Hard Work

Mediocrity. Complacency. Drifting. Where words like majesty and splendor inspire me to live an epic life, words like mediocrity have a nasty aftertaste. They make me feel sick. I have no desire to allow what matters most drift past me while I sit on the bank, pick flowers, and skip rocks across the water. I need a resolve, a dedication to seek God and His kingdom. And, I need to work hard. A friend reminded me recently of the importance of doing everything heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. I typically focus on the second half of that verse--"as to the Lord and not to men." However, what my friend brought out was the importance of working heartily. Work hard. Play hard. Live today to the fullest. Dare great things for the kingdom.

These are some quotes by a man who dared great things and overcame incredible barriers in life: Theodore Roosevelt.

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

"I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being."

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Don't fear failure. He is the Victor, and He is the Completer of all good works He begins.