One Step at a Time
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They say you can eat an elephant one bite at a time.
Crazy when you think about it, isn’t it?
So is actually running a marathon.
A marathon is 26.2 miles. This distance is not something that you can sprint. This is a distance run. This is something you have to take your time at. The finish line is too far away to see so where do you put your focus?
One step at time.
We are obsessed with getting our steps in these days. Lots of people aim to walk at least 10,000 steps per day.
How many steps does the average runner take when running a marathon?
55,334 steps!
Focusing on the need to make 55,334 steps to complete the marathon is not something that will help you stay focused when you are tired and hurting, this makes finishing the race seem impossible.
Those who run marathons would be great people to talk to about how to overcome discouragement. I read an interview about a marathon runner asking him what does he do to help himself through this type of discouragement. His response - One step at a time.
Just take the next step
Just take the next step
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Paul often uses images of running a race to help us understand things but here he uses agriculture.
If we keep sowing, even when we feel weary and worn out it will be worth it.
If you take one step at a time and you do not give up, eventually you will reap a harvest.
Keep taking one step at a time and at the proper time you will see how it has added up.
The Cumulative Effect
The Cumulative Effect
This is defined as a gradual building up.
It is not something that is instant but something that happens little by little.
A race is made up of tens of thousands individual steps.
Each step may seem small and insignificant but the cumulative effect of all the steps determines what race we ran.
The real reason many of us give up on running the race is we underestimate the importance of one step at a time.
Intentionally focusing on taking the next step and then the next is the secret to not giving up.
Just take the next step.
Illustration: Dominos
Saving money - save $5 a day for 30 years will give $125,000.
If you could save $10 a day for 30 years you would have 1/4 of a million dollars.
$5 or $10 doesn’t seem like much in itself but it can add up over time then after 30 years look at the result!
When you are up against a big challenge there is a tendency to think we need a big solution.
We look for something big to happen to get us out of the dilemma.
But in reality persevering by focusing on one step at a time is a huge solution!
The First Step
The First Step
The first step is the hardest!
Why? Because the size of the task is before us and it seems too big to accomplish.
One of reasons we don’t end up taking the first step until it feels too late is because we have had good intensions of taking that first step for a long time but never got around to actually doing it.
Talk to someone who’s weight has spiraled out of control and you will hear - “I didn’t mean for that to happen”.
They meant to make changes.
Week after week the promise of doing better was there to get on top of it - Good intentions but then it feels too late.
Good intentions have a way of making us feel like we have done something when we haven’t really done anything.
It’s like going around wearing work out clothes but never working out.
Don’t convince yourself that your good intensions are the first step. You can have good intensions and never move an inch forward.
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
Lingering in the procrastination zone is a way of giving up without actually saying it.
From Good Intentions to Intentional
From Good Intentions to Intentional
We need to align our actions with intentions.
When Jesus called the disciples to follow him, each one of them faced a moment where they had to choose if they would go or stay. There was a moment of decision.
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
Jesus issued an invitation to them for all who might follow Him.
Followers would need to take the next step - pick up a cross EVERY DAY! and keep walking.
The hardest part is the EVERY DAY!
It doesn’t happen by accident it is intentional.
After Jesus issued the invitation a man came to him and expressed his desire to follow Jesus.
He says:
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
He had every intention of doing this.
Whatever the course he planned to run it.
Jesus responds:
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
Jesus made his home in the will of God. That is a life lived completely outside the comfort zone.
The man has good intentions but he is not ready to be uncomfortable or give up his safety net.
Race and agony are synonyms:
“Run the agony set out for you”
What is your agony?
What good intentions do you struggle to make good on?
When you look at the race you’re running what is it that keeps you from moving from good intentions to action?
Accidental to Intentional
Accidental to Intentional
Sometimes accidents get in the way of good intentions.
Illustration:
Imagine you are flying to a remote island with a pilot who is flying a small four seater plane.
The plane is 40 years old and a number of gauges don’t seem to be working. The flight over the mountains is a little rough. There are times the mountains are higher than you are in the plane. It’s a little disconcerting.
The pilot begins to tell you about a time when he made a crash landing. Not the story you want to hear as you are in such a vulnerable situation.
