Little by Little

   Hello, Friends!  Progress can be so frustrating some times.  Don't you just wish you could snap your fingers and get it all together, suddenly reach your perfect fitness goal, have all the money you want, and be killing it in your career and relationships?  Ya, me too.  The problem is, we weren't built to work like that.  If we have big goals and dreams, we have to grow to the size of those dreams.  Overnight success is not really a thing (Ok, maybe for a handful of people), but for most of us, it's a daily working to reach what we desire.  

    This process of growing and becoming can be really frustrating until we take time to step back and realize that is how we are designed to operate.  Growing into the person we want to be is a lifelong process, and the joy truly is in the journey.  But it can be easy to lose sight of that.  Let me illustrate with a classic Bible story.  You might be familiar with the Israelites and their forty year journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.  A forty year journey!  Yikes!  Are we there yet?  How about now?  The journey across the desert should have taken about 11 days according to scholars, but because the Israelites complained, rebelled, and down right refused to listen, reaching the Promised Land took forty years.  Not only that, but those who left Egypt did not even get to enjoy the Promised Land.  They perished in the desert, and it was their children who got to inherit that land.  Not a great story.  

    But here is what is interesting.  There were others inhabiting the land which was to be an inheritance for Israel, the land which had been promised to Abraham over four hundred years earlier.  In Exodus 23:29-30, God tells Moses, "But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land." God knew the Israelites were not prepared to handle the land that had been promised to them, and so He did not give it to them all at once.  To do so would have been their destruction.  Instead He promised to give it to them little by little as they increased.  Remember the analogy of the wineskin?  They had to grow into a nation that could handle the blessings God had in store for them, and in the same way, we must grow into people who can handle the plans and blessings God has in store for us.  We must be faithful with a little before we can be blessed with more.  (Luke 16:11)

    Take some time this week to look at your dreams and goals and appreciate the path from where you are to where you want to be.  And don't forget to look back and see how far you have come as well. Don't spend your whole life just wishing you were in the Promised Land. Instead, enjoy the path as you realize your dreams and goals little by little.  I can't wait to see you succeed!

~K.L.W.