March 4. Taking A Wall Down, Block By Block, Requires Endurance.

There is an expression in the running world of hitting the wall. It happens when the body has been pushed to a point when passed, it begins to shut down its normal operations. It is tough to walk, let alone run when you hit the wall.

What makes any progress occur past the wall is really our mind through our focus. The mind shapes our ability to do the physical. We hit lots of walls in our life and some of the hardest walls to get through are the ones that are not physical, they are mental.

Entrepreneurs have lots of mental and logical walls to overcome. There are employee relationships, training, and retention issues. There is the struggle to keep business and personal relationships in balance.

I do not believe that people who start businesses do so with the intention of making sure the business survives regardless of the cost to their family. These two areas do not even address the financial, faith or fitness walls that entrepreneurs face.

Only one of the areas directly impacts the physical walls of running performance and that is the fitness area. As an entrepreneur, what is the largest wall you are facing today mentally in the next seven days? You probably have several. If you want to make a list right now, do it.

Who can you collaborate with to knock down or break through the wall? Most importantly, what one small thing can you do to begin getting past that wall? Can you do it in the next seven days? Pull out your calendar and schedule it right now.

As Christians, we hit our walls as well. We are told in the Bible that things are going to be tough. Christ tells us that we will suffer. "You will stand trial by governors," "You will be arrested," "There will be earthquakes and famines," "You will be beaten," "A brother will betray his brother," and "A father will betray his child" are all warnings to us.

Those are some big walls both physical and mental. But in Christ, we can endure and have hope. Mark 13:13 NLT says, "But the one who endures to the end will be saved." When you hit the wall today or tomorrow, remember that you have brothers and sisters in Christ.

Some of them can probably be of support to help you with your wall. We know that if we can move mountains with Christ, he can surely help us to dig under, go over, travel around or break down walls. Sometimes we just have to ask.

If collaboration was an asset listed on your balance sheet how much would be listed there? What is the first thing you can do right now to take on one of your walls?

Let us pray, Father God, you are, and you know. You know the walls that restrict us, and you know where we believe that we cannot challenge those walls. Provide vision for us to see the cracks in the wall. Give us the confidence in you to challenge them.

Make our path to be littered with rubble from the walls that you help us to break down. Strengthen and beautify us by turning walls that were brought down into relationships with those that helped us to destroy them. May the actions of destroying those walls glorify you. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen,