At our watch service on New Year’s Eve, our pastor challenged each of us to ask God in prayer for a single word for 2017. The word God gave me was “forward”. Martin Luther King, Jr. (whose birthday we celebrated this week) once said, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” With arthritic knees and cramping leg muscles I am somewhere between walking and crawling, but I will keep moving forward this year.
The Christian life is not dull or boring. It is full of blessings and burdens, ups and downs, support and opposition, even joy and sorrow. Jesus didn’t promise us a smooth road or calm seas, but He did promise to be with us through it all. The key is to keep our life in drive and moving forward toward His perfect plan for us. We may have to shift into a lower gear when climbing a mountain, but as long as we keep moving we are making progress.
Have you noticed when you make progress toward your calling the enemy comes against you with everything he has? One of my favorite young pastors has said, “If you haven’t confronted the devil in a while, it might be because you are running in the same lane he is in.” External conditions may seem to all be stacked against you and Satan whispers in your ear that there is just no use to keep going. He cannot come between you and God, nor can he take away your salvation or your calling. He will simply try to put your quest to reach God’s goal for your life on hold because every believer he can put into neutral or park is a small victory for him, delaying his inevitable defeat.
How do we keep moving forward in the face of such strong opposition? In Psalms 31:9-14, David describes his extremely desperate struggle against fierce opposition from the enemy. Then he concludes, “But I am trusting you, O lord, saying, ‘You are my God!’” David knew that it was God’s power that he needed to keep him moving through such fierce storms. Romans 8:11 reminds us, “God’s spirit, that raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.” That is all the power we will ever need to keep us moving forward.
Henry Ford once wrote, “When you feel like all is against you just remember that an airplane takes off against the wind not with the wind.” I believe God has designed us so that utilizing His power to move forward against the enemy’s opposition will lift us above the obstacles in our path just as an opposing wind lifts an airplane.