Encouragement

The Monday Memo was waiting for me in my inbox this morning. I don't know about you, but I need to be encouraged. Every day. From a variety of resources. And I have been blessed to find them. And, in turn, I then feel it my duty, my joy, my privilege to encourage somebody else. Today's Monday Memo is all about encouragement.

PERSEVERANCE IS NOT A LONG RACE
PHILIPPIANS 3:14

Walter Elliot said, "Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another."

Many would define perseverance as one consistent day after another, but the fact is that no one is consistently consistent in all things 100% of the time.

A better way to say it is that perseverance is 4 consistent days out of 5. Or 9 consistent days out of 10.

I love Paul's use of the phrase "press on" in Philippians 3. It communicates the idea of not just trying, but trying again. Paul admits that he is not perfect, has not yet attained all that he desires to be ...

(v. 13-14) But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind

and straining toward what is ahead,

I press on toward the goal ...

Perseverance isn't so much a matter of winning one long marathon as it is a matter of winning (or even "placing" in) the short races you run day after day, hour after hour. It requires us to press on, even after minor setbacks and temporary defeats.

Perseverance is a lifetime accomplishment ... lived out one day at a time, one 40-yard dash at a time.

--Steve May
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WHAT'S BEEN SAID ABOUT PERSEVERANCE

One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is better than half-a-hundred half-finished tasks. --B.C. Forbes

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. --William Feather

Mistakes are easy, mistakes are inevitable, but there is no mistake so great as the mistake of not going on. --William Blake

The universal line of distinction between the strong and the weak is that one persists; the other hesitates, falters, trifles and at last collapses or caves in. --Edwin Percy Whipple

Paul Harvey said that if there is one common denominator of men whom the world calls successful it is this: They get up when they fall down.

The Monday Memo is a weekly devotional for leaders sent out each Monday by Steve May. This is a free service. For more information please visit http://www.aboutsunday.com/omm.htm