Are You Stretched?

Don’t you wish this would all just blow over? To mask or not to mask? To extend a hand or hold back? To voice your opinion… or keep your mouth shut and save a friendship?

Navigating COVID-19 restrictions and uncertainties coupled with the social disruption of racial injustice in our nation requires an extra amount of grace for every conversation, every interaction.

Is anyone else ready to scream?!?!?

I find myself praying a certain prayer over and over again. It’s one that’s held me in the past when I’ve faced overwhelming situations and even wonderful, but immense, opportunities. 

“God — I stretch myself past the limits of who I am into the infinity, the limitlessness, of who YOU are.”

Jesus was all about going beyond who we think we are and what we think we are capable of. Read the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5, 6 and 7. It’s all about doing more, being more, loving more — way past where our natural inclinations lie, and often far beyond what we judge is fair and right. 

His words were all about taking the limits off our thinking, blowing the excuses out of our little self-righteous compromises and self-justifications. Go the second mile, love your enemies, pray for those who spitefully use you, do good to please God. 

It’s about seeing life from a different angle, a different POV. In film it’s called a bird’s eye view. In the bible it’s called being “seated with Christ in heavenly places.” (Ephesians 2:6)

It’s a view that helps us see the bigger picture — the possibilities — the actions that help us work with God’s bigger goal that all men might be saved.

If you’re struggling to maintain your sanity and fighting for life to be “normal” again, I pray the eyes of your heart would be open to see beyond our current inconveniences and frustrations.

Allow your spirit to be stretched way past who you are into the endless grace of who He is. 

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20, NIV)