As I may have shared before, last year I started taking Teakwondo. This has not always been an easy feat seeing how last year I also turned 50!
And stretching is down right uncomfortable.
In class I see several young people not putting any real effort into it. They are just going through the motions. But for stretching to be effective and grant the fruit of flexibility, muscles must be stretched beyond the point of comfort.
Reading in Matthew today,
"As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will send you out to fish for people." At once they left their nets and followed him." Matthew 4:18-20 (NIV)
We tend to think of Peter as the rock, Peter the apostle. But first he was simply a fisherman. A man who earned his living from the sea. That is what he knew, that was where he was comfortable. In fact, after the death of Christ, before the resurrection, Peter returned to this familiar world. But during the three years he walked with the Lord, he had been stretched and thereby enabled to live a different life than he planned.
Jesus brought him back into that new direction and his life was never the same.
Sometimes following the Lord will require us to stretch out of our comfort zone, beyond the reach of our normal sphere of influence.
How is the Lord stretching you?
