TODAY’S PROPHETIC NUMBERS

PRAYER-WALK

For many years, I was pushing 400 pounds.

Then, on a trip to Jerusalem with Leanna, we met a couple who pastored a church in Enid, Oklahoma. These people were not your ordinary pastors. They were both gifted in the area of physical training in a way that glorified God.

After returning home, this couple came to visit us in Texas to give us a personal fitness program we could literally run with. I needed to get in shape. Though round is a shape, I knew serving God, especially in the mission field, would be easier if I were a little less shapely.

As they finished mapping out my fitness program, I remembered their words: “Troy, your body is going to rebel. You have to learn to overcome your pain.”

The next morning, I walked my first mile. While my flesh was rebelling, to my spirit, it was familiar ground. I couldn’t help but snicker a little as I began to limp because my walk with God was already like that.

King Jesus really knows how to paint a picture. He was reminding me that sometimes, the walk gets painful. Jesus himself walked in ultimate victory daily, but that doesn’t mean it was painless. The next time you start thinking that your walk with God is supposed to be pain-free, consider this verse:

37And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” (Matthew 26:37-38 NKJV)

Declaration: I will pray always, depending on God Almighty!