One Step at a Time

Greetings All and Happy New Year!

I have been a bit absent of late as I took the week off to be with my family. It was a time of great joy and relaxation, if you consider chasing three year old twin nephews relaxing. I always enjoy ringing in the new year with family. It is a time of looking back and looking forward. Looking back to the good and bad, the good to hopefully duplicate and the bad to learn from it and avoid it in the future. Looking forward to the goals we want to accomplish in the new year, the resolutions that we set, the plans we want to make.

Sometimes those plans and goals can be a bit overwhelming when we look at them regardless of what they are; for some they might involve weight loss, for others stopping smoking, for others education related goals, or spending more time with family, or getting one's finances in order. No matter what they are sometimes the sheer size of the goal can overwhelm.  I have a goal ever year to eighteen months of reading through the Bible cover to cover. Sometimes I look at the size of the Bible, the number of pages, and think that I will never finish, but the truth is as long as I read a few chapters everyday I accomplish my goal.  I have just begun my sixth reading and I am already in Exodus and Luke reading a few chapters a day. 

The conference health plan gave all of us pastors step meters at conference last year in the hopes of getting us to exercise, or at least get a little healthier. I wear it religiously and I have noticed something much like my Bible reading. When I look at a goal of running or walking a certain number of miles in a day or a week, it gets a little overwhelming, but when I just think about taking the next step I realize that is something I can do. One step at a time I can walk thousands of miles, climb tall mountains, and traverse deep valleys. Since June I have walked over a million steps.  If you had asked me in June to walk a million steps by December 31st I would have said, "You are crazy!"  But taking one step at a time I did it without even realizing that I had accomplished it.  I simply took 12,000 steps a day.  Like the pedometer, when I take the next step, I am that much closer to accomplishing my goal.

The Christian walk is the same way. When we look at where we have been and God's plan of holiness for our lives it can be a bit overwhelming. We can get consumed with thoughts of, "What's the point, I will never make it," or, "That is just to much for me, I am not capable." The truth is that none of us are capable of doing the things that God has called us to do. He calls us to do things that can only be accomplished in His power so that when we do we can't help but say, "Look what God has done!" What God wants us to do is simply take the next step of obedience to Him. If we simply take one more step towards holiness today, one more step towards the life He is calling us to, one more step towards the joy He so wants for our lives, we will get there! One step at a time is our journey towards God and we can all take one more step!

Your brother in Christ,
Faron