Ouch

I'm kinda stiff and sore today from Saturday. Mike Stewart and I leveled out my Dad's driveway. It was 7 hours of labor. Well, not all 7 hours, but I know the part where I had to rake rocks kicked my butt. I know you're saying, "But you're in such good shape!" ...okay, maybe you're NOT saying that. It was pretty good fun, and we got the entire driveway done (it is huge).

I learned many things that day, including how a diesel engine works, how to pull a car with a tractor, what a "third arm" is, and many other interesting tidbits that will one day catapult me to Jeopardy stardom. But I also learned something about vision and about perseverence.

When Mike made the first pass with the boxblade, my reaction was, "this looks worse than when we started!". It began to rain/sleet, and I was wanting to call it a day. But little by little, everything came together, and at the end, I was amazed at the results.

Vision produces action. Vision produces perseverence.

The reason I was getting impatient and discouraged was that I was losing sight of what the end result was going to be and was focusing on the present, namely that my arms felt like they were going to fall off. I didn't ask, but I could almost guarantee that Mike was focusing on the end result.

Let's go deeper- how many times as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we lose sight of the big picture because we're caught up in the present? We whine and complain about our circumstances instead of trusting that God has our spiritual maturity in mind. We slow down and disengage as a church because we're "waiting for the new pastor" and forget that we are not excused from doing what God has already said to do in the Bible- teach, reach, disciple, etc. God has really dealt with me on this. This is here in my blog because I see it happening. But I also believe that there is a small bit of truth in why things have slowed down. Sometimes pastors help us to catch the vision of what God is doing. Look at Proverbs 29:18:

18 If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves;But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.

So let's take a hard look at ourselves. Let's take action.