Keeping on…and on

I’ve never been very good at maintaining. Until I hit my mid-50s I had never worked for anyone other than myself for any longer than two years, and sometimes I quit working for myself before that! I am not sure if it is in my wiring, my attention span, or my brain chemistry, but along the two-year mark in any endeavor I am ready to make some changes and try something new. While this probably satisfies some sort of inner itch of mine, it doesn’t do so well for the 401k and the IRA.
In some ways, my experience with the church has been like that as well. When God brought me back to his community about 22 years ago I had about a six-year stint in a denominational church plant. It was exciting, adventurous and quite rare, at least for my denomination. Those five-years could probably be broken down phases of a couple of years: I was worship leader for about that long, then on the back pews for about a year, and then for about three years I was deeply involved in a transition from one meeting place to another.
Paul compared the Christian life to running a race and fighting a fight. He encouraged perseverance toward the prize. It’s interesting, fights are fought by the round. It’s not all fighting, sometimes it is training, sometimes it is recovering. Races have the same cycle. It’s not all running. This sort of keeping on has its starts and stops. I am working with a group of people that one leader described as Energizer Bunnies: They just seem to keep on going! He also compared them to the Timex watches in the old commercials: They take a licking and keep on ticking.
There have been seasons in my life when my batteries have seemed dead and that ticks on my clock seem to get slower and slower. I get to the end of my strength and the end of my rope and in desperation I just stop. It is usually in these times, whether they go on for days or weeks that I get to the place that I surrender my own plans and give in to God’s plans for my life. I get quiet enough that I can hear the whisper of his inspiration, again. Ah, and with the whisper my heart leaps, and begin to commence to prepare to get back in the race.
In that sense I press on toward the prize, even when my pressing doesn’t seem quite so impressive.