One of the childhood stories that made an impact on my life was
the story of the Tortoise and the hare. Everyone knows the story
– the hare who was very fast was racing against the Tortoise
who was, well, not the fastest runner in the animal kingdom.
The hare was so confident in winning the race that he lollygags
around playing and enjoying himself while the Tortoise just kept
plodding along and when the Hare realized that the Tortoise was
near the finish line it was too late, even with his speed, to catch
- I was taught that the moral of the story was, “Don’t get
overconfident. Keep running the race until it is over. But the
lesson I took from the story was plod on. I was never a great
athlete but I would plod on, I may not be good at a particular
game but I was going to plod on. Some people call that
stubbornness. I called it being tenacious, really it was just
plodding. And whether it was football basketball or baseball,
even though I was never the most gifted athlete, I would never
give up until the final horn or the final out was made. And this
was something that I have tried to carry over into my life. I
have never felt I was the best preacher, or the best organizer, or
had the most charismatic personality, or really the best at
anything but whatever I do I can put my best effort into it. But I
believe there is a virtue in staying after something and not
giving up.
Albert Einstein once said about his accomplishments: “It’s not
that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” We
tend to attribute Einstein’s greatness to his genius. He attributed
it to his persistence.
Missionary and social reformer William Carey said something
similar. “I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To
this I owe everything.” Like Einstein, Carey attributed his
accomplishments not to his own brilliance, but to simple
persistence.
I love both of these quotes because these strengths —
persistence and perseverance have always come in handy for
- You may never be as talented as you would like to be, or
have the resources that you would like to have, and you may not
always get the immediate results that you would like to get…but
you can plod. You can stay with problems longer than others do.
And you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish. Every day
you can be as persistent as you want to be.
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we
will reap, if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9).”