It's Important to Get Back Up When Life Knocks You Down

Encouragement to keep moving forward.

I used to run hurdles on the school track team. I loved the feeling of flying over each hurdle as fast as I could.

One day, my foot caught the hurdle, and I tumbled onto the hard track. My knees were scraped, my leg hurt, and my self-confidence was bruised.

My coach was sympathetic because he knew the pain of a fall, but he let me know in very clear terms I was to walk it off and run it again.

What kind of a coach would he be if he would’ve let me quit?

Life knocks us down all the time. Here are just a few things that pack a powerful punch:

• Disappointment

• Being Overlooked

• Rejection

• Sadness

• Loss of Hope

• Getting caught up in sin

When we fall over, there are two choices:

#1 - We can lay there and wallow in our disappointments.

#2 - We can get up and keep moving forward.

Quitting is not an option for the Christian.

Proverbs 24:16 (NKJV)
For a righteous man may fall seven times
And rise again,
But the wicked shall fall by calamity.

What situation has you beaten down today?

What has got you thinking, “Maybe I can’t get up this time; it’s too hard.”

I’ve got encouraging news!

God doesn’t want us struggling to figure out whether or not to get up. He is holding out His hand to lift us up.

If it’s our 10^th fall or our 100^th, God has not given up on us. We can’t give up on ourselves.

Forget the last 99 falls and failures; we can’t change them.

We can only go forward and keep moving towards the finish line.

Philippians 3:13b-14 (NKJV)
“…forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Dear Lord, help me not to be discouraged. I need your strength to keep going and to keep serving You.