Live, learn, be free

Persevering

We are faced with Mt. Everest sized mountains of work in this life.  We have a multitude of rules to follow.  Life can get very challenging for us.  It can be tempting to just coast through life.

Last year Dave Ramsey was a guest speaker at our church, Browns Bridge Community Church.  He spoke about what he calls the "Momentum Theorem".  He talked to us about how the enemy does not want us to persevere. 

The enemy wants us to be quitters.  God calls us to persevere.  In this theorem Ramsey tells us the following: Focused intensity over time, multiplied by God equals unstoppable momentum.  This theorem really struck me.

In our society today it seems people really struggle with focus, there is always something new that draws our attention.  Intensity can be seen at sporting events by those who choose to paint their faces or bodies to support their team.  But where is the intensity in the things that really matter in this world?

As we think about the time required in this theorem we can relate this to perseverance.  It takes time, Ramsey talked about the story of the "Tortoise and the Hare".  You can be slow and ugly but if you keep moving you will eventually win, perseverance is the key.

We can not do any of these things alone, we need God.  God is the power source behind our efforts, when His power is multiplied with our efforts it equals unstoppable momentum.  The key to this whole theorem is to heed the words of Winston Churchill: never give up, never give up, never give up, never give up!

Writing Your Story

Do you like to tell stories?  When our kids were younger they always wanted us to make up stories instead of reading them stories.  It was hard sometimes to come up with something fresh and exciting for them.  I heard a great sermon series about life stories at church recently. 

I attend Browns Bridge Community Church in Cumming, GA.  Our lead pastor is Andy Stanley, he does a great job communicating God's word to us.  His series was about decision making.  In the second sermon Andy talked about what story you want to tell.  It makes you really think about the decisions we make.

We pay closer attention to the decisions we make when we know someday we will have to share those stories.  We have all made decisions we wish we hadn't made.  We all have things in our past that we may be a little reluctant to share with others.  This motivates us today to make the right decision in our life today.

When we trust God and we continue our intimate relationship with God we can make decisions more clearly.  We will not be tempted to censor our own life story.  Do you want to tell your whole story or will you have to edit your story.  You see our children's story begins with the end of ours.  How do you want your children's story to begin?