OnFire Encouragement Letter

I had a good birthday last week. My favorite card came from Jan. It read, “You’ve never been better or smarter or more ready for adventures than you are right now.” I liked that.

It was a full weekend. In addition to my responsibilities at our church with a men’s breakfast on Saturday and the worship service on Sunday, I also took a first aid course through the fire department. I don’t like being pulled in so many directions at once, but thankfully that doesn’t often happen.

During the first aid course, we had three fire alarms. The poor instructor was starting to get paranoid about how long until the pagers sounded again. None of the calls was serious or took much time, but the number of them was certainly unusual, especially after we had gone a few weeks without any calls.

We are healthy and well. I hope things are well with you also.

Troy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you were to go through my little workshop, you would find a number of unfinished projects. A telescope sits in the corner, waiting for me to fix. The beater brush from our vacuum cleaner needs a new cord. You may or may not see the top of my bench because I haven’t put my tools away from my last project.

Perhaps its better if we leave my shop and travel about 15 feet to my office. Ah, but there you’d find a pile of reading for a board meeting coming up. The shelf with the books I should read grows. My ToDo list lengthens even as I write.

Unfinished projects seem to be the story of my life. Everywhere I turn, I am reminded that there is something I need to complete.

And yet, I can point to some successes. I made a number of pastoral visits last week that I needed to make. I sit at a desk that I made with my own hands a few years ago. At supper, we’ll sit at the table I refinished. And when I check  my book shelf, I can look with pride at the bound copy of my Master’s thesis. How many times did I want to quit that? How often did I question whether it was worth it?

I have found that there is often a point in a project when I want simply to lay it aside and walk away from it. My pile of unfinished projects testifies that sometimes I have.

I have also found that the longer a project takes, the harder it is to finish. I’d much rather do something I can finish quickly and put behind me than start something I know will take weeks and months to finish.

There is no project tougher than the project of our faith. Some projects will take hours, weeks, or months. A few projects will go beyond a year. But we work on our faith and character for a lifetime. That’s why we need perseverance, which is the next quality Peter tells us to add to our faith in 2Peter 1:6.

Perseverance implies patience, endurance, fortitude, and steadfastness. Every one of these characteristics takes time to prove. That’s what I don’t like about them. We only ever develop them in situations which require us to wait.

Furthermore, the word also implies discouragement and difficulty. All the more reason not to like perseverance. It seems that discouragement and difficulty are related to waiting and withering.

Perseverance is the quality that marks a person who keeps going when others give up. We continue. We stay. We hold out. We finish. The only way to show we have perseverance is to be put under the test of time. Do we keep going? Do we finish? We will if we persevere.

So don’t give up. We all want to sometimes. But don’t. I have often found that when I push through a little longer, I begin to see the end, and when the end is in sight, I am  encouraged and strengthened. So, don’t give up. Hang on. Persevere.

Hope this helps. Be OnFire.

Troy

ON FIRE is a weekly letter of encouragement by Troy Dennis. To be added to or removed from the ON FIRE list contact him at onfire@eastlink.ca . Archives are located at www.onfireletter.com This letter published Feb 5, 2008.