Every person who has started the long road of recovery from surgery or serious illness knows it all begins with that first step. A child begins his or her journey to adulthood with that first baby step. An athlete knows that getting back in shape requires a first step onto the field, the court, or in the workout room. We all can recount during our lives many such first steps usually made with trepidation and anxiety.
A spiritual journey also begins with a first step, a step toward God. It is okay to frightened, nervous, and a little bit ashamed that it’s taken us so long, or that our journey was diverted or detoured. It still requires that first step.
As I write this morning about first steps, I remember a dark time for our allies in Britain. It was 1939 and the British people believed that any day the Germans would invade. A King took a step he feared to take, a step to a microphone, a device he feared, to give his country a Christmas message, a message of the hope that all Christmas’s bring. Here is how he concluded his speech.
“I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, Give me light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied, Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
Whatever your journey, wherever your first step takes you – Put your hand in God.
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