Our meeting this past Friday was as one of the participants stated….” just what the Doctor (God) ordered”.  We are still on our “Road to Purpose” and as we took to the road we ignited the “Power Within”. But we have gotten weary, worn and a little tired. Some of us have even said that we are almost at the point of giving up and pulling over. We understand that we should keep moving but we don’t know how? Well, on Friday night we learned,


             “This race is not given to the swift nor sure the strong but to those who can endure”.

How many times have we heard this saying? It is a very popular quote. Many of us have used it when we are encouraging others or even ourselves to don’t give up…to don’t quit. But how many of us really know that this is not an actual verse from the bible.  As worded it is not an actual verse from the bible but combines multiple scripture reference. Therefore, it is considered a truism.

So in our study of this truism… we discovered the true meaning of enduring.

Endurance is defined as being able to continue with a difficult challenge; the fact or power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way; the capacity of something to last or to withstand wear and tear. Some synonyms of endurance are stamina, durability, patience, staying power.

Do you possess the stamina, staying power, the capacity to withstand the trials of this life? Well hopefully after this study, you will have the ability to “KEEP MOVING”.

As stated, the quote combines multiple scripture references. The first scripture referenced is Ecclesiastes 9:11:

“Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.”

It is suggested that King Solomon is the author of Ecclesiastes. As the author of Ecclesiastes he puts his powers of wisdom to work to examine the human experience and assess the human situation. His perspective is limited to what happens "under the sun". It is a carnal view. He considers life as he has experienced and he observed it between the horizons of birth and death -- life within the boundaries of this world. So what does Solomon mean? How could the fastest runner not win the race? How could the strongest man not be victorious in battle? Are we all subject to fate? Solomon was saying it isn’t always the strongest guy or the fastest guy that wins in life. We have seen those whom everybody thought were a cinch to win or achieve, but was unable to fulfill their dreams.  Time and chance happened. Time in this verse means "opportunity” and chance suggests "occurrence" or "incident”. What this verse is saying is that we all have the opportunity to make something of our lives, but eventually; there are elements of circumstance that have to fall together even before someone with great abilities can accomplish his or her goals.  But as Solomon stated, things don’t always work that way, despite if you are a believer or not, we all are subject to things not coming together and falling apart and nothing is guaranteed to us but death in this world.

Many of us have had experiences that confirm the truth of this verse. All our carefully laid plans have fallen apart; all our dreams that we had in some particular area of life crumbled, and we could not understand why. We had to learn, as this text says, the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong. The Word of God clearly acknowledges that men, even those seemingly well-deserving, will be met with unforeseen, chance setbacks, including death! This may not seem just. It may be worrisome to contemplate and very painful to experience, but we are warned through Solomon that such things will occur. Such possibilities must be part of our thinking if we are going to face the trials of life in a mature manner that will glorify our Father in heaven.

However, the illusion that the media presses upon us all the time is that we can handle our life by our choices. It's your life! You can live it the way you please. We’ve been taught and conditioned to think that if you want to succeed you have to compete and be aggressive, get up earlier, go to bed later, put in more hours, do unto them before they do unto you. But God says it cannot be done that way. Often it will seem that time and chance plays a bigger part in our lives than God’s providence.  But that is not so as God knows the plan for our lives. Jeremiah 29:11 says:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

This verse confirms God’s Divine providence. What is Divine Providence? It is the means by and through which God governs all things in the universe. The principle of divine providence asserts that God is in complete control of all things. This includes the universe as a whole, the physical world, the affairs of nations, human birth and destiny, human successes and failures, and the protection of His people. This doctrine stands in direct opposition to the idea that the universe is governed by chance or fate. The purpose, or goal, of divine providence is to accomplish the will of God; to ensure that His purposes are fulfilled. Yes, God governs the affairs of (wo)men and works through the natural order of things. The laws of nature are nothing more than a representation of God at work in the universe. The laws of nature have no power, nor do they work independently. The laws of nature are the rules and principles that God set in place to govern how things work. The same goes for human choice. In a very real sense we are not free to choose or act apart from God’s will. Everything we do and everything we choose is in full accordance to God’s will—even our sinful choices. The bottom line here is that God controls our choices and actions. Yet he does not do so in such a way that does not violate our responsibility as free moral agents, nor does it negate the reality of our choice. If we take the stance that God is not in control of all things, then this promise and all other biblical promises are invalid. We could not have complete confidence that the good work of salvation that was begun in us will be brought to completion if God is not in control of all things, then He is not sovereign, and if He is not sovereign, then He is not God. And we know that he is GOD!

