Determined to succeed

It was my sophomore year in college at Bethany Bible College in Scotts Valley, California. Finals week. Lots of exams. Lots of pressure.

To deflate some of that pressure, a few of us went down to the board walk one night that week in Santa Cruz and rode the wooden roller coaster there 23 times.

Up and down.

Last Sunday, I shared that in the process of relocating our church - that is has been like a roller coaster. Up and down. Times of extreme victory, and times of extreme challenge.

Dealing with the village of Orland, lawyers, contractors, builders, architects...it's interesting! Especially in Chicago!

Yet we are determined to persevere!

There is a verse in Isaiah 50:7 that has become one of my life verses:

"Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not b put to shame."

Many times, it comes down to setting our "face like flint" and depending upon God and moving forward no matter what obstacles come our way.

An outstanding example of perseverance is Madame Marie Curie, who worked together with her French physicist husband, Pierre Curie, in an old abandoned leaky shed without funds and without outside encouragement or help, trying to isolate radium from a low-grade uranium ore called pitchblende.

After their 487th experiment had failed, Pierre threw up his hands in despair and said, "It will never be done. Maybe in a hundred years, but never in my day."

Marie confronted him with a resolute face and said, "If it takes a hundred years, it will be a pity, but I will not cease to work for it as long as I live."

She was eventually successful.

Let me tell you - we will be successful, because we are determined to succeed. But even more importantly, most importantly, we know that God is with us. We will make it because God is helping us, leading us and guiding us.

And, where God guides, he provides.