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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christians' armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Mark 15:21 And Carrying A Cross

Kids Learn More From What We Live

Let Community Help Carry The Load

Pain That Forms Compassion And Faith

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Hey guys, David Pollock here again for day two. Excited to talk again about another verse in the Bible. We talked about the Bible and what it means yesterday, if you missed it, and just the validity of it and how everyone should believe in it and understand exactly how it's the greatest history book that we've ever had. We also talked about just the um the verses and how they mean something different. And I'm gonna take you through our season of life right now. My wife's been battling brain cancer for the last year and a half plus, and um we've learned a lot, and obviously God's used this experience to teach us amazing things and talking about verses that have never meant anything to me in the past that now recently has really shifted and changed the way we look at it. I want to take you to Mark 21, and uh Mark 15, 21, excuse me. And it says, A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. That's a very simple verse. It hasn't had a lot of meeting until this past year and a half for me. Um, with our family now, like we've we realize we've been forced, just like Simon was, because Jesus had been beaten, and this is about the crucifixion of Jesus and couldn't carry the cross anymore. They were forcing Cyrene, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the cross. And um I think you realize in life the longer you live, you're going to be forced to carry a cross you didn't earn, you didn't deserve, and you don't want to carry. And in this verse, it means a couple of things to me, man. The father of Alexander and Rufus, it mentions Alexander and Rufus because I know Nicholas and Leah Pollock were watching, you know, me and Lindsay Pollack as we were carrying the cross this last year and a half after surgeries and and a hard time. Your kids are always watching, right? They're always watching how you're doing, and you got a great chance because guess what? I see better than I hear, right? More is caught than taught. I can say whatever I want, but how I love, how I live, how I grow, how I um choose to live life is gonna be my biggest example for my children. So another part of this, man, so we've been forced to carry this cross. Another thing we've learned is we're not, we weren't strong enough to carry it. And there's been some times over this last year and a half where it's been so heavy and the nights got long and it was repetitive and it was difficult. And what we found was, you know, my son and my daughter helped us carry the cross. Our community jumped in and helped us carry the cross. It was amazing. Like people ask all the time, like, hey, what can we do? What can we do? When you know someone who's really struggling and going through something that's life-changing and hurting, like instead of asking, just go do. And we had people that went to the grocery store, that brought us meals, that came to the house, that cooked, that cleaned, right? Like they did all these things because honestly, I didn't know what to tell them. I didn't know to tell them what we needed and how to fix it. Um, because something I've never walked through and it was really, really difficult. So, you know, to have other folks that came in and helped us carry the cross, man, it would have been impossible to make it without them. So be that person. Don't ask. When somebody's in need and somebody you know is hurting, just go do something for them. Just go take that step and do something that you think will help them. And time obviously is always, you know, spending some time with them is always a great thing. Last and foremost, about Simon of Serene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, you know, was passing by on his way from the country and they forced him to carry this cross. What was on that cross? The blood of Jesus. And every single situation we go through, the hardest ones, the easiest ones, God is always with us and God is for us. God has plans, like he tells us, he wants he has plans for us to be prosperous and successful. But sometimes those plans require us going through a little bit of pain. Sometimes we have to go through that to understand, to have compassion, to have empathy for others in those same situations. Some things God's gonna take us around in our lives, like driving a car. He's gonna drive us around some potholes. But there's some potholes we got to hit, man, and we gotta go through because those potholes teach us how to be the best version of us and to depend on the one who created us who will always sustain us.

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