If you have the whine in you, kick it out ruthlessly. (1)
Periodically, I invite my wife and a few close friends to join a parade with me. Their usual response is, “I love you, but I have no interest in that parade!”
The parade I invite them to is a Pity Parade. I invite them when I am down in the dumps, standing in the middle of a short tunnel, and feel that life has not been fair to me.
The Pity Parade is usually a parade of one. However, there is one person who will join you in the parade, Jesus. He will not join you in the your moping and whining, but He will offer to let you hook up your wagon to His. He will invite you to be His dance partner.
I usually begin my Pity Parade when I am tired, when I am weak, and when the world is a bit more than I can bare alone. When Jesus comes alongside us in our parading, He invites us to join Him with these words:
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (2)
Pity Parades are begun by people who have forgotten about God’s love, His grace, power, and strength and who rejected His invitation. God is out of their sight and far from their mind.
The only way to know the strength of God is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and learn of Him. It is a positive crime to be weak in God’s strength. (1)
If you are with God. If you have invited Him into your day! If you are joined to Him, you will never be weak!
The way to build a life without needing Pity Parades to attract the sympathy of others is to rely upon God’s strength, rather than to live in the illusion of your own bravo.
Isaiah wrote: Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them!
The righteous are yoked to Jesus’ righteousness and find that all is well with their souls. Things are so well, they dance their days away with Jesus.
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Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1993).
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The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Matthew 11:28–30.
Bread Crumbs - Devotions for Life 
Thanks Rus, I tend to be in that parade quite often, but how thankful I am that Jesus will come to me in my time of need and offer comfort and reassurance. What would we do without this faithful friend. When no one else in the world cares for us, His arms are always open and ready to receive us.