Perseverance and Walls

The brick walls are there for a reason...to show how badly we want something.

— Randy Pausch —

About three years ago I did forty days of writings focused on perseverance. Considering what is currently going on, I thought I would dust off some of those old thoughts and bring them back to life as we anxiously await on getting back to normal or should I say a new normal?

Some of you may have heard of Randy Pausch. He wrote the New York Times best-seller, “The Last Lecture.”  If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do it.  It will not disappoint.

The full version of the opening quote by Pausch goes like this:

The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.  They’re there to stop the other people.

How many times do we give up the minute we face any type of resistance, let alone brick walls?

This COVID-19 experience seems to have thrown all kinds of  “walls” at us.


I’ve come up against some pretty challenging “walls” in my life both personally and professionally.

For some reason, those I faced in my B.C. (Before Christ) era seemed much more difficult to surmount than those A.C. (After Christ).

The simple reason is that in my B.C. era I thought I had to muscle through everything on my own. I believed that seeking help was a sign of weakness and that misconstrued thought darn near killed me when it came to conquering my drug addiction.


Today, when I am facing an obstacle.

I pray about it.

Not just once.

I pray until I get an answer.

I pray at any time of the day.

It could be when I’m in a meeting with a client and need help in assisting him or her to climb over a “wall.”


That is the coolest thing about believing in a Living God.

One of the greatest gifts from Jesus’s death and resurrection is the Holy Spirit.

He lives in me.

He’s there for me to call on Him 24/7.

Are you asking for God’s help every time the COVID-19 virus throws another “wall” at you?

Oh, and by the way, God does His best work through us when we are “weak” enough to seek His help.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10, “But he said to me,” ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 

P.E.A.C.E.

Jay@EagleLaunch.com

 

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