Tag: Perseverance

Struggling will make you stronger

motivatedandfree

Once upon a time, a man found a butterfly that was starting to hatch from its cocoon. He sat down and watched the butterfly for hours as it struggled to force itself through a tiny hole. Then, it suddenly stopped making progress and looked like it was stuck.

Therefore, the man decided to help the butterfly out. He took a pair of scissors and cut off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily, although it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man thought nothing of it, and he sat there waiting for the wings to enlarge to support the butterfly. However, that never happened. The butterfly spent the rest of its life unable to fly, crawling around with small wings and a swollen body.

Despite the man’s kind heart, he didn’t understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle needed by the butterfly to get itself through the small hole were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings to prepare itself for flying once it was free.”

The struggle is over in your life in Jesus name, Amen.

Finding The Why When I Face Failure

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How do you find the courage to persevere in the face of failure? I’ve discovered the secret to perseverance in “Finding My Why”…

Do you want to know the secret to deepening your relationship with God? What if I told you that the secret was failure? I have failed. I have failed more than a dozen exams, a handful of classes, and various projects. I’ve failed as a student. I have let people down as a leader. I have failed my friends and family. And I have failed more times than I can count. But, here I am. I am still alive and persevering. I have learned, grown, and seasoned on this audacious adventure.

If I’m serious about the matter, when God made it clear what my path was in life, I had no clue what it would take out of me.

As a young boy, I was naive and optimistic, driven by a passion and zeal for God at some point. Years later, I am far less naive, cautiously optimistic, and driven by… love for God. As the years’ pass, passion and zeal give way to a stalwart love; A love that is solid in its foundation – you’d have an easier time moving a mountain.

As I reflect on the past years of my walk, I look back at the decisions I’ve made, and I see a lot of decisions for God – sprinkled with some foolish decisions that were against God. This was the path to “Finding My Why”, finding out why I put myself through this, why I subject myself to consistent and un-relinquishing failure. Finding My Why is the best thing that ever happened to me because it made me decide; every failure led to a feeling of emptiness inside of me, and a choice. The choice was simple, what do you want to fill that void with? Do you choose to fill it with God, or do you choose it with superficial things – music, food, beer?

I wish I could say that I chose to worship God in that moment, but I didn’t.

Instead, I chose to leave town to attend and help with a wedding, hoping to find happiness. I came home exhausted and depressed. That was a valuable (and painful) learning experience, and yet to this day, I have not fully learned this lesson. Men are stubborn and prideful like that. Your “Why?” is found when you realize everything you do in this life is to serve God’s master plan. A plan which stretches for thousands of years. Through this daunting trial of life, we constantly have choices. Choices that amount to nearly every problem and every solution in this world. What will you do when you feel empty? Will you pursue God and fill your void with his presence, or will you fill it with other superfluous pleasures?

Every day, people choose to fill their void with the world.

Look at the way our world works; people mend breakups by going out and “rebounds”. Rather than dealing with father issues, young men assert their masculinity by breaking the hearts of women. To cope with the void, young women everywhere turn to social media for a bit of temporary affirmation. If this is hitting close to home, I’m sorry. Just kidding, I’m not sorry about that. Just know that you are a great person and that the love and grace that God has for you is so much larger, even better than the notebook (which I’ve never seen). No man, woman, or item can ever fill that pit.

It is in these difficult times in life that you find your why.

When you have to look deep within yourself, when you want to quit, when you feel inadequate, when you give everything, yet you fail. You still choose to listen to worship music, watch a sermon, and read your bible. If you are going through this right now, you are in the process of finding your why. Your why could be spiritual, it could be for your family, it could be the community you serve. Failure is not necessarily a sign that your anointing has left you, it could be a sign that your anointing is upon you. Find your why, dig deep, press into God, and push forward. I leave you with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, who said it best in a speech he gave called “The Man In The Arena”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Drop your comments and let’s know what your thoughts are on this post.

Thank you!!!

Let perseverance finish its work.

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Every day holds a series of conflicts between the right way and the easy way. On a daily basis, in almost everything you do, you will be presented with the right way, and the easy way. Rarely do these two options have the same result. Every day your strength will be tested through your choices. Your strength is a byproduct of struggle; you must do what others don’t to achieve what others won’t; meaning, you must decide to take the right way, instead of the easy way.

The strength you have at this point in your life is a product of your willingness to struggle in the past. Your strength can be expanded and further developed through perseverance. Perseverance means to be steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. No matter how difficult the conflicts that you face may become, in order to continue to grow in strength you must preserver by making the right choice, not the easy choice! James 1:4 says, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

In order to grow and become stronger; you must never allow yourself to reach a point where you feel you have ‘arrived’ or a place where you feel that you have everything together. Don’t allow yourself to get to place where you feel that the easy choice has become acceptable for your life. You must continue to push yourself. Be okay with allowing conflict and difficulties in your life. In every season of life and in every day you must always hold the desire to grow and become stronger than the person you are right now. Always be persevering regardless of the comfort you may have to give up during the process.

Making the right choice is hardly ever the same as taking the easy way to get through a situation. Sometimes the right choice can even be draining. When I am having a difficult time pressing on and moving in the right direction, this scripture always helps to motivate me, so I wanted to share it in this post:

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Today I encourage you to persevere through whatever it is that you may be going through. Allow yourself to struggle to do the right thing; don’t just take the easy way out. In the end, you will be rewarded and you will grow stronger. Never underestimate the important of little victories in doing the right thing. No matter how big or small something may seem to be, make the right choice; it will encourage you when something big comes around to make the same right choice. I encourage you today; no matter what season of life you are in, remember to press on. Make the right choices in your life today, weigh everything you are deciding on against the Word of God. Let perseverance finish its work in you!