I’m not a runner, but I ran 10 miles last week. I’m not a fiction writer, but I’ve written more than 600 words of a Christmas short story in the last few days.
Why?
Someone challenged me.
They didn’t bowl me over with lofty ideals and hard-to-reach goals.
Quite the contrary.
Instead, they challenged me to one. One mile a day. One hundred words.
Easy.
So easy, in fact, that I didn’t think twice about starting.
So doable that I’ve passed these goals more often than not in the short amount of time I’ve been in motion—albeit slow-motion—toward doing. Toward producing.
And that got me thinking.
What if we Christians took the same approach to this walking the walk and talking the talk business that the members of my challenge groups and I are taking with one another as we push ourselves and one another to grow and progress?
What if, instead of focusing on we’re yet not and letting the Enemy beat us up, we were to focus on what we could do, what we could be?
Right now.
Today.
What if we challenged each other to baby steps?
What if we rose to the challenge?
What if, instead of harboring a spirit of competition and comparison in our hearts, we put a lid on the pride and arrogance, encouraged our brothers and sisters at all stages of spiritual development, and celebrated freely what God accomplished in and through us?
I think we would mature in our faith. All of us. Maybe not by leaps and bounds, but steadily, building brick by brick a solid foundation of practical experience and weaving strand by strand a network of familial support we could stand on, lean into, when needed.
I think we just might become what the Church was meant to be.
So how do we get there? I think it happens one step at a time.
One kind word spoken.
One good deed done.
One promised prayer prayed.
One phone call made.
One sincere smile offered.
One hug or handshake shared.
One minute you didn’t have to give given.
One killer come-back kept back.
One sacrificial gift presented.
One anything that costs us, honors the Father, and gives the Holy Spirit space to move.
So what do you say? Are you game? Let’s do and be more for His glory!
You are hereby challenged to one!