Good morning, Imagine Church Family and Friends,
For most of the first three and one-half years of Joshua Jones’ young life, Tyra resided in the Philippines to provide care for him until the adoption and immigration requirements were complete, allowing him to come to his new home here in the United States. One of my visits to them coincided with the time that Joshua learned how to walk. Once he started, Joshua didn’t just walk — he ran! But at first, he would stand up and try to balance himself, and Tyra would hold up something that he would want, trying to get him to take that first step. But for the longest time, what Joshua would do instead was to drop to his knees and crawl over to Tyra. And he could crawl fast!
Over and over again, Tyra would try that: hold out something in front of him, trying to get him to walk, and time after time, he would drop to his knees and crawl. Why did he do that? It was because that was all he knew. He knew how to crawl, and he was good at it! It was the natural thing for him to do. It was a lot easier than wobble, wobble, fall.
Have you ever known a parent to say, “My child is such a good crawler, we’re not going to teach him how to walk. We’ll just let him crawl.” No! The reason parents go through this with their children is because they know that walking is such a better way to go through life than crawling.
I wonder if God is like that when we take those first little baby steps in faith. It may not feel natural, it may not feel comfortable, but here’s the good news: your heavenly Father designed you to walk according to the Spirit, not crawl around according to the flesh. And God is cheering you on! It may be baby steps for a long time, but walking in the Spirit is of such a higher quality and meaning than the other one that it’s worth the effort, and it’s worth the trouble.
What this means for you and me tomorrow morning is that we can all start at the same place: “Lord God, I cannot, but I know you can. Holy Spirit, today my goal is to take my first few baby steps, and just trust your prompting and receive your empowerment.” If you start every day that way, your heavenly Father will say, “Yes! Yes! This is what you were made for. Because Jesus came not just to save you, he came that you might have life — this kind of life.”
My hope is that we would have a church full of men and women who are learning what it means to walk according to the Spirit. Because if we corporately can live that way, there is no limit to what God can do with you and me — because it will certainly be His Spirit working through us.
God designed us for this purpose,
Bruce Jones, Pastor
Imagine Church
