Straining Forward

Straining Forward

Today after watching this sermon I was greatly encouraged by, I started writing a facebook status update with the link to the sermon....but the little facebook update quickly morphed into this blog.

In 2006 when YWAM UofN Kona was placing bricks down on a center fountain at campus - if you purchased a brick the money would go to scholarships - I filled out a form to purchase a brick.  On the form I put my name down with a of blurb from the verse Philippians 3:13 - something to the effect of: "Forgetting what lies behind and straining ahead".  At that time moving by myself from the East Coast all the way to the middle of the Pacific Ocean was a fresh move, but even then I knew it was no short term journey.

Maybe it was with that deeper intuitive knowing through the Holy Spirit that I decided to include a verse about not having arrived but about straining forward to the goal - a goal that I knew would be a life-long commitment.  (Ironically my name with the verse never actually arrived into the fountain foundation like it was suppose too.  haha.  Maybe God has a special brick up in heaven for me one day?)

I very often share with people I know that I have not and will not ever stop learning.  I will never stop growing.   I will never arrive. If any of us do "arrive" or if any of us think we have "arrived" then God would have already plucked us up like Enoch!  Never stop growing.

Every year for the past 10 years, with every major move I make...whether it's from one city to another, one coast to another, one country to another, or even across the hall to a new room...I stare face to face with the fact that I have not arrived.  That I am very, very much on the move.  In every move I wonder is this the right move?  Here we go again, can we get it right this time?  I am faced with a desperate need to trust and to lean on the only One who is Worthy.  The only One who is Faithful.  It is much more often then not that I move with a blind, maybe somewhat foolish faith that I'm walking in step with God.  Even in the midst of mentors, strong-christians, fellow friends all kind of wondering what it is we are thinking.  Don't worry I am often standing on your side of the street looking at me too wondering what I'm thinking!?  By certain standards, I'm not sure if I am making the "right" or "best" move, but I do know that I know that I know that I am straining to make the moves He is calling me to.  I don't know if it is making a difference while I'm getting tripped up in the small things and tripped up in my own human struggles against God, but I am looking forward to that final day that I get to see the Big Picture with the One who is orchestrating it.


Here's the facebook status the blog started off as:
Very encouraged after listening/watching this sermon today.  #goals #didntknowitwasahomerun
http://elevationchurch.org/sermons/reaching-the-goal/