STRETCHING EXERCISES
Exodus 16:4
Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.
Mornings come really early in the mountains in the fall. There are days when you have to be up the mountain a long ways before daylight breaks. Every morning our guides would gather for a time of devotionals before our hunters came in for breakfast.
When we got out of the trucks, high on the mountain we all went through some sort of stretching exercise. You see each time you start out climbing, if you don't begin with stretching you run the risk of doing damage because you haven't properly prepared for what was coming.
Today as I thought about this stretching, I realized it tests us more than I could have imagined. There are many times in my life where I've felt as though the stretching that God was putting me through was a test to see if I was willing to listen and obey. Like my hip issue of the last few years, if I didn't listen and obey and stretch in those situations I would become stiff and useless.
Every time that God gives us a command He is stretching and testing us. Like the Israelites in the desert, He is putting us to the test. When God asks us to do something that stretches us, we have to decide: Are we going to trust our weak flesh that says it's just too much for me to handle, or are we going to trust what God says is the right thing to do?
The Bible is full of those that God asked to stretch and then if we study we see where God used those He stretched in awesome ways.
God asked Abraham to leave the comfort and security of his home and move to an unknown land where he had never been, to start a new nation. And Abraham obeyed and went.
God told Noah to build a boat on dry land far from the any body of water. I'm sure that over those many decades he worked, Noah thought it might be for naught, yet he did what seemed crazy to everyone else and obeyed God.
Consider the stretch it was for the first disciples when Jesus called them.
Matthew 4:18-22
As Jesus walked along the shore of Lake Galilee, he saw two brothers who were fishermen, Simon (called Peter) and his brother Andrew, catching fish in the lake with a net. 19 Jesus said to them, "Come with me, and I will teach you to catch people." 20 At once they left their nets and went with him. 21 He went on and saw two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in their boat with their father Zebedee, getting their nets ready. Jesus called them, 22 and at once they left the boat and their father, and went with him.
Being stretched is not an easy thing and often it is painful. Yet if it's God asking us to stretch we can rest assured that it has eternal benefits. Our faith increases not only when we rejoice through difficult circumstances but also when we obey Him unquestioning and quickly. This will always builds our faith in Him. When God says to do it, don't think about the fact that it doesn't seem to make sense. Don't worry about whether you're able to do it in our own strength, we have His strength.
When God is stretching us we have one good option... just do it. Obey Him and trust that he will give us everything we need to fulfill His purpose. He will grow us and then our faith in Him will grow as well.
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