Press On!!

Press On!!

When we were children we all had heroes. For some they were great athletes or celebrities. For me it was my grandfather. I thought of him very much like a superhero. He survived polio as child. He took care of his family when his father died when he was just 17. He was a great entrepreneur. He survived being set on fire when some solvent he was using ignited. We would go fishing regularly and he always seemed to catch something, even when no one else did. When I was just five years old, he taught me to drive, and then insisted that I drove regularly. We baked a cake together once for a scout project. It was terrible, but we dominated the soap box derby.On occasion I would spend the night at my Grandparents home and it was then that I would see him pray in the mornings. I would wait patiently while he read his Bible and sipped his cup of Maryland Club.In fact, it was with him that I tried my first taste of coffee at a roadside park on one of our adventures. It was that experience that caused the dread and fear of coffee that lasted into my mid-30’s. Needless to say, yuck!Every week my grandfather taught Sunday school to the youth at our church. He invested in young people and he invested so much in me. He invested in us even when all of that investment might have seemed to produce little return.When I think back about all of the lessons my grandfather taught me, (which were many,) one keeps coming to my mind. I saw him live a life of tenacity… there was simply no quit in him. I think to live like this means that you have something to press forward for, without waiver. Internally, you have defined that objective and you are compelled toward it, even convicted toward it, and the struggle in the journey produces joy and peace in the midst of difficulty and pain.As we look out into our culture today, we see people motivated by many things. For the follower of Christ however, we should all find our motivation and common ground pretty quickly. Paul says in Philippians 3:12-14:

“Not that I already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. “

For those whom Christ has taken hold of, believers, I do not think there is a sideline. There are no jobs or roles that aren’t ministry. There is no divide or wall between that which is secular and that which is sacred. There is no place to hide. We have been called for a purpose. There are very simply two kinds of people we will encounter; Mission partners and Mission fields.To live this way requires investment. It requires our tenacity.Press on!D.