Reach

2 days ago

6 min read

Have you ever been caught in the battle between knowing the right thing to do and having everything you feel say, “Don’t do it”?

We all face those moments, and they can be so hard. Our minds may know what needs to happen while our emotions resist with everything they have.

Consider an elderly woman facing the sale of her childhood home.

She co-owns the house with her siblings, but no one lives there anymore. It has been empty for some time, the roof leaks, and its condition continues to decline. She has moved to another state to be near her children and knows she will not return to live there. Practically speaking, selling it is an easy decision.

But this is not just a house to her. It holds memories of the people who gathered around the table, the voices that once filled its rooms, and the ordinary days that did not seem especially important until they were gone.

The community around the house has changed too. Many of the people she knew and loved have died. The familiar neighbors are gone, and the area is being rezoned. Even if she could return, she could not really go home. The home she remembers no longer exists as it once did.

Still, she cannot bring herself to let go of the house.

Maybe you can understand.

Sometimes we hold tightly to a place or possession because it feels connected to someone or something we cannot bear to lose. We know the person is not contained within the object. We know the past is not waiting for us inside the house. But letting go can still feel like losing it all over again.

Selling the house may be the right decision, but it does not feel right.

Sometimes our emotions are so strong that they make us question what we know is true. We may understand clearly that a decision is right and still find ourselves wondering, If this is right, why does it feel so wrong?

The answer may be that something precious is being lost. Sometimes wisdom and grief occupy the same heart. Sadness and resistance don't necessarily mean that we are making the wrong decision. They may simply mean that what we are releasing has mattered deeply to us.

There is an old piece of grandmotherly wisdom that says, “Do the right thing, and your feelings will follow.”

There is truth in that, although our feelings don't always follow quickly. Sometimes they come along slowly, a few uncertain steps behind us. Following does not necessarily mean that we become happy about what we had to do. It may simply mean that, over time, our hearts begin to accept what our heads knew was right.

There are moments when we must move before we feel ready.

Corrie ten Boom once faced such a moment.

Corrie and her family helped hide Jewish people during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. She and her sister Betsie were eventually sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where they suffered terrible cruelty and degradation. Betsie died there.

In 1947, Corrie returned to Germany sharing a message about the forgiveness of God. After speaking at a church in Munich, she saw a man making his way toward her.

She recognized him.

He had been a guard at Ravensbruck.

Corrie remembered him. She remembered the uniform, the cruelty, the humiliation, and her sister’s suffering.

He told Corrie that he had become a Christian. He knew that God had forgiven him for the cruel things he had done, but he wanted to hear that Corrie forgave him too.

Then he held out his hand.

Corrie could not take it.

She had just spoken to others about forgiveness, but now, face-to-face with one of her former torturers, she felt nothing that resembled forgiveness.

She knew what her faith called her to do, but everything within her resisted.

As the man stood with his hand extended, Corrie prayed silently.

“Jesus, help me! I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”

Then she reached.

She described her movement as wooden and mechanical. This was not a warm, spontaneous expression of affection. She did not reach because the feeling of forgiveness had already flooded her heart. She reached because lifting her hand was the one thing she could choose to do.

As Corrie placed her hand in his, she felt warmth begin in her shoulder, travel down her arm, and move into their joined hands. Then it seemed to flood her entire being.

“I forgive you, brother!” she cried. “With all my heart!”

The feeling followed the reaching.

Corrie’s experience was immediate, but that does not mean every act of obedience will bring our feelings into immediate agreement with what we know to be right. Corrie herself later acknowledged that forgiveness did not become permanently easy for her after that encounter. She continued to need God’s help.

But Corrie understood something important: forgiveness is not merely a feeling and while she could not produce the emotion on demand, she could offer God her willingness. She could lift her hand and ask Him to provide what she did not have.

Corrie reached before her feelings changed.

Scripture gives us another image of reaching before seeing. When the Israelites were trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea, God told Moses what He was going to do. He instructed Moses to lift his staff and stretch out his hand over the sea so that the waters would divide.

Moses knew what God had promised, but the sea was still in front of him.

He reached, and God made the way.

Corrie reached before she felt forgiveness. Moses reached before he saw the waters part. Neither of them produced what followed. They simply did what they knew was theirs to do and trusted God with what came next.

Sometimes faith looks like reaching.

There is a quote from Gunsmoke’s Matt Dillon that speaks to this: “Sometimes when a man reaches out, his arm is longer than he thought it was. He’s more of a man than he thought he was.”

Maybe we don't discover the length of our reach while we are still. We discover it only when we extend ourselves toward something we were not sure we could do.

We make the phone call.

We sign the papers.

We walk into the appointment.

We tell the truth.

We release something we have been trying desperately to preserve.

We choose to forgive, even if forgiveness begins only as a prayer that we might someday feel it.

We take one small step in a direction that still feels uncertain.

And in reaching, we discover that what God is asking of us may be more within our reach than we knew. We may not be able to do everything. We may not be able to change the situation, erase the loss, or produce the feelings we know we should have.

But maybe we can do the next right thing.

For the woman with the childhood home, reaching may mean agreeing to place the house on the market. That does not mean the house was unimportant. It does not mean she has stopped loving the people who once lived there or the life they shared.

The house still stands, but the home she remembers has moved from outside her to within her. It lives now in her heart and mind, in the memories she carries and the love that shaped her.

Still, she may grieve. She may cry when the papers are signed. She may wonder whether she has done the right thing. Her feelings may need time to catch up with her decision.

And that is okay.

Courage is not the absence of grief, and faith is not the absence of uncertainty. Sometimes faith is simply placing what little willingness we have into the hands of God.

Maybe something difficult is before you now. You know what you need to do, but your heart is not ready. You may be waiting for the decision to feel right, or at least to stop feeling so painful, before you move.

You may have to reach before you know how far your arm can extend.

Stretch out your hand. Take that step that feels so hard to take, and trust God with the emotions that rise up against it.

You may discover that your arm is longer than you thought it was. And you may discover that God is already waiting at the farthest point of your reach.