Perseverance

A voice in the darkness

Ever felt like you are stuck in a dark place? Then this post is written just for you….

Gods first words in the human story were words spoke in the darkness – words from the darkness. Spoken by God. Spoken to breathe life into the darkness.

Out of the darkness these words were uttered:

“Let… there… be… light!”

And there was light. The first light in the universe came from the voice of God in the darkness. Gods first breathe in the universe created light.

This was the beginning. The first beginning. The first of many beginnings. This is the work of God in our lives. God enters into the darkness, unperturbed or disturbed, to bring light, growth, love, joy, peace that surpasses understanding, and all other manner of blessings as he wills.

Whenever God wants us to grow he leads us into the darkness where we are led by the spirit into the place of deepening faith and holy trust. And into our darkness He speaks ever so gently… let there be light, and Christ enters our darkness. He walks in it with us to lead us through the dark wilderness into his promised land for our lives.

Where there is darkness today God is already at work. New life will spring up at the sound of his gentle voice. Do not listen for a booming voice in the darkness. Look for the still small voice of the Spirit speaking and breathing the new life of God. God is speaking light into your darkness.

Faith moves mountains 🏔

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Have faith in God.

Have faith in yourself.

God has faith in you.

Ever thought that?

Never thought that?

Thought worth thinking, that.

Believe for the best.

Believe you can do it.

You’ll get through it.

Trust in yourself.

Trust God’s help.

He’ll see you through.

Partnership & perseverance move mountains (or fridges!)

The fridge stood in the middle of the room where the delivery guy had left it. It was huge! I unfortunately am not huge. How on earth would I move this fridge?

We’ve all had days like this: days when there’s something in our lives that appear to be immovable. It might be a big white fridge, a debt, or a housing issue. We each have our own ‘barriers to progression’ or ‘monsters to fight’. We all have complex issues facing us in our workplace or in our business. Life can be full of the immovable!

But back to the fridge…

So my fridge was intimidatingly large standing there in the middle of the room. I decided to start trying to move it. Sometimes you just need to make a start.

Sometimes you just need to make a start!

I pushed and pulled; I rocked it and tried to walk it… and I began to move it! Making a start on something is always the first step to moving the problem. But I got tired. My muscles ached. My hands got sore. My mind began telling me I couldn’t shift it. I needed help!

Sometimes you just need to ask for help!

I asked for help. A friend came round and moving the big white fridge became easier. I still felt the weight of it, but it became manageable and movable.

But what if we hadn’t been able to move the fridge? We couldn’t just leave it in the middle of the room. We would have kept on trying until that fridge was moved, plugged in, and working as it was designed to work. We would have persevered!

Sometimes you just need to persevere!

We all have the metaphorical fridge in the middle of the room. Who can you help today to move theirs?

 

Persevere

I have been thinking about this a lot recently: PERSEVERANCE. Even the word sounds difficult…

Perseverance. Sometimes life will get difficult – severely difficult. Life does not care about whether you can cope or not – it will continue to throw curve-balls at you. It will continue to test you to see what you are made of.

We only really need to persevere when life is a struggle – perseverance is not required when life is going well.  I have found this recently. The past few months have been very testing: I’ve had to work hard at relationships when they have been strained; I’ve gone through organisational restructure at work, and reapplied for my job (thankfully, with success); I’m writing the dissertation to my Masters programme and it is a drain on my energy, but……I keep on going.

This is the nature of perseverance: we keep on keeping on despite the difficulties!

When you persevere you find that you have more strength than you previously thought you had.

When you keep on going you develop mental toughness and strengthen your resilience.

Persevering makes you STRONGER, and that in itself is a great motivation for persevering.