Therefore to sum up, Ecclesiastes 9:11 provides a carnal perspective, a wisdom, which Solomn obtained “under the sun”. But he quickly understood by the end of the book of Ecclesiastes that by placing God at the center of one's life, work and activities, by being content and accepting one's divinely appointed position in life; and by reverently trusting in and obeying the Creator and King we can live meaningfully, purposefully and joy filled lives within his divine providence. With this information we were tasked with three Life Applications:

1. Accept the human state  as it is shaped by God's appointments and enjoy the life you have been given as fully as you can.
2. Don't trouble yourself with unrealistic goals -- know the measure of your human capabilities.
3. Be prudent in all your ways -- follow wisdom's leading.
4. Fear God and reverence him as he knows the plan for our lives.

Next we examined the second portion of that quote: “to those who can endure”. The second verse is asking us to remain faithful…..persistent”.  2 Timothy 4:7 states:

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

In this chapter, Paul with great somberness and seriousness presses Timothy his protégé to be diligent and conscientious as he is discharging his work and office as an evangelist; and he charges him with taking on the work of continuing to spread the Good News. This same charge all gospel ministers are to take to themselves, (2 Timothy 4:1-5). The reason for Paul’s concern was because the church was likely to be deprived of the apostle's labors, for his departure was at hand. He informs him of what experienced and what he faced. At the beginning of this chapter he states how though men forsook him, the Lord stood by him, and this encouraged him to hope for future deliverance. If you know the life of Paul you know that his deliverance was at death. But Paul understood that the Christian life is not a sprint, it is a marathon, and it is not easy. It is easy to get distracted, but we need to remain disciplined. Like the author of Hebrews says, so that we do not grow weary in the race, let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

I am quick to make excuses when it comes to giving up my desires. I allow the demons of worry, inadequacy, and fear of failure to weigh me down and render me completely ineffective and I give up.  Sins become larger than me and I fall victim to them.  In these instances, I’m not running toward something, I’m running away from something. It is time to stop giving in and I must continue to fight the good fight with a persistent faith.

Now, we should not view fighting the fight and finishing the race as being different from keeping the faith. They are simply pictures that Paul used to describe what is involved in keeping the faith. The faith that Paul has kept is not faith in him, or in any man. It is faith in Christ Jesus. When you have faith in somebody, it means you take them at their word, you count on them to live up to what they say, you trust their counsel, and you have confidence in their promises. When Paul said, "I have kept the faith," he meant, "I have kept on taking Christ at His word, I have kept on counting on what He said, I have kept on trusting His counsel, I have kept on having confidence in His promises." The first thing we all can say is that keeping the faith will be hard. We must recognize that there will be stress and strain and discomfort involved. Keeping the faith must involve some sort of stress and discomfort to develop character and endurance. Therefore, it must be hard…but it can also be easy. Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus says,

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

So, you see it is easy if you yoke up with Jesus.

It is clear if we give up in this fight and take the path of least resistance we will be defeated and not finish the race. We have to know that the Christian life is a fight and we have to know who we are fighting. We “identified the enemy”:

1.         Proud nature
2.         Satan

But we also went into depth about the three great weapons that we have to resist and defeat the enemies:

1.         The Spirit of God
2.         The Word of God
3.         Consistent Prayer Life

Now when we become  weary, one of the best ways to develop endurance and encouragement is to get to know the godly men and women of the Bible and of now who ran the race and won. We discussed and gave examples of those that never quit.  Below are just a few of those “Winners who never quit”.

