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It’s nine days into the new year and some of your super charged energy that comes from starting a new  calendar is starting to wane…right?

Don’t be alarmed, I believe this is typical of our microwave, ticker tape news, and minute marriage society. If change doesn't come within the first 24 to 48 hours, we’re discouraged.

 I woke up two days ago feeling quite under the influence of discouragement. My heart was heavy and sadness was serving my coffee that day. I thought that it was partly because my oldest son was going back to college, while applying for internships this summer. I’m sensing that this will be a big change for us not having him home during the summer months, but I encourage it highly because he needs that sense of independence and experience as a young man. However, when I woke up a day later still feeling blue, I began to realize that I was experiencing my own let down from all of the pre-new year hype of what’s to come.  You see, nothing changed magically at midnight January 1, 2013 and that snapped me back to my daily reality.

A good friend of mine sent me a motivational message for the New Year, by a man named Jim Rohn called “The Set of the Sail” which I found more comforting than I could have imagined. He said something in that message that will stick with me forever: “Don’t wish life was easier, wish you were better.” Brilliant, I thought, simply brilliant. Because of those words, I have a small list of things that I wish I were better at, topping off the list are: persistence and patience.

I realize that I myself, like the rest of society at large, am a person willing to do hard work but I am severely impatient with anything outside of my control to get the results that I desire.  I am this way particularly in relationships. I am willing to go the extra mile, mend a fence, extend an olive branch and so on, but I go nearly insane waiting on the other party to see that my efforts are genuine and whole hearted. Not being in control of how my efforts are perceived nearly gets the better part of me every time. This is where I need persistence not to quit and patience not to walk away.

Along with better relationships, the rest of my goals for this year are somewhat lofty, and already I can feel my energy slipping away from me while wondering how these things will come about. This is where I must implement operation P.U.S.H (Persist Until Something Happens.) Sometimes such persistence can come in the form of prayer, sometimes hard work and, hardest of all, it can be in working with others to come to a solid place of understanding.

Even though a pep talk this soon into 2013 may not have been what you were expecting, let’s face it…it’s exactly what we all need.  We have to be reminded of persistent people like, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs and going back even further, Jacob (from the Bible) who worked 7 years to marry the love of his life, Rachel, only to be tricked and have to work 7 more years  to actually obtain her.

Our circumstances may not be that extreme but they are important. Whatever it is that we came into this year proclaiming, we must lay hold of, by the grace of God and the power that He sustains us with. People need the value that we have to offer the world and if we quit too soon or simply wear out waiting, we’ll just be left in our sail boats, drifting at sea, at the mercy of the next wind...