BULLDOG TENACITY!

I just finished reading a letter from a friend of mine. In that letter, he said:

Some days my teeth get mighty weary holding on,

then I remember

that Jehovah God has my name ‘TATTOOED’

on the palms of His hands, and I go on.

(Isaiah 49:16)

I haven’t even answered his letter yet. His words inspired me to immediately begin writing this article on ‘endurance and perseverance’.

Every one of us has at some time in life felt that kind of ‘weariness with life’. We have wanted to give up on ‘something’ or ‘somebody’. We have felt like we couldn’t go another step further. We have wanted to ‘quit’ and ‘give up’.

Just one hour ago, my oldest sister said, "I felt exceptionally weak today and thought I could not do another thing, so I headed to the bedroom to lie down. I called out to my husband, but he didn’t answer. I looked in the other room and then the entire house, but he was not anywhere around. I looked in the travel trailer and then all around outside, calling his name repeatedly. I suddenly remembered the ditch he had been working on and began to panic. What if something had happened to him down there. I hurried down to the work site and there he was, simply working on the sewer line. There was nothing wrong with him."

That was a simple story, but the punch line was this: "She had been amazed that she had gone from absolute weakness into a ‘regular bundle of energy’ simply because she ‘thought’ there was something wrong with her husband. "

At one moment she felt she couldn’t go another step further. She couldn’t do one more thing in the house. She had to rest. In the next minute, she was running everywhere, having forgotten her tiredness completely! Once the adrenaline was flowing, she did a lot of other things before thinking about taking a nap.

Our thinking is what makes the difference in whether we are going to endure and persevere or not. In the letter I just told you about, my friend said:

-THE CHILDREN -

and they kept going.

Many children have wanted to drop out of college, but then they remembered the mom or dad who was sacrificing to make it possible for them to be in college, and so they have gone on for another semester, another year and all the way to graduation!

Many people have come to the ‘end of their rope’ and would have gladly ‘given up’, but they remembered the dying words of someone they loved.

One man remembers his father whispering weakly, "Son, never give up". A woman remembers her mother saying, "Honey, I’m going, but I’ll be watching from heaven - make me proud of you!"

Another boy keeps hearing the hateful, taunting voice of his abusive step-dad, saying, "You haven’t got the brains God gave a crowbar. You’ll never amount to anything." Those words are the ‘goads’ which prod the boy toward abnormal endurance. He pushes himself beyond measure and succeeds at everything he sets his hand to.

For twenty-five years the world and it’s pleasures have made beckoning enticements to lure me away from Christ and the principles of His Gospel. But, I keep remembering one prayer which is ever before me. "Lord, I ask for a spiritual inheritance and eternal rewards."

Sometimes when I feel like I’ve made an exceptionally strong sacrifice to follow Him, I say, "Lord, don’t let this choice be in vain. Give me what I really want. Grant me a spiritual inheritance and give me eternal rewards. Increase my effectiveness among men and multiply my fruitfulness in the Kingdom of God." And I know that the law of compensation is going into effect and that gives me courage to stay on the path I have chosen for myself - the path that God has chosen for me.

What is it that Olympic Gold Medalists ‘think’ to cause them to struggle for years to be the world’s number one athlete in their field? How do they endure grueling hours and days and months of physical workouts? What motivates them to keep trying when year after year they have failed to accomplish their goal?

What do lazy people think of that keeps them from even trying to succeed in such endeavors? What do ‘couch potatoes’ think of that keeps their bodies tethered to the couch and their eyes glued to the TV ?

What makes some people give up on college before they have even read the entrance requirements? What makes some people refuse to enter the race at all?

It’s their thinking! A difference in thinking. Some people don’t have the motivating thoughts which ‘get them going’ or ‘keep them going’ in the toughest of times. Their motivator has ‘shut down’ on them.

Sometimes an evil power has sown a wrong thought in their minds. Sometimes he has spawned an evil desire in their hearts. The lady who meditates night and day on ‘special romance scenes’ with a ‘perfect mate’- has allowed the devil to sabotage her purpose for hanging on to her a faulty marriage and an imperfect family.

