Lean on a Broken Reed and Pierce Your Hand

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire!  (Luke 24:32)

It’s one of the most powerful illustrations in the Bible, if you just think about it.

If you lean on a broken reed, it will pierce your hand.

Ow!  I don’t even like stubbing my toe or stepping on a Lego.  I can’t imagine using a reed like a cane or a walking stick, leaning on it, and having it give way and pierce right through my hand.

But that’s what happens when we trust in things that aren’t of God.

You’ll find the illustration in 2 Kings and Isaiah and Ezekiel.  It’s when the Israelites want to trust the Egyptians instead of trusting the Lord their God.

Just imagine leaning on a reed, and it breaks, and it pierces right through your hand.

That is when you put your trust in something other than God and His principles.

When you lean on lying, but God says be truthful.

When you lean on anger, but God says His joy is your strength.

When you lean on revenge, but God’s way is forgiveness.

When you lean on alcohol to help you make it through the day.

When you lean on a little pot to ease your mind.

When you lean on mother’s little helper, you’re leaning on a broken reed, and it will pierce your hand.

Karen Wheaton’s daughter has written a book called The Way Home, by Lindsey Wheaton Doss.  For reasons described in the book, Lindsey began to lean on broken reeds.  She leaned on the broken reed of the attentions of another man, not her husband.  She ended up leaning on alcohol and parties and other men, and that reed broke and splintered into her hand and her mind and her soul and nearly destroyed her.

When we lean on anything but God and His ways, we are leaning on a broken reed, and it will pierce our hand.

So what are you leaning on today?  What are you putting your trust in, for your hope, for your pleasure, for your satisfaction?  For your provision?  For your mental needs and spiritual needs?  For the sanity of your soul?

Lean on Jesus!  Lean on the Lord and His Word!  Put your trust fully in Him!  He is the rock we can trust in and lean on and build our lives on.  It’s Him and only Him and all Him all the time.

But if we lean on the world’s very poor substitutes, they will all turn out to be a broken reed and pierce our hand.

May God bless you, today.

I’m Doug Apple.