At eleven years old, I liked visiting a friend who lived on the next street over from ours. She had horses, and taught me how to ride and even do a few jumping tricks. My friend also liked to taunt her horses, and one day she encouraged me to join in the teasing. We pretended to feed her horse an apple. Before giving over the sweet fruit, though, we pulled the apple away, leaving that poor horse biting into nothing but thin air. We then ran away, trying to get the horse to chase us.
Well, the taunt worked. That horse got plain mad at us. He snorted and took off running. He ran hard.
Laughing, I looked behind. I saw that horse coming at us, nostrils flaring and gulped. I stopped laughing and looked ahead again. Uh oh. A fence. A tall one. I cannot jump that fence, I thought, my mind starting to race as fast as my legs. It’s too high! Then I looked over my shoulder again. The horse was gaining ground. How can I jump that fence? I thought because everything in me shouted: That horse is going to bite my rear end!
You know, it’s amazing how you can do things you don’t think you can. When I got to the fence, my adrenalin must have kicked in because I put one foot on the bottom post and leaped over like nobody’s business. You could say it was my Michael Jordan moment. I hopped that fence just like Michael leaping to slam-dunk a basketball: in a single push.
I can laugh at that now. It’s funny now because I’m far from that horse and I’m not fenced in by anything high. At the time, though, I was simply relieved. I didn’t think I could jump the fence . . . but I did. Apparently I had more in me than I thought. And the truth is, you have more in you than you think.
On the hard days of life, God reminds me of that incident. There have been so many times when I thought I could not make it one more day. You know those days. You are tired and worn out. You’re weary in body, mind, and spirit. You feel undone and unable. Then something kicks in and helps you, and you find yourself in tomorrow. You did make it. You can keep going. You have more in you than you thought.
That more is God. That more is his grace. The Bible tells us God will sustain us: You can lie down and sleep at night and wake again because the Lord sustains you. God is faithful. He promises to not allow you to be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength and power to endure. He will help you to be strong and powerful, to bear up patiently. God tells each of us: You have more in you than you realize. You are made to win, not to be defeated. You are made to receive my promise.
Excerpt from You Are Made For More!, Chapter 12
