There was a story out of Montana this week that I have not been able to shake. A man out in the backcountry fell and was impaled by his own trekking pole. Alone, hurting, far from any road. And instead of lying down, he got up and hiked out of the mountains to get help. He walked when every nerve in his body must have been begging him to stop.
I read that and thought: yes. That is what a great deal of the Christian life actually feels like. Not the mountaintop with the pretty view, but the long, painful walk out when you would rather sit down and wait for someone to carry you.
The Long Obedience of Putting One Foot Down
We like to imagine faith as a moment. A decision at an altar. A hand raised in a Sunday service. And those moments matter. But most of what God asks of us happens after the moment, on the trail, when the adrenaline is gone and the wound is still there and home is still miles away.
The writer of Hebrews knew this. He did not describe faith as a sprint or a single leap. He wrote, "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12:1-2). Notice the word patience. The older sense of it is endurance — the ability to keep going under a load. Faith is often less about how fast you move and more about whether you keep moving at all.
That Montana hiker did not run out of the mountains. He limped. He probably stopped a hundred times. But he kept his face pointed toward help, and he kept his feet moving. And that is why he is alive to tell it.
You Are Not Meant to Carry the Wound Alone
Here is the part I find tender. The man did not walk out so he could handle it himself. He walked out to get help. His whole aim was to reach the people who could do what he could not.
Sometimes we get that backwards in the church. We think endurance means gritting our teeth in isolation, never letting anyone see the wound. But the goal of the walk was never self-sufficiency. It was to reach a place of rescue. Paul wrote to the Galatians, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). Somebody in the mountains needed a hand. And there is no shame in that. There is only wisdom in it.
Over the years here at Outpouring, I have watched people come through the doors still bleeding from something — a divorce, a diagnosis, a wandering child, a quiet depression they have carried for years. They walked in. That walk itself was an act of faith. They were not done being hurt; they were simply pointing themselves toward help. And that is exactly right. The church at its best is a place you can limp into.
Looking Unto Jesus
What kept that hiker going was not his own strength — it was a picture in his mind of where he was headed. Hebrews tells us the same thing: keep going by looking unto Jesus. Not looking at the wound. Not looking back at the fall. Not counting the miles left. Looking at Him.
Jesus Himself walked a road He could have refused. The same verse says He endured the cross "for the joy that was set before him." He knew what waited on the other side of the pain, and He fixed His eyes there and kept walking — all the way to a hill, and then all the way out of a tomb. He is not a Savior who watches your long walk from a comfortable distance. He has walked it. He knows the weight of putting one foot in front of the other when the body says stop.
So if today finds you on a hard stretch of trail — wounded, tired, still miles from where you want to be — hear this gently. You do not have to run. You only have to keep facing toward help and take the next step. Rescue is real. The Helper is near. And the One who authored your faith has promised to finish it.
Keep walking, friend. You are closer to help than you think.
Join us this Sunday at 10:30am — Outpouring Worship Center, Ravenna.