Yesterday I shared an archived teaching with you on pressing forward. As I re-read the teaching before sending it out, I was astounded at one paragraph…allow me to tell you why.
You see, first of all, I haven’t read that particular teaching for a few years. And it answered something God had spoken to me previously that very day – I just love how God does that.
Let me explain; a few days ago I began going to a walking track with my Mom. Mom is 74 years young and wanted to get in better shape for her upcoming high school reunion. She asked me to start walking with her and I agreed. She said ‘now Kim, we can’t dilly dally, we have to have a fast pace…’ I just laughed and said ‘okay Mom.’
As we began to walk I noticed my pace was much faster than hers, so I slowed down a bit to her pace and we had an enjoyable two mile walk.
The next morning I had to take Bryson to school which is beside another walking track. I decided to go walk after I dropped him off, thinking it would help me get in the habit of walking each day. It wasn’t near as fun alone, but I began my walk. Just when I thought ‘geez…this is not fun’ the Lord spoke to me and said ‘lengthen your stride.’ I glanced down at the long track ahead of me and lengthened my stride.
Immediately I noticed a change. It felt good. The stretch felt good and I was gaining ground quickly. Before I knew it I was done with the walk and boy did that feel good.
Later in the afternoon I was re-reading yesterdays teaching to send it out to you and read this particular paragraph:
Paul didn’t stop by simply saying to ‘not look back.’ He went on to say that after he refused to look back, he pressed forward into all God had for him. But, he didn’t stop there – he said once he refused to look back, and pressed forward – he even ‘lengthened his stride.’ As I studied this phrase I found that to lengthen your stride means to make your steps even longer and bigger, in doing so you will cross more distance quicker. This is good! This means as we lengthen our stride, it will hasten our arrival at our destiny. That’s a good word – but as I dug more into this phrase, it got even better. As I read on I discovered that as you lengthen your stride you go farther with fewer steps. Aha…you work smarter not harder. I love the sound of that. It said that lengthening your stride will have a large impact on your success; it will also improve flexibility, strength and power.
In this time and season God is saying to us LENGTHEN OUR STRIDE. He wants us to arrive at our destination NOW, even more than we do. He wants us to go farther with fewer steps. He wants us to gain flexibility, strength and power. He wants us to go all the way to the end. He is speaking…let’s lengthen our stride!
I don’t know about you but I love how often God is speaking during this season, how He is encouraging and empowering us to press forward into all He has for us. As for me and my house, we will lengthen our stride and press in all the more. How about you?