•              Rev. Martin Luther King
•              Ghandi
•              Mother Teresa
•              Joseph
•              Noah
•              Job
•              Nehemiah
•              The Ultimate Winner – Jesus

Jesus was the ultimate winner, because beyond the cross was a crown, beyond the tomb was a throne. No, we are not Jesus but as a Christian, we must realize that Jesus is the forerunner, the first one in. But just like he did, we must endure the cross for the joy that will be revealed in us. God doesn’t want to hear once this race is over, Lord I’ve tried….he wants to hear Lord I endured; I fought this fight and ran this race with a persistent faith. Which leads us to the final goal…we must finish this race because as Matthew 24:13 says:

“But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

Matthew 24 is considered the Olivet Discourse. This is where Jesus talks about the time of the Great Tribulation. There on the Mount of Olives he is speaking about the time of trial for the Church when false Gospels and false God’s will be rampant and the love of God grows cold. It’s the time near the second coming, when the Churches are being deceived and iniquity overflows as a great abandonment takes place in the congregations. It is argued that he was speaking of times that have passed and some say that he is speaking of times to come. But God’s divine word is just this way….it can apply to past and current times. Now the word “saved” must always be understood in its context. The word “Saved” is a Greek original word which may refer to any kind of deliverance. It can refer to physical deliverance or to some kind of spiritual deliverance. This passage is speaking about physical deliverance or the survival of those who last through the judgments of the tribulation. The disciples, who believed Jesus was that Messiah, were naturally anxious to know if the "time of the end" had come. There was great expectation that Jesus was about to announce that he was the messiah. It's not surprising then, that the disciples pressed Jesus about the nature and timing of his "coming."

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the excited disciples came to him privately to get some inside information. "`Tell us,' they said, `when will this happen, and “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”. They wanted to know when the things Jesus said about Jerusalem would take place, for they did not associate these with the end of the age and his "coming”. They didn’t understand that there would be a second coming.

Let's now notice how Jesus' conversation with his disciples unfolded. The first thing he did was warn the disciples not to be deceived by traumatic events that might make it appear as though "the end" was near. Tumultuous things would happen in the world, but "the end is still to come". Next, Jesus told his disciples that they would be persecuted and put to death. Jesus then began talking about a gospel to be preached to the whole world. After this, "the end" would come. Those who are believers and who survive until the end of that period of time will be saved, that is, delivered. This does not refer to a personal self-effort at endurance, but to physical deliverance of those who trust in the Savior. So Jesus was saying, if we endure to the end, He would deliver, save us!!! What an awesome promise!

So as you can see, the race is not given to the swift nor to the strong but to those that will endure. God has a plan that is divine and he is always working in our lives. It may not seem like it sometimes, but we must not be fooled to think that we are in control of our lives. We must realize that his plan will lead us to a purposeful and meaningful life if we allow Him take complete control of our life and our will. This is not to say that we will not encounter some bumps and have some bruises from the struggles, and things will always work out. Life will not be perfect.  But if we have faith in the master plan he has created for us and trust that he is divinely orchestrating everything in our life; all those mistakes, bad decisions, good decisions are going to work for our good. But for it to work…we have to keep moving...bulding endurance. And if we continue to endure as good soldiers, never giving up … reverencing God and honoring his commandments while fighting the enemy with a faith based consistency and persistency…. we will be delivered and we will receive our crown of righteousness in the end!! Hallelujah for our Sovereign God’s divine game plan!

Let’s make notes of the GAME PLAN to keep moving!

1.      Remember God’s knows the divine plan…make sure you are communicating with him to get a clue:      
         (Ecclesiastes 9:11 )
2.      Work past the pain of past and present hurts: (Acts 20:24)
3.      Get rid of what holds you back: (Hebrews 12:1)
4.      Don’t look back: (Philippians 3:14)
5.      Run to win: (1 Corinthians 9:24-25).
6.      Remember the end goal: (Matthew 24:13)

Romans 5:3-4
“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,”

(This post was originally written  in June 8, 2012 on our Facebook page.)
 
