FAINTING?

Life is a journey. 

Life is a race.

Each individual has his/her own course.

The duration of each one's race differs.

Each person's experiences on the race also differ from person to person.

However, a common thread that runs through all of our experiences in the journey of life, all of us, is the fact that life's journey is fraught with the contingency to be discouraged from time to time.

Owing mostly to disappointments, unforeseen, unanticipated, unsavory bends in the road and so forth, our journey is never completely devoid of occasions when we are tempted to be downcast and dispirited. 

Such was the experience of Gideon in Judges chapter 8.

He and three hundred soldiers took on the implausible task of fighting and defeating the fifteen-thousand-man -strong army of the Midianites headed by two unyielding kings. (The story actually begins in Chapter 7).

This was going to be no picnic! 

As expected, their quest was arduous to say the least as shown in verse 4:

Judges 8:4

And Gideon came to the Jordan and passed over, he and the 300 men with him, FAINT YET PURSUING. ( emphasis mine)

Gideon and his men got to a point in their journey where they were exhausted physically, mentally and otherwise. They were breathless from weariness. Yet, they kept going.

They were fainting yet pursuing!

Friend, there is no race without the propensity for discouragement!

The race of life is a race of endurance, if you intend to make anything out of it.

It is okay to feel faint. 

But whatever you do, keep going. Keep pursuing (your dreams, goals, aspirations, desires, the change you long for). Keep pursuing!

On the flip side of your dogged pursuit is victory! 

That is the guarantee we have as believers; that we all have a common destination despite our routes on the journey of life. That destination is glory! 

Romans 8:30

30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

So, quit complaining about how tough your race is or how easy someone else's race seems. (You never can tell what battles other people are fighting, so stay in your own lane and run your own race!). 

If you refuse to give up or cut corners, it will all end in praise. It will all end in glory. It will all be well at the end of the day.

The important thing about the challenges of life is who we are becoming as a result of them.

Challenges toughen us. Help us grow. Make us more sympathetic to other people's situations. So ultimately we become better people at the other side of our most difficult challenges. We become more ably suited for the greater heights we seek in life because of the things we have endured and overcome.

To wrap up let me mention that there can be no endurance and staying power without the grace of God.  Paul states it this way:

1 Corinthians 15:10

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Grace is the most potent anti-weariness weapon that there is! 

God's grace!

God's divine enablement!

Hardly a day passes in my life when I don't consciously ask for and absolutely depend on God's grace in everything. 

As we go into this weekend, I pray that God's grace will be more than sufficient for you too.

Keep pursuing. Keep at it. 

Your night will soon give way to daybreak.

Joy is coming....!!!