Soul Stretches! Hate the pain but gotta love the results!

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. Hebrews 12:1-2, KJV

Run with patience! Or as T.D. Jakes would say, “Relax while you run!” Hmmmm….Easy to say and write about, but I must admit that at times this is very hard to do, especially if your long, beautiful, gaited strides, are met with a brick wall that just doesn’t seem to move! Ahhh…T.D. Jakes calls those times, ‘soul stretches’…he describes it this way: “As stretching is essential to muscle so that it can conquer the demands of the race, so, too, does the soul need to be stretched to successfully meet the demands of life. Like the runner leaning against the wall to give his muscles resistance training, we have all had to push against immovable forces. Every so often, your soul will hit a wall. No amount of strength, no amount of pressing, will move the problem. This is a ‘soul stretch’.
Have you been stretched yet? Jakes continues, “God never allows a person to run for Him or with Him who hasn’t been stretched in his thinking, stretched in his faith, and stretched in his ability to live and love.
Soul stretches are prerequisites for winning the race. It is the ‘stretching of the soul’ (or the ‘not getting your own way’ all the time!) that enables us to face situations that we think will kill us but don’t, endure times when we think we won’t make it but do. We all will face difficult times, but they are just the deep knee bends of life. They stretch and challenge the soul and enable us to get lose enough to perform successfully.”
I have learned that it is during these ‘soul stretches’ that I learn patience…yes…once again! Jakes says that “patience is the balm that God rubs into the aching muscles when the soul is being stretched and the race must still be run.” (Do you just love that!) He adds, “God knows when to stretch what. In the days to come, a greater agility will result from this stretching. The muscle will become stronger. No one becomes a great runner without being stretched beyond what they think they can handle.”
The spectators that sit in the stands will not know of this stretching. They will see the swift limbs, the flailing arms, and stomping feet that lurch across the finish line. They will comment on the quick gait and strong legs, but they will not know that the runner can leap over hurdles and hurl himself down the track because he was hit hard and has endured the painful private ‘stretching of the soul’. As the old gospel song declares, he has come this far by faith.”
1. Embrace the stretching-you are getting stronger
2. Stay on track-the path is dark, narrow, and steep at times, but He provides enough light to let us see the next step before us.
3. Trust that God will provide us with strength and endurance beyond what we can imagine.

God would never tell us to ‘run with patience’ if it weren’t possible…with every ‘stretching of the soul’, patience comes…we are still in the race…in fact, it will be this ‘stretching’ that will enable us to persevere until the end….to ‘finish strong’ and with ‘joy’ as the Apostle Paul did…to do what we are on the earth to do, as our Lord Jesus did…
Running with you all,
Anna