In our front garden there is a willow tree who’s branches, twigs really, reach to the ground.

This tree sits in the middle of a small piece of ground that is covered with slate chippings.

The chippings are quite large and the tree branches are only thin.

When the wind blows the small branches brush across the chippings backwards and forwards.

It’s only a gentle brush, and each swoosh can only move a few small chippings a small distance. If you sat and watched it you’d struggle to see that anything was changing.

Each step is tiny but it doesn’t take long and it doesn’t take much wind for the tree to clear the chippings from beneath it’s branches in less than a day. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to move a pile of stones off the drive and back under the tree. Of you added the piles up it would form a huge mound.

We don’t have to take massive steps to move mountains, we just have to take consistent small steps, moving a stone at a time is enough.

Likewise, you can’t finish a marathon in one huge step, you finish a marathon by putting one foot in front of the other over and over again. Each step gets you nearer to your goal, put together enough steps and you’ll get to the end.

Christians are also called disciples which means follower. We don’t follow for a day, we follow for a lifetime. The Christian faith is a walk of thousands of steps and he walks alongside us in every one. Sometimes it’s good to look back and see how far we’ve come.

This morning I got on my bike and set off on the journey to work.

Someone has turned the thermostat down recently, it’s not freezing yet, but getting that way. I decided that my thin gloves would be ample to keep my hands warm, I was mostly right. My hands ended up cold, but not frozen.

After a few minutes sat working at my desk I could feel my fingers take on the warm glow that occurs as a result of warming up after being cold.

There’s something unique about the warmth that gets generated after our extremities have been at the mercy of the elements.

It reminds me of playing in the snow, keeping going until my hands are absolutely frozen and then coming in to warm up.

It reminds me of winter weekends gardening with my parents.

It reminds me of long hikes crunching frozen leaves through woodlands, by streams and up mountains.

It reminds me of early morning paper-round deliveries with stiff hands that make it difficult to slot the papers through the letterboxes.

It reminds me of winter rugby training, running in the snow trying everything to keep my fingers warm.

The glow is almost worth the pain of the cold.