(this ain't about 4 1/2 miles a day)
I have a goal to walk 10,000 steps a day, for my health. I know that is not an impressive goal, but it is a challenge for me for various reasons (time, energy, knees). I had been walking 12,000 to 20,000 steps a day at the beginning of the year, but ailments and injuries caused me to set a lower goal. Even with the lower goal l had to go slowly because of knee pain.
I have been reaching my goal of 10,000 steps for the majority of the last 7 months and I have been hitting my target since June 27th until yesterday. That is only 4 days short of 13 weeks (3 full months, 1/4 of a year). I missed my goal by only 58 steps (approximately 1/2 of 1%). What makes it more disheartening is I didn't miss my goal because of injury or lack of time or lack of energy. I missed my goal because I was distracted. By the time I realized that I had only a few steps to reach my goal, it was 3 minutes past midnight.
Okay, it is not a big deal, but it was for me. I don't like missing goals. I don't like coming short. I don't like failing. As far as my health is concerned, it doesn't really matter. My body doesn't realize I missed my goal by 58 steps. After all, that is less than 6/10ths of a 1%. But it was a miss, and it messed up my success record. And I missed it by only 4 minutes. AND IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS DISTRACTED. It was not injury, time, or obligation, IT WAS DISTRACTION.
Well, if this post is not about my physical goal of walking, what is it about?
We can miss the really important goals of life by a finite measurement because of distractions. We cannot help that various factors sometimes keep us from reaching our goals in life, but a distraction, a minor distraction, a minor distraction for a finite moment of time can ruin our record, can rob us of victory, can change our direction.
As I said earlier, I am goal oriented, I hate to lose, fail, come short, therefore something as insignificant as 1/2 of 1% bothers me, even in the non-essentials of life.
However, losing, failing or coming short in the important things of life can be devastating. It can ruin our life, it can ruin a relationship, it can ruin our walk with God. While there is forgiveness for repented sin, there may still be immeasurable losses. And let's face it, a momentary lapse often leads to a long-term practice. And even if we make things right with God through repentance, the harm caused by some missteps cannot be corrected.
We will make mistakes, but we must make sure we don't allow sin, even momentary, "insignificant" sin, into our lives. And distractions can result in sin.
We can keep our eyes upon Jesus, we can walk in the light as He is in the light, we can be faithful unto death, we can obey Him and do that which is pleasing in His sight. But it requires our deliberate trust, submission, watchfulness.
The faithful life is not a weight around our neck. If we love God as we should, then faithfulness is a lifejacket that keeps us safe; it is a prize that rewards our victory.
Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Do not veer to the left or to the right but walk in the strait (and the straight) and narrow way. Don't get distracted and therefore get off course. There is a cost to getting off course and sometimes the cost is catastrophic. But God calls us to victory, He calls us to be more than conquerors, He calls us to continually walk in triumph, and He enables us to do be overcomers.
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