Stretch out!

"He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered." (Mark 3:1)  "He said to the man with the withered hand, 'Get up and come forward!'" (v3)  "He said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored." (Mark v5)

In the first five verses of Mark, Jesus restores the withered and dried up hand of a certain man.  All of us, perhaps, have had "dried up" experiences when our lives have withered.  We have withered dreams, withered relationships, and maybe even like this man, withered health.

If you are in a dried up place today, let me suggest you follow Jesus' pattern.

#1--Get Up!  Refuse to stay down.  Start over!  Begin again!  You may have been knocked down but you don't have to stay down. 

#2--Come forward!  Don't stay where you are.  Take a step, no matter how small, in the right direction--the direction of your dreams--the direction that Jesus' leads.

#3--Stretch out your hand!  The man in our story had likely tried a million times to stretch out his hand.  Jesus asked him to do it one more time.  Your failure doesn't need to define you one day longer.  Get up and come forward!  Stretch out!