I haven't posted in a while as I have been on a spiritual respite of sorts. I needed to step away for a moment to work on "Yolanda". The past few months have been eventful for me I could barely keep up and after a series of events I have found that it is necessary to take some time to pay attention to some spiritual and personal areas of my life. I have learned that if I am to be any good to anyone I have to first take care of and deal with me. While on this respite I have been digging deep to come to a resolution about some issues that have had me in quite a quandary. Not so much a particular situation that had me puzzled as to what to do but a series of events that I have had the pleasure of experiencing the past few months that had me questioning my abilities, my actions, God, my purpose in life and how and if I should move forward. Taking these moments are not unusual for me. I tend to get in this space where I shut down, shut up and get quiet when I feel as though my life is getting complicated, out of sorts and filled with confusion. And when I get in this space I tend to do a “LOOK BACK”.

When I was Revenue Agent for the State I learned a piece of terminology called a “look back period". A look back period is where an organization or company looks back over previous periods to come to a determination or an outcome for a particular situation. So that's what I have done for the past few weeks. Now when I do these "look back periods" I tend to “look back” over MY life to examine me, the choices I have made, the outcome of said choices, what I have experienced, the lessons learned, how God moved, how he brought me through and how am I to move forward with this new knowledge. I believe that everything we go through is for a reason, some reasons we may not know but some reason we may know. It may be to either improve certain areas of our lives, to prevent repeating detrimental and destructive behavior/ situations or to help someone else.

If you haven't figured it out. I am on a constant quest to improve and better myself and my life. I am always thinking and analyzing. Sometimes it works against me…but a lot of times it works for my good. I always ask myself during times lilke this in my life, how did I get in this particular circumstance, what am I suppose to learn, where did I go right or wrong and how can I never experience this foolishness again. And today while thinking and talking with my main confidant..."God". I was led to go to a site that I had blogged for last year...."Glamazini". Ini is the owner of this blog and she blogs about being natural and other subject matter. It is a very informative and enlightening blog. I met Ini through an online community board. I periodically kept an online journal on this board and I would share about my life experiences. One day she read in one of my journals about my natural hair journey and she requested that I share my story on her blog. Well, today while perusing her blog a link for the guest blog that I did for her was at the bottom with my picture and story. I do not believe that this was a coincidence as I have been to her blog many times in the past few weeks and haven’t seen this link. But today…..it was there. I clicked on the link and began to read what I shared with the world. It brought tears to my eyes, reading back over my "testimony". It brought back so many feelings...the feelings of fear, grief, despair, loneliness and anger. Feelings that I thought I would never shed. And then when I read the comments, I was really moved. Not because they were praising me, but because they were praising the God that brought me through! And as I "look back" I remember how I felt when God brought me through those things...the feeling of freedom, victory, joy and release. Remember that old song..…

”LOOK WHERE HE BROUGHT ME FROM…HE BROUGHT ME OUT OF DARKNESS AND INTO THE MARVELOUS LIGHT…LOOK WHERE HE BROUGHT ME FROM.

Well…that was my theme song for today.

The title of my blog was…”Then Job arose tore his robe and shaved his head….” I shared how my life paralleled Job and how my “process” to becoming natural was the catalyst in setting me free from darkness and into the marvelous light. I was reminded that Job trusted God and went through the process despite what he went through and because of his faith he ultimately received double for his trouble. Isn’t God something…he always knows what to give you at the exact moment you need it. I was reminded to “look where he ALREADY brought me from”!

Now let me be clear, these “look back periods” is not the time to wallow in self-pity and mourn about what was lost; I look back to place things in perspective so that I may reach a positive outcome. These “look back periods” are to provide a better understanding as to how I was accountable, to appreciate and respect the process, how with God’s divine providence I can move forward and to also remind me that victory is possible again if I do not give up and remain focus.

So my conclusion from this particular look back period is that the present does not represent the future. That what I am experiencing is a process that I must go through and that I am to take the lessons learned… apply….readjust… move forward. I will admit that I was surely feeling weary, torn, battered and bruised but as I “look back” I now have gained a new determination, new boldness, new focus and new vision. I just have to take the brakes off and allow myself to go through the process as Job did, and if I do this it will be another "testament" to the power and greatness of the one true and living God. And his greatness will be told because he knows that I will tell it so that others may be set free! The lessons that I am learning in this present experience are surely for his good as I will be able to build upon them and use it for God's glory. But to obtain the greatness and the destiny purposed for me…I must go through the process so I can again say….”LOOK WHERE HE BROUGHT ME FROM”!