Take the Steps

When I make hospital visits I have made a commitment to myself that I will take the steps rather than the elevator.  It’s just a simple way to keep me moving in light of a fairly sedentary vocation.  However, I have learned that six flights is about my comfort threshold and after that I am panting like a dog on a hot summer day.  Yesterday, I was called to the hospital and I noticed that the room was on the ninth floor.  My first thought was, “I’m taking the elevator.”  Then I thought, “Well, I can take the stairs to the sixth floor and then hitch the elevator for the next three.”  Then I thought to myself, “Wow!  I am thinking entirely too much about this!” Finally, I walked down the hall and started up the stairs.  Sure enough…at the sixth floor the panting for air started.  I was thankful a doctor was not in the stairwell for fear that he would have rushed me to the ER :-).  Finally, I made it to the ninth floor.  I paused at the top for a moment to gain composure and by the time I made it to the room I was thinking, “I am so glad I took the stairs.  I feel a lot better.” 

So, by now I would guess you are wondering why I am forcing you to be let in on this ridiculous conversation with myself.  But it was on the walk down the steps as I was continuing to pray for the person I had visited that I began to hear the Spirit speak to my spirit.  The word that came to mind was, “Encourage the people to keep on taking the steps.” 

Canton First Church family, “Keep on taking the steps.”  In just a few weeks our journey up the steps of refocus began one year ago.  On Sunday, November 10, 2013, my family met yours.  95% of you voted knowing full well that to call me was a vote for a refocus.  I think by now you would agree that we have past the sixth floor.  Perhaps you feel like you are panting like a dog on a summer day just trying to catch your breath.  I’ll be honest, right before our “Let it Go” balloon launch Sunday (Sept. 28, 2014—see the video on the Canton First Facebook page if you missed it), I was ready to call it quits.  The resistance was so intense that I did not know if it was worth continuing on for the sake of my family, let alone my own well-being.  It was to the point that the process had become personally painful.  Do you know what I mean?

But then, just when I thought I could not climb another step, the challenge was given through Luke 15 for us to run up sixth flights of stairs in one service.  The offer was made:  Come forward and release the red balloons that you as a church family named or go out the back door and do not return until you can wholeheartedly, honestly and humbly let go with us of the named red balloons.  It was amazing to watch about 380 people come forward and a much smaller group walk out.  Then it has been amazing to watch some of those who walked out now begin to return signifying that they too have now come to the point where they have also joined us in letting go of traditionalism, entitlement and heartsickness (pride, critical spirit and unforgiveness).  It is even a blessing that others who left have not returned because that means God has something better for them and us.  Furthermore, it has been amazing to watch in the past month since the balloon launch how many people have made commitments to Christ and how many new people from the community have started worshipping with us. 

My point is this…nothing in life that really matters ever seems to take place on the elevator.  I don’t know about you, but I have never grown spiritually when everything is easy, comfortable and relaxing.  No, the things that matter take place on the steps.  Spiritual growth happens in the places where you can barely catch your breath, your body aches and you think, “I can’t do this.”  Why?  Because the moment we admit we can’t, is the moment we are ready to experience God’s, “I can.”   And when we take the steps to the point where we can’t and He can, then we see God move and work in ways that we never would have imagined. 

I believe that is exactly what Isaiah was trying to get the people of God to see.

 Isaiah 43:16-21:

 16 This is what the Lord says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,

17 who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:

18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

20 The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen,

21 the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

When we take the steps through the wilderness and the wasteland, it is grueling and painful and frightening, but is also the place where we find God providing streams of living water.  And when you drink of that water after a taking the steps, you can’t help but proclaim his praise.  CFNAZ, that is what God is doing for us.  So, without apology let us encourage and challenge one another to keep taking the steps!