James 1:3 – “…for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness”
Guess what is not one of my favorite parts of exercising …. yup, stretching. I mean, seriously, it is sometimes the most painful part of a workout routine … especially when you have neglected to stretch for a very long time. As many of you know, the purpose of stretching is to loosen up your muscles so that they become more flexible and therefore help prevent pulled/ torn/ strained muscles. I have found from personal experience that if I stretch hard before an activity, I can usually run faster, jump higher, move quicker, etc. and I am also less sore after. If I do not stretch, it is not pretty (especially as I am getting older).
So let’s take the analogy over to the spiritual realm. I like to think of spiritual stretching as exercising faith. Exercising faith is when you rely/depend/trust God for something or to do something through you that you cannot do by yourself. It is stepping out in bold obedience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit while trusting that God will direct your path/ give you words/ provide the resources/ open doors/ etc. The reason I liken this to physical stretching is because I believe the results/consequences are very similar. When you have been consistently exercising faith, you are able to fall to your knees in prayer more easily, jump up out of your comfort zone faster, and respond quickly to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
On the flip side, when you go a long time without exercising faith, you become spiritually stiff – it takes a while for you to get down to your knees in prayer, you can’t jump out of your comfort zone very easily, and you aren’t able to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as quickly … why? Because your spiritual muscles have become tight and rigid. You need to stretch your spiritual muscles, I need to stretch my spiritual muscles …. We need to exercise faith.