You gather it must have been successful otherwise he wouldn’t be telling you this story. You ask what happened. He said "We are flying in the same conditions right now!”
You then ask “Did you get it fixed?”
“Yeah”, he answers “I did all the work myself”.
Then He adds “You know you can’t really get all the tools you need here, you just make do”.
You ask “Did you ever figure out what went wrong?”
He replies “You know I’m not really sure. Sometimes accidents just happen”.
Accidents Happen
This is not the phrase you want to hear from your pilot when explaining what caused the crash landing of the plane you are in.
We have good intentions but accidents happen.
This seems appropriate to say in times like this:
You knock over a lamp
Left a door unlocked
Break a dish in the kitchen
Scratch a bumper on speed bump
In appropriate times to say this:
an affair
been an absent parent
at the end of your life explaining your existence
When you crash land your plane!
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Paul says don’t grow weary because there is a harvest to reap if we don’t give up!
Leading up to this verse Paul mentions the law of sowing and reaping. We reap what we sow regardless of intent.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
The point is plant intentionally.
When we harvest we will likely wish we put more time and thought into the future.
It is hard to break habits.
We like keeping things as they are. We are creatures of habit.
We like to sit in same places at church? Restaurants?
We like having routines.
Repeated action create an orderly pattern over time. Then we get stuck in them and it is too difficult to change or get out and then we give up.
I remember as a teenager driving ski doo. There were often places where the trail was rough. A lot of people went over it and therefore the grove in the trail deepened, sometimes it exposed mud or water or both.
The best way to avoid going down in that rut is to avoid the same trail, change the path.
Following that trail will not be good it will cause more damage than good.
God never chooses a used groove in our lives. He marks out a whole new course. It is easy to fall into old patterns and mistake that comfort for what we should be doing.
We get stuck in the gap between intention and action.
If you are out of shape and then decide to get into shape you know it is hard to break past patterns. You change your diet, your body is addicted to certain things. You start to exercise but your body begs to differ, it really enjoys to lack of exercise.
If you stick with it for a few weeks what feels unnatural will start to feel more natural.
You just have to stay focued to the end goal. Win the transition period between old and new patterns. What can you do to stay true to your goal and disrupt old patterns?
Just Show Up!
Just showing up makes the statement I am here, I am not doing things the way I have always done them. I am not giving up!
What showing up Looks like
Illustration:
A pastor received an email from a man in his community who was not a member of his church or any church for that matter. He was dying and did not have much time left.
He watched one of the pastor’s church services online and prompted the man to reach out to the pastor and asked if the pastor would visit him.
The pastor agreed. He believed this man was running the final lap of his life.
The man explained to the pastor that when he was a child, he became a Christian but for the last number of decades he had ran away from God. Now he realized he needed to get things right.
Was that possible he asked the pastor?
The pastor asked “Do you have a Bible?”
There is something about seeing someone’s Bible that gives a snapshot of the race they are running.
The man first responded by saying no then he pointed across the room at a coffee table and said look there.
The pastor found a huge King James Bible that was so heavy the pastor didn’t even know if he coud pick it up. He opened the Bible and dust fillwed the air around him. He ignored that then flipped to Romans and read the verses about sin and salvation.
The pastor asked him if he needed to get right with God before he died.
The man had certain conversations, apologized to those and offering forgiveness to others. He had written some letters of gratitude and got relationships in order. In the back of his mind there was a glaring intention that had been there for years in the man’s mind - At some point I must get right with God!
Those intentions may have been old but they followed him through every transition of life, through relationships, through the lifespan of hopes and dreams and fears.
They never went away, since God never gives up! The course God laid out is always right in front of us and begins that very moment.
When the man understood it was not too late that Jesus made all things right he wept!
You see that’s the beautiful thing about God He is always there waiting for us to realize what a difference He can make in our lives.
The man repented with a sincereity that could not have been mistaken. .
This man put off taking the step. He had made wrong choices. But eventually decided to show up, and that’s all that was required of him. He showed up by sending a simple email asking a simple question that changed his eternity.
Take the step to God
The finish line is closer than you think
You’re too near the crown.