"For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only but to all who love his appearing.”
Notice Paul does not say, "won the victory,"" or "overcome" the enemy. He says, ""I have fought a good fight." Some of the modern T-shirt logic says, “second place is first loser." Paul says, “I have fought a good fight.”
There’s a nobility in the man or woman who day in and day out struggles against whatever appears to be detrimental to them and their families. Abraham Lincoln said, "With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right."
Even in our sincerest moments we sometimes are wrong, we fail or make a bad decision. We cannot allow feelings of failure become fear of failure. When a soldier falls in battle we honor him because he had the courage to fight. Babe Ruth said, “Never let the fear of striking out get in the way.”
The single mother just trying to make ends meet; those who labor in the fields and factories; those faithful servants of the lord who get little recognition but continue year after year teaching a Sunday school class or working in the nursery or doing the maintenance are, "fighting the good fight.”
According to Theodore Roosevelt, “It’s not the critic that counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows in the end the triumph of great achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.”
God does not call us to be successful, he calls us to be faithful, he does not urge us to win the victory he urges us to be obedient.
James Brady, who took a bullet to the head when Reagan was shot said, “You play the hand you are dealt.”
I love Mariah Carey’s song, “Hero.” The first few words say, “There’s a hero, if you look inside your heart you don’t have to be afraid of who you are.” Most of us may be a little ashamed of who we are. There are always going to be things about me I wish were different I can attempt to change or I can see what God’s purpose is in that which I view as a weakness.
Paul said he had a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet him, when he asked the Lord to remove, the Lord’s reply, “My grace is sufficient for you… “In weakness my strength is made Perfect.” "You don’t have to be afraid of who you are."
Albert Einstein said, “Do not try to be a man of success but a man of value.”
Being a movie star is not what makes an actor, acting makes an actor. A writer is not a writer because he has a newspaper column or a book. He is a writer because he writes. You cannot afford to be afraid of looking foolish.
George Foreman had a major rebound in his career because he got over the embarrassment of his defeat at the hands of Ali and learned not to take himself so seriously.
