A moment of weakness.

     Twice this week I found myself speaking to people about moment of weakness. Which got me thinking, what is the root cause of moments of weakness ? What can we do to try and stop them? Now I am not talking about a snack- accident where you eat a whole pint of ice cream or bag of chips in one sitting. I mean the moral slip ups we all have. Where you find yourself saying I don't know why I did that. That is not who I really am.      So what is a moment of weakness? A short time during which someone makes a bad decision or does something bad that they would not normally do.  The quality or state of lacking strength of will or character. Moments of weakness are what the Devil lays and waits for. Like a Lion laying in the tall grass waiting for the gazelle to pass by unaware.  As it stops to take a rest the Lion jumps in to attack.  But sadly we are often laying in wait for a Brother or Sister to slip up too. Ready to ponce on them.     What is the cause of a Moment of Weakness? I often suffer with muscle weakness and fatigue. Weakness is a lack of physical or muscle strength and the feeling that extra effort is required to move your arms, legs, or other muscles. Sometimes I can move my muscles but it just hurts to much to do. The feeling of fatigue is to exhausting and I just have to rest because of a lack of energy. There are so many factors at play with weakness and fatigue. Overworked, poor sleep, worry, illness or medical treatments or anxiety or depression. The same can be said for those who suffer moral or spiritual weakness.      I strongly believe the God uses the physical man to teach us about the spiritual man. They coexist and one effects the other.  When I suffer from physical stress my spiritual man is effected. Pain and suffering wears on a person. You can see it in their face, how they walk and talk. As the pain leaves, so does the stress and weakness. I believe moments of weakness come when we are weighted down in life.  Has life ever extended your emotions beyond what they can handle?     Self care is something I don't think we talk about often enough. We avoid talking about mental health problems. We laugh and mock the person who heads to the spa to have a day of relaxing. We tell the person who is struggling with money problems to work harder and keep their head up. We would all be better off if we would be open and say I AM FEELING WEAK!  I am struggling. I need help, a hug, someone to listen to be about my weak moments. Most of the time we meet those who are struggling with judgement.     Something I am all to aware of. As a chronically ill person I have seen it all. The judging eyes as I use the wheelchair at Walmart. What I don't need to hear I should work out, eat better. I wanted to hear you say I will be praying for you. Not, I'm sure you can find a job to do, or I'm sure you just need to be positive minded. No ! What I need is for you to support me without judgment. The same is for those who have a  spiritual weak moment or even season. In a Moment of weakness, it does not matter what caused it. It only matters that you need support. There is one who is waiting to devour you. We need to stop trying to devour  each other. Help each others through there moments of weakness . The devil is prowling around waiting for me to rest for a second. We need to love more when we see others struggling. We need to offer a hand of help instead of a pointing finger of accusing.  Am I saying  I should support those living in sin? NO! Not for a moment am I saying support sin but I am saying support and love the sinner. I am not talking about the person who can not see their sin or the areas of weakness they have. That is is a different conversion for a different day. I am talking about supporting those who are saying I am in a weak moment right now. I am burned out spiritual, physical, emotional.  How they got there goes back to the topic of self-care. Something I am still working on as a person who gets muscle weakness when I over do it. I have to care for myself  or weakness and fatigue  sets in and it can take weeks before I get over it. For myself when I am in moments of weakness I am unable to care for myself. I need others to help me. I need someone to come along side me and not remind me how I got here but rather how we can get out of here. Last night I had to have my daughter make me tea and bring it to me because I was to weak to even move.  I just could not do it myself. I needed support. But part of self-care is asking for help. Admitting I am to weak to care for myself. I need to allow others to come along side me and help care for me. I have to take the care and support offered and not try and just do for myself.  If you are weak in area of sin in your life. Ask for help and support in this area. If you see someone who is in a weak moment offer support. Remind them we have all had a weak moment, Need I remind you of the pint of ice cream you snack- accidentally ate? The enemy wants to devour us.  All of us.... and life makes us weak... 

1 Peter 5:8 says Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.