More Screams, Different Deserts by Eenigenburg Sue;

Author:Eenigenburg, Sue;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Carey Publishing

What is a way for your church to celebrate a “feast of booths”?

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To understand third culture families and their transitions, go to http://www.interactionintl.org.

Joyfully Persevering (Habakkuk)

I entitled this chapter “Joyfully Persevering.” I dislike even the word “persevering,” so it is hard to think of joy as even being in the same sentence. I don’t like the time and practice that is involved in enduring toward a goal. After we were married I asked Don to teach me how to play the piano. He said he would be happy to if I would practice for half an hour every day, and he gave me my first lesson. I wanted to sit down and be able to play songs, not just scales or notes. Practice was really boring, so I didn’t really give it thirty minutes a day. The next week when it was time for my lesson, I was getting ready but Don wasn’t. He said I hadn’t practiced enough. I replied that if he didn’t live with me he wouldn’t know that. “Well,” he said, “If I didn’t live with you I would charge you money for the lessons!”

And that was the end of my piano career, because I didn’t have the tenacity to practice. I wanted to go from knowing nothing to being proficient rather quickly. I saw accomplishment and success as meaning the same thing. They are not necessarily the same.

The person who wrote this well-known parable is unknown, but the author put what I’m trying to communicate into his story. It is the parable of pushing the rock:

There was a man who was asleep one night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The Lord told him he had a work for him to do and, showing him a large rock, explained that he was to push against this rock with all his might. This the man did, and for many days he toiled from sunup to sundown; his shoulder set squarely against the cold massive surface of the rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.

Seeing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, Satan decided to enter the picture, placing thoughts in the man’s mind, such as, “Why kill yourself over this, you’re never going to move it,” or “Boy, you’ve been at it a long time and you haven’t even scratched the surface,” giving the man the impression that he was an unworthy servant because he wasn’t moving the massive stone.

These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man and he started to ease up in his efforts. “Why kill myself?” he thought. “I’ll just put in my time, putting forth just the minimum of effort and that will be good enough.” And that he did, or at least planned on doing, until one day he decided to take his troubles to the Lord. “Lord,” he said, “I have labored hard and long in your service, putting forth all my strength to do that which you have asked me.

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