There are sometimes when you just know you need to push.

When it’s 11:30 the night before a term paper is due, and you’re exhausted from exams and gatherings and end of semester events, but you grab a Red Bull and settle in with your computer and your notes and you push through the night.

When you have a major deadline at work, and you know it’s the difference between a chance to stand out and make yourself noticeable for promotion or sitting at the same desk in the same cubicle for another year, so you call your spouse, tell them you’ll be home late, and push to get it done.

When you’re in the last few increments of dollars needed in a fundraiser to bump you up into the next bracket of prizes, or category of sales, or status of commitment to a great cause, or level of readiness to launch to a new place, and you grit your teeth, swallow the lump in your throat and push to make that next call.

When the sweet little toddler face looks up at you from the swing set with questioning eyes, and you set aside the work of the moment because you know the most important thing you can do right then is to “push me, Mommy!”

When you are sitting across the coffee cup from a broken heart that is silently begging you for authentic community—for you to ask them the hard questions and care about their answers, to nudge your way into their carefully crafted façade of seeming togetherness to get to the realness of who they are—and so you reach across the table, a prayer in your heart, take a hand, and push the conversation to the next level of genuineness.

When the car is stranded on the side of the road and the responsibility-weary brother is caked in mud and covered by exhaustion and the wheels aren’t moving with scared eyes peeking out the back window, and so despite the pouring rain and the imminent dry-cleaning bill, you pull yourself to the side of the road, force your feet into the puddles, stand shoulder-to-still-nameless-shoulder and push with everything you’ve got.

When the contractions change, and the pain blurs your vision and your thoughts, and instincts take over and every fibre in your body knows that if it’s ever going to end—if that baby’s every going to makes its way into your tired arms—you’re going to have to use every ounce of strength you have left and…push. 

Not because you know how things will turn out. Not because you’re sure of yourself or ability. Not because we’re guaranteed success or recognition or even because we’re 100% sure that the way we are pushing is right. But just because you know nothing will happen until you do. Because you know how too easy it is to find yourself doing the same ol’ thing over and over hoping for different results—how too quickly the days fill up with the good and the great but not necessarily the best. Because you know that it’s when we push beyond ourselves—beyond what we can hope or imagine let alone accomplish or complete—it makes room for Father to move in our midst.