Crutches

 I’ve never seen anyone use crutches when they didn’t have to. They’re uncomfortable and ungainly, and if you can walk on your own two feet without needing them, you do so happily. There may be an air of mystery around someone with a cane, doubly so if it happens to be a sword cane, but no mystery is had by someone using crutches.

Over the last couple of decades, spiritual crutches have become popular among believers. Most have no reason for using them other than the false belief that it’s easier than walking upon the path that God’s word is lighting before them. Because they choose crutches, most aren’t progressing as quickly as they could be, and because the going is slow and frequent stops are necessary, the muttering and grumbling are so persistent it’s become background noise.

Since it’s supposed to hurt less if you yank the band-aid off in one quick pull, here goes: You do not need a middleman to receive direction from the Holy Spirit. If you are a child of God, if you are redeemed, reborn, and sanctified, when you ask for direction, God will answer, but you have to be patient enough to listen for His voice. 

Sometimes we don’t hear the voice of God because we never stop talking. Not even long enough to catch our breath. My oldest daughter has that gift whenever I ask her how her day was. I’ve stopped trying to react to anything that went on until I see she is done, spent, and will allow me to get a word in edgewise. Otherwise, she’ll just talk over me as though I hadn’t tried to interject.

We act that way with God sometimes, whether it’s because we know what He is going to say and we don’t want to hear it or because no one has ever taught us to patiently wait on the Lord. The crutches come into play when we bypass the privilege of going directly to God, waiting for an answer, and seeking our answers from third parties, whether people with a reputation for having prophecies or words of knowledge.

God’s promises were not made contingent upon the participation of a third party. God’s promises were made to you directly. He did not say I will send someone to tell you how you must go; He said He would show you the way you must go.

Is there a time and place for prophecies, dreams, visions, and words of knowledge? Most assuredly, but trying to get a different answer from God than what the Bible gives isn’t one of those times.

The other issue with seeking out third parties for messages from God rather than going direct to the source is that the potential for inaccurate, misleading, or deceptive information has just gone through the stratosphere. I’m no questioning the authenticity of vessels, but mathematically speaking, if going directly to God, you are sure to receive the truth 100% of the time, then going to a third party opens the door for potential inaccuracies. That door does not exist with God. With men, it is always there, and sooner or later, someone will avail themselves of it.

Recently I had the unenviable task of finding a place to take my wife and kids to where the potential of forming icicles on your eyelashes when you walked outside wasn’t as overwhelming as where we currently reside. That in itself is not so difficult, there are plenty of beautiful places in the world that have palm trees and sunshine, but it also had to be affordable to someone that isn’t rolling deep in the Kenneth Copeland swag.

Every place I checked was out of our price range, and I’d all but given up when I had one last-ditch idea. Until then, I was using third-party websites to try and find somewhere to go, but there was one place with water slides and splash pads I knew my kids would enjoy, and rather than use an intermediary, I went directly to their website. It turned out they were thirty percent cheaper than the cheapest third-party website’s best offer.

Go-betweens aren’t always your best option; more often than not, they’re your worst option. Middlemen are like playing telephone; sometimes, by the time the message gets to you, it’s garbled or loses its intended meaning.

Rather than run from place to place hoping to hear a message from the Holy Spirit, make sure that you have ears to hear so that when He does speak, you will recognize His voice and heed His direction. Some have eyes and do not see; they have ears and do not hear, not because they’re blind or deaf to the physical things around them, but the spiritual ones. If you have no ears to hear, it’s pointless to seek out a word from the Lord because even if He does speak, you will not have the ears to hear it.

Crutches are for the lame. Spiritual crutches are for the spiritually lame. If you’re still using spiritual crutches, how is it that you’ll not only manage to put on the whole armor of God but withstand in the evil day? You can’t go from a wheelchair to running a marathon in a day. You can’t go from infant to grown adult overnight. Remove the spiritual crutches you believe are making your walk easier but are stunting your growth instead.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.