Lord, I Can't Do This. Carry Me.

We live in the center of our little town, which is great for having young kids. We walk everywhere, and it's so convenient to get places.

We step outside, and we're at the store in 2 minutes, which is so easy when you've got a kid in the stroller. Jesse just sits there being pushed around.

Theo, however, is too big for the stroller, but his little legs get tired. He's in that in-between stage.

We'll be walking back from the play park, and he'll declare that he cannot take another step, and to prove the point, he'll sit down right there on the pavement (what us Brits call the sidewalk).

I've picked up a trick for this. I offer him some "strength juice," an imaginary drink that is packed full of energy. I hand it to him, and he excitedly gulps it down and springs back up, and it genuinely works.

For about three minutes...

Then he's sitting on the ground again, and we both know what happens next. I have to pick him up and I carry him.

That was easy a couple of years ago. But he's four now, and he's not so little anymore. Some days I'm running on empty myself, and I carry him anyway, arms aching, also pushing the stroller with Jesse in there who is jealously shouting to also be carried, counting the steps home.

Maybe that's where you are today. Not the kind of tired where you need a little encouragement, a pep talk, some "strength juice" to get you a few more minutes down the road.

The kind where you literally cannot take another step. Where everything in you is saying, I can't do this.

You're not just weak, you're empty. And what you need isn't a strategy for finding strength. You need to be carried.

I love this verse in Isaiah 40:11, which says, "He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in His arm, and carry them in His bosom."

Not push them. Not encourage them to try harder. Carry them. Because sometimes that's what we need. Not strength to walk, but Someone to carry us entirely.

This isn't failure. It's surrender.

It's admitting, "I can't do this," and trusting that God can. It's letting Him take the full weight instead of trying to prove we can handle it.

Pride wants us to keep going on our own. It feels ashamed to need this level of help. But God isn't ashamed. He's been offering to carry us all along.

And unlike me at the end of a long walk, He never runs out of strength. The same chapter says He doesn't faint and He doesn't grow weary.

My arms give out. His don't.

So today, if everything in you is saying I can't do this, you don't have to find the strength to get up. Just let Him pick you up.