Don’t you just love that first-morning stretch? Maybe, it’s in bed, reaching to the bottom of the bed with your toes while your hands stretch out above your head. Or, it might be you are a little more exercise conscious and work through stretches each morning before you start running or exercising. Those are not the stretches I’m talking about.
If you are wondering what the picture is at the beginning of this post, it is my pillow. I was going to sit in bed and do my devotions, so I put one pillow behind me and took the other one to put behind my shoulders, but instead, it landed behind my headboard. When I finished my devotions and started to make my bed, I reached for my pillow. I could almost reach it, so I stretched a little more. Still not able to reach it, I S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D as far as I could until I felt the soft flannel beneath my fingers.
How was I able to reach it at last? I pressed against the legs of the headboard as hard as I could and S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D.
It’s the hard things in life that stretch us—lost job, bad medical reports, wayward children, caring for an elderly parent. They are hard places, but if we will press against them, allowing God to use them to S-T-R-E-T-C-H us, we will be able to reach way beyond what we thought possible! We tend to want to shrink from them, but God has put them in our lives to accomplish His perfect will in my life. Job’s words hold the key:
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Job 13:15
Beyond Common Sense 