SOMETIMES LIFE | Joseph James

Following is a very short, encouraging story I wrote on 05.20.20. I hope it encourages you! Joseph James

SOMETIMES LIFE | Joseph James

Sometimes life just seems too impossible, too far out there to grasp, let alone to harness. It seems like you’ll never make it, like every precipice you attain only reveals another summit going higher still. When will the real summit show it’s face, that place when you can look down with the wind gently blowing in your face and hair, that refreshment that comes from knowing you’ve conquered that which you were destined to do? Looking down in victory on all who’ve said you couldn’t do it! Give up! It’s not worth it! Yeah, but I did it!

Sometimes, on the way up, the tired legs that give way, the breath that can’t be fully inhaled, your heartbeat racing as your heart seems to be trying to escape your chest, as you fall lifelessly to the ground with your face in the mud. Lying there, moments, hours, days perhaps, wondering in a state of exhaustion if the ascent so far has been worth it. What comes next? You’ve gone too far to turn back now, but you’re all alone in this place – or so it seems.

You’ve been in places like this before and you know that help is closer than your extended, trembling arm can extend, angled upwards, wanting a hand to pull you up, yelling so loudly inside, reverberating, echoing, yet only a whisper manages to escape your quivering lips. Your emotions are screaming to you that it’s all over and you can’t go on, admit defeat, but deep inside your spirit violently disagrees and wars with your mind and suddenly, so faintly, a still, small voice is heard, and yet it’s booming inside your heart like a loud crashing cymbal and gong, “I’ve got this! I’m here! Trust Me!”

You had lifted your head, slightly turned it so you could see His face, but as you roll over to your back, you feel a familiar hand supporting your head and you realize He’s holding you in His arms. His love floods your whole being as the unbearable stress quickly exits, like a gazelle running from a lion’s roar that silences the forest’s inhabitants so a whisper can be heard. His peace permeates every cell in your body and slowly His supernatural energy bursts from your heart, increasing exponentially until you are standing up tall in the power of His might, refreshed, determined to go higher until you reach that which He’s purposed and planned so, so long ago.

The dream was written from before the foundations of the earth, but you’ve only caught glimpses along your way, those déjà vu’s as you come upon those familiar scenes, but then you realize you’ve never been this way before. You pause to take it all in, wondering even more. By faith you began this incredible climb, but the deep valleys, the sheer cliffs, and the dark caves have illuminated every single fear inside your heart, like the sun shining down at noon. You secretly knew something was there but desperately trying to deny and hide it’s embarrassing existence, hoping no one would ever see. Trusting Him, again and again, even in the simplest things has now prepared you for the heights, like the mountain goat on the seemingly sheer cliffs above, unflinchingly looking down from high above, so high above where the air is so thin, but your lungs have acclimated now, so you can climb higher still.

You look into the small pond next to you and notice that your body is no longer frail, thin and weak. This journey has changed your physique into one with huge muscles like that of a mighty warrior, threatening to burst out of the clothes and armor you’re wearing. Then the clouds come over, the mirror fades and you realize you’ve seen your spirit man, that part of you that challenges you to go on. Faith rises inside at the realization of who you’ve become, mature, a mighty warrior in the army of the Lord. The fearful being that started this impossible journey has now become that which the darkness has feared from the beginning that you might possibly one day attain. It’s tried so hard in desperation to hide the truth from you and fill your thoughts with all of its lies. Now you see the truth and you rise up like the mighty warrior you are.

Keep going! Keep climbing! The Light is getting brighter from within your soul and there are many souls struggling in darkness that need to see your light. Now’s the time! DARE TO DREAM! FINISH YOUR RACE!