Today's post is reblogged from The Brook Network by Mel Lawrenz
"You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (Heb. 10:36).
William Carey began his barrier-breaking work in India in 1798 with enthusiasm. It took perseverance to build cultural connections where nobody had before. To learn indigenous languages, write and print grammars and dictionaries, translate the Bible into Sanskrit.
In a single day, March 11, 1812, the years of work vanished. A fire in Carey’s print shop consumed his entire library, his completed Sanskrit dictionary, part of his Bengal dictionary, two grammar books, and ten translations of the Bible. Also lost were a large supply of English paper, dictionaries, deeds, and account books. Seventeen years of work were taken away. The core accomplishments of the mission were just gone.
Years earlier, William Carey tried to explain to his skeptical father that he had something constructive to do in far-away India. No one had done this kind of work before. It is why Carey is called “the father of modern missions.” He couldn’t tell his father at that time that he could practice medicine, because he wasn’t a doctor. Couldn’t say that he’d serve India’s political needs, because he had no skill in civil affairs. Carey told his father an ordinary thing that was rooted in his personal ordinariness. He said of himself: “I can plod.”
After the fire Carey knew what needed to be done. Despite the heartache and discouragement, he knew that he and his fellow-workers could retrace their steps and start with page one of the dictionary, the grammars, and the Bible translations. Page two after that. And the trajectory was set. Carey said he believed that it’s easier to walk a road the second time–and that is just what they did. It took years, but he recreated what the fire had stolen. By the end of Carey’s life, the Bible had been produced in whole or in part in forty-four different languages.10
He could plod, and he did plod. One foot in front of the other; one page after another.
Hardly any of us would list in our credentials: I can plod. No one in a job interview today, when asked about his or her capabilities would say to the boss: “Well, I can plod.” The word sounds a bit thick and ugly even when we say it.
Yet by any fair reading of Scripture, the greatest leaders were plodders. Moses on a decades-long march.
David fleeing his enemies, hiding in caves. Jesus walking from one village to the next. Paul making long looping journeys, continually facing the same jealousies, criticism, and skepticism–and that was from his fellow Christian leaders.
It is the plodders who make things happen. They have faced “trials of many kinds.” And when they learned perseverance by not giving up, they were stronger, wiser, and more energized than before to keep their eyes on the right horizon.
Here is the secret of plodding, or persevering: you have faith that if today you take just one step in the right trajectory, you have done something constructive, and God is pleased with it.
“…you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:3-4)
What do you think of the statement: “I can plod”
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