We are all on a journey in this life of ours. Sometimes it may feel like the road ahead will never change and that circumstances won’t improve. We may think that the hills and valleys are all just an endless series of repetition. I believe we all experience this perception at times in our own lives. We are told by Paul that we are in a race and that we must get rid of all the extra weight and baggage that can easily bog us down, (Hebrews 12:1).

For this life is like a race and yet if we don’t pace ourselves, we could easily wear ourselves out and just collapse beside the road. Marathon runners know this concept and truth more than most. If we were to sprint through each day then it wouldn’t be long before the afternoon would catch up with us, and we would collapse. And yet, we need to realize that there is one before us who has run this race long ago.

He is the author and finisher of it, and yet, there he is before us, ever beckoning us to follow after him. We are encouraged to follow after him even when the roads are rocky and overgrown. We are to continue over each rising hill that almost seems endless and without a peak in sight. We are called to continue even when the grain and the oil runs dry, and the money is scarce. We are called to continue when we are misunderstood and mistreated as the prophets of old were. For he was misunderstood, and he was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, and we esteemed him not, (Isaiah 53:3)

“And yet even when we give up at times, he is there lifting us up, and strengthening us with the nourishment from above.
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.”
(From The Hobbit, by JR.R. Tolkien)

The road will not end until our life’s journey is over. And at that time we will finally be welcomed from the one who has gone before us. And then he will say,

“His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord,” Matthew 25:21.

~ Stephen Hanson

Stephen Hanson of In His Truth Ministries came to the Lord is a special way in 1975 and has been prophesying regularly since. In these end-time birthing pangs we are to be reminded that judgment must first begin with the household of God. Will we be prepared and ready?