Balcony People

The theme of our women's retreat was encouragement.  Years ago when I was still single and living in Houston, my roommate gave me a little book called Balcony People by Joyce Landorf Heatherley.  She references Hebrews 12:1-2.

¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,

 let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,

and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

She called that "great cloud of witnesses" our balcony people.  Those who are in our past or present who cheer us on in our Christian walk.  Somewhere along the way, we've decided that we are supposed to be Lone Ranger Christians just doing this all alone.  Or we think that we will be fine with "just me and Jesus."  But if you read the New Testament, that's not how God designed it at all.  Over thirty times we read "one another" verses:  serve one another, love one another, encourage one another, bear with one another.  As a body of believers, we are called to help one another and encourage one another because following Christ is hard.  It was never meant to be easy.  But it is much more bearable when others are cheering us on. 

At the retreat we talked about balcony people from the Bible like Jonathan who helped David "find strength in God" (1 Samuel 23:16) and Paul who encouraged Timothy.  We also talked about balcony people in our own lives - parents, friends, siblings and others who lean way over the railing and tell us "you can do this", "this life is not all there is", "I am here for you."  They don't try to take us out of the race or run the race for us, although that would probably seem easier and less painful.  Rather, they come alongside and remind us of God's promises.  We have different balcony people at various times in our life.  Some are always on the front row, while others sit quietly in the shadows but we still know they are there.  We also talked about "not throwing anybody off our balcony."  In other words, when someone offers to help us, we need to let them.  Too often we are too proud to admit we need help and we deny others the blessing of using their gifts to help us in our deepest time of need.  Or we think that others are busy enough as it is without adding something else (helping me) to their plate.

I closed my session by reminding them that their ultimate balcony person was God himself.  He is for us and nothing can separate us from His love.  I used the story of Derek Redmond's 400 meter semifinal race in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics to illustrate.  Redmond was a 26 year old British athlete favored to win this race.  This was his dream.  But in the back stretch, the unthinkable happened.  He tore his hamstring.  In that moment, he knew his Olympic dream was shattered, but he decided to finish the race even though he was in so much pain. 

The middle aged man who came down out of the crowd pushing his way past Olympic security was Derek's father.  Your heavenly Father is in your balcony and just when you think you are too weak or too tired or too messed up to go on, He steps out of that balcony and picks you up and helps you finish the race.  I guarantee you no one remembers who won the race that day, but everyone in that crowd of 65,000 people remembers what that father did to help his child. 

So who is in your balcony?