Story of the week

9/11/23-9/22/23

Hey guys, this is the story of the week. My team started this thing called a “Man Hike” last week and we finished it last night. The “Man Hike” is a physically, emotionally, and spiritually draining team exercise. It consists of 11 laps through a rough hiking trail in Georgia and each lap is about 3/4 of a mile. Each lap your team must have one person blind folded and one person crab walking. Each teammate must be carried at least once. As a team we also had to carry a 150 pound tire one lap, a 250 pound tire one lap, and a 125 pound log one lap. Around this time my team and I were struggling to rely on one another. We were also having a hard time coming up with a name for our team. We felt like we were fighting against each other and against God’s will constantly. Through out the “Man Hike we got frustrated with one another and ourselves. We would try to redirect our eyes on God but would very quickly take our eyes off him and rely on our own strength. We only Got through 5 of the 11 laps. We came together at the end of those 5 laps. We began talking about the entire thing and realized our focus wasn’t on God. We then realized that we were just like Jacob in the Bible and how he wrestled with God. Then after they wrestled God changed his name to Israel. Also how the people of Israel couldn’t stay focused on God and continuously took their eyes off Christ. Once we realized this we all looked at each other and immediately knew that our name was supposed to be Israel. We went back yesterday to finish the remaining 6 laps of the “Man Hike” and the entire time kept our eyes on Christ. We finished in record time and felt the presence of God the entire time. When we were tired we would stop to give praise to God because he is our strength and endurance.