Great Beginnings...Tragic Endings

In any contest, the start is important, but the finish is even more crucial. How many times have I started something and before I even reached the middle of the race I began to fade. I started out all hyped up, I had a plan, I knew what I was going to do. This time I was going to make it, I would not quit until I not only saw the finish line, I had made up my mind that I would cross it this time. Yet I didn't. !

Recently a family member said to me, "You are doing the same thing with the same results." She was referring to the boys whom we take in our home. Many of them go back to their old lives, but each time I grow, each time I get a call when they do go back and they are telling me how they regretted their decision. I am not always the one who sees the harvest, I am just plowing the field, planting the seed. How can I judge someone else, when I too fall, when I too don't always cross the finish line.

Sometimes the endings are tragic, sometimes there is victory and in each time there are things God is teaching me. If everytime I started the race, I finished in victory, then there would be no need to depend on Him and I might even start thinking it was something I did. Where there is no struggle, there is no strength. I need Him! Only He gives the victory.

So the story ends, that I made an appointment with this family member and I told her she shouldn't be getting mad or disappointed, because it wasn't all about her, it was about Him. She said, "I know, but sometimes I get me in the way." I said, "yes you do and that is the flesh." God has given me grace with this person, last year I began to tell her the truth in a loving way, she is not walking with Him and she is always looking at the past. She even said to me, "you are a now and future person, I am a past person." I thought how strange that was that she recognized this and was doing nothing to change it.

I continue to point the way, I hope one day she gets it. What a tragedy if she never does.