One bite at a time.

Bizarrely, my life seems to have contained a surprising number of elephants.

You know the sort I mean…..

Those big, ginormous things looming ahead of you

Sometimes they’re work projects. Sometimes they’re things in your personal life. Sometimes they’re things you’ve chosen to do, and sometimes they’re things you’d really rather not be facing at all.

You look at the whole thing and think: How on earth am I going to do this?

I’m quite capable of feeling overwhelmed by a big task. Sometimes I don’t know where to start. Sometimes the sheer size of it makes me want to do anything other than start.

But over the years, I’ve learned something remarkably simple.

I don’t have to do the whole thing. I just have to do the next bit.

I just have to take one bite of the elephant.

I’ve even learned to do this with long car journeys.

My work means I regularly travel and over the years I’ve learned that the way I think about a journey makes a surprising amount of difference. I also have Crohn’s, which means a little bit of planning along the way is generally a good idea!

If I get into the car and focus on the sat nav telling me I have six hours ahead of me, it can feel like a very long way.

So I don’t think of it as a six-hour journey anymore.

I drive for two hours.

Before I leave, I work out roughly where I’m going to stop. So rather than thinking about the final destination hundreds of miles away, I’m simply heading to somewhere a couple of hours down the road.

I get there. I stop. I have a cup of tea. I stretch my legs.

And then I do the next bit.

The journey hasn’t actually become any shorter. I haven’t avoided it or made it any less demanding. I’ve simply learned to break it into manageable pieces.

And I wonder whether there’s something in that for the rest of life too.

We can become overwhelmed because we are trying to work out how we are going to get to the end when actually all we need to know is what we need to do next.

The Bible is full of people who were given enormous tasks.

For example…think about the building of the temple. It was a huge undertaking. It required people, resources, craftsmanship, organisation and perseverance. Nobody could simply wake up one morning and build a temple.

It had to be built piece by piece.

Nehemiah faced the enormous task of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Again, he couldn’t rebuild an entire city wall in a day. Instead, different people repaired different sections. One part at a time, what looked impossible began to take shape.

And perhaps there’s a lesson in that.

Sometimes we want God to show us the whole journey.

We want to know how everything is going to work out. We want to know how we’re going to finish the project, solve the problem, get through the difficult season or reach the place we’re trying to get to.

But often we don’t get the whole map.

We just get the next step.

And then the one after that.

So, whatever elephant is sitting in front of you today, perhaps you don’t need to work out how you’re going to eat the whole thing.

Instead the question is: What is the next bite?

What is the one email you can send?

The one phone call you can make?

The one page you can write?

The one decision you can take?

The one thing you can do today?

Because eventually, one bite at a time, the impossible-looking task gets done.

And if you’re on a long journey, there’s always tea.