A Stirring That Persists
Doesn’t matter your age, your gender, your race or your station in life. Chances are you’ve got it…and some of you have got it bad. I should know. I’m wrecked with it.
For the last few days, our family rules regarding television viewing have been chucked out the window. NBC’s coverage of the Olympics has us glued to the set, nervously eating popcorn and cheering for whoever is representing the red, white and blue. I would imagine the Beijing spectacular has captured your attention too, as names like Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and Shawn Johnson enter our vernacular for the next few months. These athletes not only provide high drama and unity in their perspective countries but they also give all of us a chance to expand the horizon of possibilities as we join in their pursuit of being an Olympic champion.
I got good money that says MOST of you reading this will not be an Olympic champion in your lifetime and you know it. You could probably give me a mile-long list of why that would be the most absurd thing in the world; of why you “can’t,” why you’d “never” and how “that’s crazy.” I would probably nod my head in total agreement with you, realizing that Olympic gold probably isn’t in my future either.
I’ve also got good money that says there are athletes in Beijing carrying gold medals in hand that were told “you can’t,” “you’ll never” and “you’re crazy.” I would imagine that their quest didn’t start yesterday, is riddled with disappointments and filled with nagging doubts. Now THAT I can identify with. But yet they carry the title Olympic Champion. So what’s the difference? What have they done?
I like to call that type of passion a direct response to “a stirring that persists.” These men and women continue on regardless of external and even internal factors that would stop you and me dead in our tracks. They aren’t just driven; they’re stirred to the point of heroic response in the midst of impossible circumstances. They have left the comfort of normalcy, the security of privacy and have risked it all before a watching world. Their failures are available via the internet and their lives are scrutinized in dozens of languages across the globe. But in the end, their victories are forever etched in our hearts.
You too have “a stirring that persists.” You too have a seemingly impossible dream that God has laid on your heart. Again, it doesn’t matter who you are; it matters what you do with it. So many of us live in the prison of assumption, assuming that God can't or God would never or God would have to be crazy to do something world-impacting through us. Yet the pages of the Bible and the stories of today are filled to over-flowing with men and women, just like you and me, that God met and empowered as they responded to the “stirring that persists.” Want in on the secret? You have to respond. A stirring can die and become a life-time of regret without the fuel of Spirit-led response. Glory is reserved for those who actually run the race.
Do you need to pray? Yes. Do you need to wait on God? Yes. Do you eventually need to respond? Yes. And that response is what separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the Olympic champions from the television spectators.
Don’t let your life end in a deathbed soliloquy of endless regrets. Respond to the “stirring that persists” and feel God meet you in every step, carry you on every lap and run with you on your way to eternal glory. |
