Day 25: For When You Can’t Keep Going, But You Must

Hello friend! Glad you stopped by! This post is part of a 31-Day writing adventure, of which I’m nearly done! I’d love for you to meet up ’round here and read along for the rest of the series (and beyond…). You can find the introduction to the series, and a “Table of Contents” as each day goes live, right here. Thanks so much for dropping in!

Among the myriad of stories the Hubs has from his travels far and wide, there’s a particular tale from his time in Scotland before we met that resonates so much with my soul every time he tells it. He was doing an adventure race in the dead of winter. He and his teammates were trudging over snowy highland peaks around Braeriach, the third highest peak in the British Isles. It was hiking, running, and cycling for a weekend, and they were hoping to be among the first to cross the finish line.

I imagine it was simultaneously incredibly beautiful and ridiculously cold.

At one particular rest stop, a teammate was preparing the rations of MREs (you know… the Meal, Ready-to-Eat army supply things?) and didn’t add enough water to the food as he prepared it. Not realizing what had happened, a very hungry and tired Hero Hubs gobbled up his MRE, and quickly realized — by the significant pain in his stomach that something. was. not. right.

Because it wasn’t.

Any water he drank felt like it was absorbed by the dehydrated food sticking to his gut, and if he tried to drink too much, he felt he would be sick. The next leg of the race was his to conquer — traversing a significant stretch of mountainous path in the snow. Already tired, and now the worst kind of sick he had ever felt in his life, he was armed with a packet of gummy bears, and not wanting to knock his team out of the race, prepared to go on.

The slow release of sugar in slowly eating the gummy bears one at a time seemed enough of a boost to help him trudge along, and he began to whisper to himself with each step: You just have to put one foot in front of the other. You just have to put one foot in front of the other.

It was the longest, most challenging, most soul-stretching walk of his life, but he managed to make it to the next changeover, with the help of those gummy bears and the words that kept him going: Just put one foot in front of the other.

His team didn’t come in first by a longshot, but they finished the race.

Whether it’s a challenge-yourself-good adventure race or a job that it’s hard to keep doing or a season that seems like it’s never going to end, there are times when we feel like the idea of taking another step is just awful.

You might be in one of those moments right now.

For one reason or another it almost hurts just to keep breathing and the end, well, right now, it just isn’t in sight.

I’d encourage you to look for your gummy bears in a very safe place — search for the goodness, the sweetness of God. Look high and low with your every day for reasons to give thanks. Give thanks for the way the light streams through a window. Give thanks for a piece of pine straw, caught in a spider web and floating in a breeze. Give thanks for the ability to give thanks — the mental capacity to ponder the concept of thankfulness itself is a privilege.

And then? Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. The Jesus who humbled himself to a criminal’s crucifixion can absolutely relate to the cross you are bearing. And on the other side of the cross, there is always a Resurrection.

A.W. Tozer points out the important connection Paul made between the humbling and the exalting of Jesus from Philippians 2: 5-11:

“‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’

But notice the next word: “Wherefore.”

‘Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
And that every tongue should confess…!’

This is why I believe God will crucify without pity those whom He desires to raise without measure!” {Excerpt from I Talk Back to the Devil}

Isn’t that an encouraging thought? You are being brought low to be raised up again.

I don’t know what cross you’re carrying today friend. But my encouragement to you is, one foot in front of the other, keep carrying it. There is redemption, there is life, there is being-lifted-by-the-only-One-who-truly-lifts on the other side.

xCC