you start to get warmer and feel the wind in your hair and the freshness that it brings. You make it to the top of the hole and embrace the daylight. You look back and there sits your "friend" still in the hole, but now you understand that you can do whatever you can to help them, BUT YOU CAN'T CARRY THEM OUT OF THE HOLE.

They have to get out of the hole by themselves, you can show them the way, you can encourage them, but DON'T GO IN THE HOLE to get them, you aren't strong enough. Christ is the only one strong enough to carry us out of the hole.