Do you ever have a message just stick with you? Like you randomly find yourself thinking about it? Yeah, me too. Most recently, it was at my worship dance fitness class.

After our hour of fun and dance, the teacher talked about carrying a stick. There is a commercial on TV where a woman and her dog are running through the field. The dog managed to find a stick along the way. When they get to the trees the dog tries to follow his owner through the gap, but is halted by his stick. No matter how hard the dog tried, he could not get through the trees and continue to follow his owner. Eventually, he dropped the stick and ran happily through. The lesson here is that we may be carrying a stick that holds us back from following the Lord. To reinforce the idea, the teacher passed around a bucket of sticks and encouraged us all to take what we felt like we were holding on to, whether big or small, one or many. Together we circled up, prayed, and dropped our sticks.

This is both a great object lesson and reminder that we have the power to drop anything that is holding us back. It may be more difficult than physically dropping a stick, but the reward for making it through that gap is so much more than any stick could ever be. Whatever your stick may be (unforgiveness, disappointment, hatred, pride) I encourage you to drop it and step through that gap to follow Christ.