Friday, April 23, 2010

Want to Quit Trying?

      Perseverance means a persistent determination. Perseverance is the course I am currently enrolled in. As I have told you before, over the last three years, I have developed discipline in my workout routine. I was very consistent to work out 5-6 times a week. I was proud of the discipline I had developed but I was ashamed of my discipline spiritually. That is one of the reasons I started writing the devotions. I am using you to achieve more spiritual discipline within me. Since I have stated spending an average of two hours a night to writing, I have started wavering in my physical discipline. When I had to take a six week break due to doctor’s orders to not sweat, I have struggled to find the way to be disciplined in both my physical and spiritual life.
     I have two choices. Quit and stop trying, or keep working on the scheduling issues. One will bring certainty of failure and one will ultimately bring success. These same two choices apply to our spiritual perseverance. Many times we get frustrated with things in life and Satan starts whispering in our ear that this Christian scene just doesn’t work for us! Or we can get frustrated with our lack of spiritual knowledge, or our small amount of faith, or our inability to pray eloquently. We can either doom ourselves to failure by not trying any more or we can keep working at it. We have to keep trying until we go home! We didn’t learn how to cook the first time we tried (I have burned many a meal)(dwayne: I never saw them!), we didn’t know how to drive without months of practice, we didn’t learn a sport the first time we participated; and so we need to accept the fact that all things we are going to do well in is going to take perseverance and practice.
     What are you struggling with? Do you have to learn perseverance? Do you really want to quit? You have to ask God to empower you to persevere. You will succeed if you don’t quit!

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Hebrews 10:36

2 comments:

Steph said...

There is a church in Okay that I drive by everyday and I alwasy read their sign out front and one side this week read: "By perseverance the snail reached the ark." I have been thinking about it all week becasue I see it on my way home. If I were the snail I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to have to have so much patience and be so slow that it would seem as if you would never reach your destination or goal. This post just feed the thoughts that I have been pondering all week.

Mrs. T. said...

I think everyone knows that my health is not very good and I have really difficult days when I just ask God why he keeps me here. I have a paper in my purse I always keep with me, and I take it out on these days. When I was on a ventilator they say I motioned to someone I wanted to write. It says I asked Jesus to intercede to God for me. I must have been speaking with Jesus that day, but I have no memory of any of that day. I know that He didn't give up on me so I sure don't have a right to give up on myself. I think it would be easy for people to quit and I won't take the easy way out. Quiting is not an option. I owe all my life to the Lord.We owe him so much and could never have enough words to thank him for what he did for all of us