GOD. YOUTH. TRUTH.

Staring at a heap of unfinished projects, I had to decide what to get rid of and what to keep. It had seemed like there were so many things that I had begun in excitement that fizzled out with time and difficulty. I was staring at a huge pile of quit, and it was just a reminder of how many times I had failed. I saw it as a reminder of all the times that I had not carried through with the things that were at some point so important to me. Why could I not finish these things? What kept me from completing these things that I was so passionate about? It seems like so often we begin things with such gusto and passion that failure seems almost impossible. However, we find that we are apt to leave something incomplete when we lose passion and zeal over that undertaking. It would seem there is a direct link between how passionate we are in the beginning, what happens in the middle, and the end result that leads to success or failure of a particular undertaking. For most of us the thing in the middle is the breaking point, and it usually deals with a minor setback of some sort. A little thing becomes a big thing in the overall scope of completion. Because we are so passionate and emotionally invested, we make a mountain out of a mole hill. We allow our emotions and passion about our undertaking to turn against us, and become the very thing that works against us. Frustrations at primary signs of difficulty develop attitudes of disgust and disdain that lead to us quitting. This is significantly true in the Christian journey. We begin so excited about our new faith, and have big plans of how to work for our Father in heaven. This turns into excitement and zeal that puts to work in the Body. At some point we encounter something that we do not agree with, and the emotional investment that we have poured into our faith goes bi-polar. We have invested so much of ourselves into this only to feel like it is turning against us, and we handle it by becoming frustrated and quitting. The problem with quitting is that in every case it abandons the end goal for the present pleasure (or diminishing of pain), because the emotions override the dedication to the goal. Christianity is a marathon not a sprint (I Cor. 9:24). We must be willing and wise enough to realize that there will be difficulties and that despite those difficulties Heaven is our ultimate goal. When we focus on the end goal, the insignificant things that are between here and there are trivial. They become part of the journey. We begin to pace our excitement and emotion, and find that we are able to complete all tasks that are placed before us. Run so that you can finish the race.