People can sow seeds of discord and discouragement in a healthy mind. Pretty soon, a mental and emotional sickness sets in. That person’s character begins to weaken and give up. Morality and high ideals are cast aside as ‘garbage’. These people ‘talk themselves into giving up’. They talk themselves into throwing away that which is ‘good’, ‘right’ and ‘Holy’.

They are the ones who walk off the basketball court to play footsies with someone in the stands. They are the ones who are kicked off the football team because they turned to alcohol and drugs. They gave up on themselves long before the coach did. They gave up on winning the pennant, so they stopped off at the nearest bar to reward themselves without having accomplished anything worthy of a reward. Many of them end up ‘doing penance’ for years as they try to soothe their guilty conscience and quiet their condemning heart.

But, even if you gave up on climbing Mt. Everest and even if you can’t qualify for the Olympic Gold Medal - it’s not too late to get up and try again - on something - on anything. It’s not too late to mend one relationship, even if four of them have already gone down the drain.

Even if you’ve given up on getting straight ‘A’s - that’s no reason to drop out of school. Set your goals a little lower and try again. Get straight ‘B’s for one semester and then see if you can improve on that next semester.

Get back in there and try the ‘one mile race’ again and again until it becomes easy. Then, set your sights to compete in the two mile race. Goals can always be increased as accomplishments, skill or strength increases. Someday, you may enter the 26 mile marathon and finish it, (even if you come in last). And who knows - with endurance and perseverance, it’s possible that you could even win that marathon someday...if you don’t give up just because you get out of breath once in a while, or because your muscles get sore and tight when you run a long time. Push past the obstacles and keep on going. You can make it. You can excel. You can overcome!

Well, while I’m here, I might as well go ahead and tell you another story.

My wife and I got ‘ticked-off’ at each other and started arguing and throwing accusations back and forth. Anger simply increased the tempo of what was going on and then the insults jumped into the picture.

I’m sure I was the ‘bad guy’ in this picture, because my wife is normally a quiet, sensitive and sweet gal. But, I had overdone it this time. I pushed her to a breaking point and she hollered,

a divorce?"

Slap me in the face with a wet noodle! I wasn’t used to that kind of reaction from her. There was a moment of silence while I thought of what she had just said, and then I began to laugh. She thought I was laughing at her and sullenly asked, "What’s so funny?" I laughed some more and then attempted to respond to her question. My answer was:

for the rest of our lives."

I went on to explain that I was never, ever going to divorce her. After having left her for three years and then coming back to her, I had promised God I would never leave her again. The relationship between her and me was not the significant issue. It was my relationship with God that was at stake. When I bought back into the mentality of taking up my cross and following Jesus’, I was in it ‘for the long haul!’ I was here to stay. I was not going to let a temporary argument create a ‘diseased courage’ in my soul. Oh no. No way!

I told her if she wanted a divorce, she would have to file for it. She would have to move out of the house. She would have to take it all the way, by herself, because I was not going to have anything to do with that kind of thinking.

Later, as we both meditated on things by ourselves, I think we came up with the same answer. "If we had to be together for the rest of our lives - it would be stupid not to try to be ‘as happy as possible’ with each other."

We each began to do and say the things that would lead to an increased happiness within marriage - even if neither one of us were able to enjoy the fruits of our ideal preferences in life.

We’ve been through thick and thin during our 36 years of marriage and we are not going to give up. We are not going to bow out of the race. We are not going to throw in the towel not now - not ever. We can’t allow diseased thinking into our minds. We know we must endure many things we don’t like. We are determined to persevere to the end, in spite of adversities, set-backs and disappointments. Frustrations and conflicts are not reason enough to end our relationship.

If we lived only for this life and it’s rewards and pleasures, we would have turned this marriage to powder long ago. Nope. We are looking beyond our temporary desires. We are looking for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. We are looking for spiritual rewards and eternal compensations. We are strangers and pilgrims in the earth. We have higher goals to attain to.