Pressing On Toward The Mark

When you stand at the bottom of a rock climbing wall and look up, it can be quite daunting. You can’t tell exactly where you need to put your hands and feet in order to make it all the way to the top. You know the goal, you just don’t know the path to get there yet.

The same can be said of our spiritual lives. After salvation we know we’re to walk with the Lord, but we don’t know what that looks like for certain. That’s how we build trust in God, as we listen to His guidance and take one more step. And one more step. And one more step.

Does our Christian walk look daunting from down here? Of course it does. You’ve never walked this path before, and the journey can be pretty terrifying when you’re not the one doing the planning or holding the map. What a test of our faith, when we put our steps into the hands of God. We definitely don’t want to misstep and fall off the rock wall part way up. If you’ve ever hesitated to move your hands from where they are now because it’s safer over here, then you know what I mean.

But here’s the best part. If you reach out and you miss, God’s waiting to catch you. He’ll never let you fall. You may get scuffed up a little bit, but those scratches and bruises are badges of courage for those who do whatever it takes to stay on the Lord’s path.

So you could stay comfortably on the rock wall where you are now, or you can reach up in faith and climb a little higher. When you get there, if you’re listening for the voice of God, you’ll know the next step, the next gripper, is just an arm’s length away. That move will take you one step higher, one step closer to the goal.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14

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