It’s Time to Shake Things Up
/Friends, today I want to share a timely message from a dear friend, Kristen Welch. I’ve been awestruck by her story and how she’s impacting the world with the Gospel of Jesus. And to celebrate her new book, Made to Move Mountains, I wanted to share this excerpt below. I hope you find it as encouraging and challenging as I did.
- Wendy
Who doesn’t need encouragement on our worst days, those filled with regret and remorse for what we could have done, for what we should have said, for who we could have been. Who doesn’t wish we had given more, spent less, loved unconditionally?
No matter what mountains have impeded our paths, have been ignored, or we’ve failed to overcome, it’s never too late to run our race well. Someone may have cut in on us or maybe we got a little off course sometimes. I spent decades running a race that didn’t matter. We can’t change the past, but every breath, every new day is a chance to get it right—to live the life God wants us to live.
It’s not too late to do that one thing that scares you. It’s not too late to say I’m sorry. It’s not too late to take a risk. It’s not too late to obey God. It’s not too late to make today one that you won’t regret.
Doing the same thing we’ve always done leads to a boring and often unsatisfied life. Be brave. Say yes. Do something radical for someone else. Live an adventure. Make this year the one in which you take a risk and ask God to move mountains.
Half of where we are going is learning from where we’ve been. I don’t want to go down the same path over and over; I want to progress on this journey. It can also be dangerous to forge ahead if we’re not learning along the way. Mountain climbing takes a toll on the climbers. If we don’t admit this and make provision for self-care on the climb, we will have another avalanche of problems. When our family sets out for a long hike, we pack provisions. We take water and pack food. We stop and rest when the climb is steep. We check on one another. Whenever we take Gunnison, our giant Sheepadoodle, with us, he is the boss of keeping his pack together. The sheepdog in him instinctively wants to herd us. If someone is lagging, he runs back to them and waits. He doesn’t leave anyone behind. Sometimes, Emerson takes his leash and runs far ahead, but he stops dead in his tracks if she gets out of view of the rest of us behind. He waits and then drags her back to the group. This is what a rearview-mirror approach looks like—taking breaks, resting, rehydrating with God’s Word, climbing in a group, overcoming together.
When we accept the invitation to climb our mountains, we have a choice to make. An invitation isn’t a mandate—it isn’t forced; it’s voluntary participation. We can avoid, neglect, or completely skirt around the mountains in our lives. We can refuse to dream big, do the impossible, dare for the unimaginable. We can wallow and wail our way through disappointments, diagnoses, and disasters. We can overcome or we can barely get by.
We have an important decision to make right now. Today. It is this: we can live the same year over and over—maybe ninety times—and call it a life, or we can step out of our comfort zones into the space where miracles happen. We can shake things up. We can say yes to adventure, to the impossible, to something much, much bigger than ourselves.
Excerpt from Made to Move Mountains: How God Uses Our Dreams and Disasters to Accomplish the Impossible
Kristen Welch, blogger at We are THAT family, is a bestselling author and founder of Mercy House Global. Made to Move Mountains releases March 3, 2020.
