Thursday, August 24, 2006
"Love endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:7).
IDEA: Go the next mile.
PURPOSE: To encourage listeners to endure when they want to quit.
Paul says that love endures all things. He seems to mean that, for the sake of the cause of Christ, we put up with persecution, bad manners, criticisms.
Sometimes we have to do that. But how do you do it? How do you stay with a church, or a marriage, or a difficult job even though you may feel that it's accomplishing little good?
Even though you may think in terms of the future benefits of what you're doing, however you live, you must live one day at a time.
If you have a 20-mile journey to make, you have to go the second mile before you can go the third or the fourth or the fifth. If you focus on the 20th mile, the chances are you won't make it.
The Duke of Wellington said that the British won the Battle of Waterloo, not because they were braver than the French soldiers, but simply because they were brave five minutes longer. The last five minutes are crucial. Holding on for a little longer is often the difference between defeat and victory.
Preachers sometimes quit when they could have won. Often with the help of our spouse and God we have won because we persevered.
Many a man with a gallant air
Goes galloping to the fray.
But the one who counts is the one who's there
When the smoke is cleared away.
Eric Sevareid, the well-known commentator, said that the best lesson he ever learned was the principle of "the next mile." He recalled how he learned that principle:
"During World War II, I and several others had to parachute from a crippled Army transport plane into the mountains and jungle on the Burma-India border. It was several weeks before an armed relief expedition could reach us, and then we began a painful, plodding march out to civilized India. We were faced by a 140 mile trek over mountains in August heat and monsoon rains.
"In the first hour of march, I rammed a boot nail deep into one foot. By evening I had bleeding blisters the size of a 50-cent piece on both feet. Could I hobble 140 miles? Could the others, some in worse shape than I, complete such a distance? We were convinced we could not. But we could hobble to the next ridge, we could make it to the next friendly village for the night. And that, of course, is all we had to do."
The "next mile" principle can help us in any situation when the future is too much to handle. We can persevere for the next mile, or the next day.