Day 54

GET BACK UP AND TAKE THE NEXT STEP

“If we endure, we shall also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us” 2 Timothy 2:12

My husband and I recently went on a walk in the hottest part of the day. Not wise! Thankfully I had taken my bottle of water. We walked four miles and toward the end I felt my feet dragging on the pavement. It was like I just couldn’t get up enough energy to take the next step. All of a sudden a song came to mind that I had heard at a conference. It is entitled, Get Back Up and Take the Next Step by Melissa Greene.

I know that you, like me, have often felt you could not take the next step. You are tempted to lie down, pull the covers over your heads and pull away from the world. As one of our loved one’s says, “Sandra, life is too hard”. Yes, sometimes it is and the enemy wants us to believe that nothing will change, but God says, Get back up and take the next step even though the road is hard and rugged. The difference is, He promises to walk with us. Can we hold on to that promise in the thick of our painful circumstances? That is the question.

I think of the word, endurance. Funk and Wagner’s Dictionary defines it as: “The capacity or power to endure; ability to suffer pain, distress, hardship, or any very prolonged stress without succumbing; patient fortitude. The act or experience of enduring or suffering; to tolerate, put up with. To endure is to bear with strain and resistance, but with conscious power; endure conveys a fuller suggestion of contest and conquest than bear”.

After sharing with a wife whose husband is incarcerated, I am grieved because I don’t have the answers for her. I can’t imagine the struggle of financial pressure she endures each day as there never seems to be a light shining at the end of the tunnel. It has been eight years since her nightmare began. We try to be there to listen as she shares her heart and the frustrations she faces. Her children don’t understand why they can’t have what the other children have or go to fun places on vacation like others do. She struggles to put food on the table and comes home weary from working, sometimes two jobs’, to face the struggles her children are having.

So when I get down on my circumstances I see faces like her’s and others we minister to and I know my struggles to take the next step pale in comparison. What does God promise to those who endure? The crown of life! Endure to the end my friend’s. This life is a short period of time compared to what God has for us IF we endure. I want all He has for me, how about you. I must keep reminding myself to get back up and take the next step, not looking into the future but doing it TODAY. After all, that’s all we have, today, what will you do with it?

In 2 Timothy 3:1, “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come”. He tells us that the difficulties will come. We all have them but it is how we walk through that matters. Keep your focus on Jesus. He was in difficult places in His walk on earth but He always kept His eyes on His Father doing only what the Father would have Him do. He was our ultimate example; let’s choose to follow His example. He never questioned why, He prayed for His cup to pass, but regardless He wanted the Father’s will, not His own. Whatever you are facing today I urge you to get back up and take the next step.

Sandra Kearns