Keep Moving!

When Sir Isaac Newton discovered then published his three Laws of Motion in 1687 in his “Principia Mathematica” it turned the world of science upside down and revolutionized the way scientists view the world and how they view objects, gravity and movement. In short, his observations were foundational! Today all physics are built upon these fundamental or foundational teachings of motion, inertia and gravity.
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At our church recently, my son Ryan has been doing foundational teachings to insure our body has a grasp and is in good shape on the basics of the foundational teachings of Hebrews 6. We teach that “doing them” is our foundation. Without acting on Christ’s words, Christianity is just enlightened theory and philosophy. The power comes from acting upon God’s words which Jesus said was like building our house on a rock (Mat. 7:24-25). In the same way, Newton’s foundational laws apply and are realized when acted upon.

One of his laws of motion states “a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by another force.” Later it goes into detail on how things accelerate and slow down. In this we see the truth that when something is moving, it will continue to move as well as the amount of energy used to accelerate to higher speed is much less than the energy expended to move when fully stopped. There is much greater energy required to begin something from a place of standing still.
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says, ”Be not afraid of moving slowly. Be afraid of standing still”. Come on, we all know how difficult it is to start a new routine! How easy has it ever been to go from full stop in an area of our life to start up a new exercise routine or diet or bible reading plan? It also seems amazing how that once you decide in your mind to act upon something you know is right, many times it seems that ALL HELL breaks loose to either delay or prevent it!

For example: you may choose to get out of debt and you and your wife agree that you will start putting all extra funds toward that beginning this month. Within hours of making that decision, your washing machine dies and you have to buy a new one! Or maybe you decide on a bible reading plan to follow each and every day beginning tomorrow. You wake up and discover you are fighting a stye in your eye which makes it impossible to read so you can’t do your bible reading plan.

These kind of setbacks KILL any new initiatives we want to begin if we are not doing them in the first place. It takes great determination to start but I believe, much much more to continue. You have heard the old military question, “Are you gonna do or teach?” Anyone can talk about things, it is quite another thing to actually do something. Hebrews doesn’t talk about people rejecting their salvation but neglecting it! (Hebrews 2:3)

Newton’s laws were simply an observance of what God has put in place in our universe and are true. But once we have begun to do something ever how slowly or ploddingly, we are still MOVING! Having something slowed down or delayed is different than not doing it at all and we can make it part of our lifestyle if we can learn the process of not simply starting, but continuing!

There are three ingredients involved in learning how to KEEP MOVING.

1) Decide – We have to make a decision to do something and begin to act on it. To decide is to agree with our heart mind and will to fall in line with this decision. Analyze, count the cost but choose to do it.

2) Declare it – After analysis is over, start talking about what you are going to do out loud. To declare a thing means you are beholden to your own confession. Saying it makes it real!

3) DO – Set a time to begin and begin. By the way, the best time to time to begin is always today not tomorrow.

Relax about the speed, as this is going to be part of your lifestyle. Steve Thompson describes doing prophetic ministry as something we have to continually do to get better and better by saying, ”If It’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly”. To know that “from the get-go” you are going to initially do something imperfectly and probably poorly is good. Many great ideas have been killed because people felt they weren’t prepared to begin.
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Once you start and continue, you are moving and it is much easier to change your life when you KEEP MOVING! Don’t stop what is imperfect, make brief changes and just don’t quit but don’t let changes stop you.