It seems that an old dog fell into a farmers well. After considering the situation, the farmer decided that neither the dog nor the well were worth saving. So, he decided to bury the old dog and put him out of his misery. When the farmer began shoveling, the dog was hysterical. But as the farmer kept on shoveling, and the dirt hit his back, a thought struck the old dog. Each time a shovel full of dirt hit his back, the dog would shake off the dirt and step up. So, blow after blow, the dog would shake it off and step up. No matter how painful those shovels of dirt were, the old dog fought panic, he just kept shaking it off and stepping up. Finally, the dog, battered and exhausted stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well. What he thought would bury him actually benefited him because of the way he handled his adversity.
Perseverance is the ability to shake it off and step up when a load of trials are dumped on you. Perseverance is producing maturity
The mature Christian life is the sweet fruit of bitter times.
excerpts from This Day's Thought by Kelly Randolph
Running from the trials produces worse, long term results than the pain of pushing through. Do not run…push through! When we push through is when God uses His power and showers on us His grace.
When we do things we don't like, commit to exhausting and time consuming training schedules or suffer through chemo and other treatments to fight a deadly illness we look ahead. We look ahead to the outcome or finish line and it gives us the perseverance to push forward. Keep your eye on the prize and the JOY of pushing through will outweigh the trials you came through to reach it.
Philippians 3:14
I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us
No comments:
Post a Comment