David Augsburg in his book “When Enough is Enough” wrote some sage advice…

“People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered.    Love them anyway.   

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.  Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.  Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.   Do good anyway.

Honesty will make you vulnerable.   Be honest anyway.  

The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds.   Think big anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.  Build anyway.

People really need help, but may attack you if you do help them.  Help them anyway.”

Life is “tough” – live it anyway (Doug Duty)

 

You have (you may have had) some impressive ideas, some daring dreams and powerful potential… It is my prayer that you never lose those – if you have I pray that you can rekindle them. You see if you do lose that, life takes on “mundaneness” – sort of just going through the motions.

 I want to tell you today about a great example of living in the Old Testament, in fact it is one of (if not the #1) favorites of mine in the Bible.    But first -

Think back to the dreams and hopes and aspirations that you had… what kept you from them, what kept you from reaching them? Sure life is difficult, sure life has its twists and turns BUT life can be lived with an upward calling… life can be lived with those “dreams” finding reality. 

Let’s look at one man in the bible that made those “dreams” into reality… my friend Nehemiah. I love the life of Nehemiah; what he did, what drove him, how he went about his calling… in his life you can see several aspects of a person living upwards…

At the beginnings of what was driving Nehemiah – In Nehemiah chapter 1 verse 4 it reads – “Now it came about when I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.”

You see, Nehemiah - Had heart – when he heard the suffering and demise of the people his heart was broken; he felt for them and that feeling lead him to do something.

I know that it is easy to get caught up in our own circle, our own limited world. In this day and age it is far too easy to become callous, jaded and removed. We are bombarded by television, newspapers and the internet until we are numb. And once that happens we pull inward – we no longer see possibilities – we only want to survive. That is when we lose heart and we lose the drive to strive for something bigger than ourselves. And then we lose our dreams and aspirations, our goals become only distant “has beens”.

What are we to do –

1. Don’t let today’s circumstance steal tomorrow’s hopes.

Nehemiah could have. While he was doing all right for himself as the king’s cupbearer he had dreams of going home, of being with his people and he saw more in his life than what was happening at the moment.

2. Don’t let today’s “stuff” harden your heart.

It is far, far too easy to get hardened by the world, to want to put a shield around your heart because you are tired of getting hurt. But when that happens you lose the ability to feel compassion and passion for something more.

3. Don’t let today’s activities keep you from going to God.

Nehemiah, heart moved, went straight to God, he talked with God and shared his concerns and his broken heart. We will find out later that Nehemiah did that a lot! When was the last time you took your dreams and hopes, you hearts desires to God and told Him how deeply you felt them?

 

Take a look – where is your heart, where are your dreams?

See you “in the trenches” –

Doug