“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
- Philippians 3:13-14
I’ve noticed something about my human.
Every morning, he gets up, pours his coffee, grabs his Bible, and settles into his chair. Same routine most every day.
Now, I’ve got a pretty good morning routine myself.
Stretch.
Shake.
Scratch.
Check the food bowl.
Check it again in case something miraculous happened while I wasn’t looking.
Then find a comfortable place to lie down.
I’m pretty good at lying down.
Maybe too good.
The other morning, my human looked over at me and said, “Come on, buddy. We’ve got to get moving.”
I opened one eye.
Moving?
Why?
Everything I needed was right there.
Warm porch.
Soft rug.
Full belly.
Life was good.
But he grabbed the leash, and suddenly I remembered there was a whole world beyond that porch.
Trees to sniff.
Trails to explore.
Rabbits to investigate.
And apparently one cat who still hadn’t gotten the memo that this is my neighborhood.
As we walked, I started thinking about something I’d heard my human reading that morning.
Grow.
That’s an interesting word.
Growing means you aren’t staying where you are.
And maybe that’s something us dogs understand better than we realize.
You see, comfortable can become stagnant.
Rest can become laziness.
And “good enough” can quietly become the place where we stop following instead of the place where we start obeying.
But my human’s Bible didn’t say, “Be satisfied with where you are.” It said in 2 Peter “grow in grace and knowledge”—like grace is something you step into deeper, not something you sit beside and admire from a distance.
And I think that’s where we get in trouble.
We start treating Jesus like a porch instead of a path.
A place to sit instead of a Savior to follow.
But Jesus never called us to a stationary faith.
He called us to a living one.
A faith that moves when He moves.
A faith that gets up when comfort says stay.
A faith that keeps walking when the trail gets long and the distractions start smelling like something worth chasing.
Following Jesus was never meant to be standing still.
There’s always another step of obedience.
Another truth to learn.
Another person to love.
Another burden to surrender.
Another place where pride gets lowered and trust gets raised.
Paul said he pressed on toward the goal.
That’s forward.
Not backward.
Not sideways.
And definitely not curled up on the rug waiting for life to pass by.
Forward.
Not because we are strong, but because He is faithful.
Not because we have arrived, but because He is still shaping us.
Some days it’s a leap of faith.
Most days it’s simpler than that—just one foot in front of the other when you’d rather not move at all.
Choosing obedience over comfort.
Prayer over worry.
Forgiveness over holding on tight.
Read the Word.
Pray anyway.
Trust Jesus when it doesn’t make sense.
Love when it costs you something.
Forgive when it feels undeserved.
Serve when no one is watching.
Then get up tomorrow and do it again—not to somehow earn grace, but because grace won’t let you stay the same.
Don’t get stagnant.
Don’t get lazy.
And don’t ever decide you’ve learned enough about Jesus, because you haven’t even begun to see the fullness of who He is.
There’s more grace ahead.
More wisdom ahead.
More surrender ahead.
More Jesus ahead.
So when the Master says, “Come on, we’re going,” don’t hesitate at the door.
Move
Step off the porch.
The road is still unfolding, and He is not finished with you yet.
And from where this old dog is standing…
I don’t want to miss a single step.
Forward is where life with Jesus lives.
Keep the Faith… Carpe Diem
