Fola Komolafe
The righteous keep moving forward and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger. Job 17:9(NLT)
As I considered this verse I thought about a man planning a journey to a very nice and exotic place but who for one reason or the other could not move out of his house or where he was. He would consider the traffic and the potential volume of cars on the road, he consistently monitored the traffic news and spent hours listening to the weather forecast and he was not certain that he had enough money or had packed everything he needed for the journey. The man spent so much time contemplating all these things that he eventually decided to abandon the journey, or postpone it for another day when perhaps the conditions looked a lot more favourable.
Does this sound familiar? I think we can sometimes be like this man considering everything around us and observing all the contrary conditions including our own self preparedness that we seem to be stuck in the same place for far too long waiting and waiting for something or someone to make us move from where we are to where God wants us to be. God wants me to tell you that it is time to move on because with God we go forward knowing that He will take care of all things contrary (the traffic and the weather), and He will equip us with everything we need for the journey. The verse says, the righteous keep moving forward and those with clean hands (open hands trusting in God) become stronger and stronger as they move on in Him. If you are born again then you are definitely the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, so this is talking about you. You keep moving and God makes you stronger and stronger with every step you take. Isn’t that wonderful good news! Psalm 23:3 says, God leads and guides you in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
A similar incident happened in 2 Kings 7:3-8 in the days of Elisha. There had been a famine in the city of Samaria and four lepers standing at the entrance gate had to make a decision. They could go back into the city and die because of the famine or they could stay where they were at the city gate and die also or they could take a bold chance and move forward to where they knew the Syrian army were who may or may not spare their life. They decided to move forward and as they got to the Syrian camp, they found no man was there. Our Lord God Almighty had gone ahead of them and made the Syrian army hear a noise of chariots, horses and a great army so much so that they had all fled for their lives leaving behind everything they had — food, drink, horses, donkeys, tents or houses, gold, silver and clothing — for the lepers and the people of Samaria. Wow!
God can do the same thing for you, providing for you and protecting you as you keep moving forward. Someone said, “You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.” So decide to move forward today. Like a good book, you need to move forward to the next page where the story gets so much better.