Thursday, November 20, 2008

Day 37 The quitter: Exposing your inner Mowgli

Perseverance Day 2:
Mowgli was a quitter apparently. I never liked this one much so I don't remember it at all. I do like how they said quitting is a popular pastime. Sadly it is so true.
A famous quitter in the Bible was Elijah. Today we got some pointers on how to quit.

When the going gets tough, quitters run away.
In 1 Kings 19 Elijah had just beat 450 prophets of the fertility god Baal, ticking off Queen Jezebel. She put a hit out on him so he ran. When we feel like failures or we just can't get something done our first instinct is to run. Leave the problems for someone else to deal with.

After a failure quitters put themselves down.

He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors."
1 Kings 19:4


I have been there have you? Sadly more than once. It made me feel better to read that Raphael, one of the greatest painters to ever live in some people's opinions, suddenly burst into tears while he was in the middle of The Transfiguration and said "I am not a painter, I can not complete this!"
If you don't ask God to pick you up and help you keep going you might deprive the world of the next Raphael!

By exaggerating their problems quitters get paranoid.
They make their problems seem way too big to overcome to justify their quitting.
Do you ever feel overworked,under appreciated, and alone?

Oh me me me!! Yes! Right now! Today! Yesterday! This is where I am!

That is where Satan wants you to be. He loves to use discouragement to defeat Christians. If Satan can get a perfectly capable, successful, fruitful christian to succumb to discouragement, he has gained himself one more quitter and removed one more threat to his agenda for the world.

Do you see why I don't want this to end? This is GREAT daily therapy!

God's Perseverance Program:
1. When you're exhausted God gives you rest and nourishment. It is a commandment to take a day of rest.

2. When you're discouraged God lets you vent. He always knows your frustrations and feelings but he wants you to bring him your worries and fears.

3. When you want to give up God reminds you who He is. When you think you've got big problems, God will let you know in some unmistakable way that he is bigger than your problems.

4. When you are full of self pity God will give you friends and a task. He will give you a job to do and friends to do it with!

Yes he will!

1 comment:

Susan Storm Smith said...

Congratulations .. almost finished!!