Stretching Hurts

Isaiah 54:2-3, ESV

Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

Stretching hurts. This isn’t the kind of stretching you do to improve flexibility or to prepare for a workout, this is the kind of stretching that feels like it’s pulling you apart.

But it’s not.

When God stretches us it may hurt, but it’s not going to pull us apart. In fact, it’s going to do just the opposite—it’s going to make us whole. Complete. Holy.  

Enlarged.

Lengthened. 

Strengthened. 

Ready. 

The stretching of God makes us ready for the blessing of God—and the purpose that is coming. For there is always promise (and purpose) after pain.