Plodding Ahead

Brenda and I just returned from lunch. I had her laughing when I told her I was just one book away from a best seller. She cracked up. I can assure you I do not feel like a best selling author today. I do not feel like a successful pastor either. Today I feel like a plodder.

Much of my life at the moment looks like plodding. I plod ahead in my preaching through Psalms on Sunday morning and I Corinthians on Wednesday nights. I plod ahead with these blogs and go to bed shamed that I did not work on the many book projects I have going. I plod ahead in visiting the sick in the hospitals. I plod ahead with the work in building the hospital in Honduras. I am plodding ahead in the book Isaiah in my quiet times currently. I am plodding ahead through about six different books in my personal reading progressing through them slowly.

I cannot report a great deal of excitement in my life right now. There is the simple day- to-day plodding ahead with responsibilities. I am not saying plodding is a bad thing. I admire those who have learned the art of plodding. Much has been accomplished over the years from those who learned to plod ahead even when they did not feel like it.

Far too many times in my life I have gotten excited about things only to watch the new fade away into boredom and monotony. I got excited about golf for a season years ago but have not played one time since moving to Seminole. I used to enjoy and start many tasks only to let them go by the wayside. Skateboarding as a teenager. Bicycling on and off for the past ten years. Power lifting. Running. More rounded reading. Finishing my master’s degree. All things started and left uncompleted. All things I did not plod ahead in.

I know the slow but steady progress of plodding. I know when I start a new book that the newness and excitement will wear off. I have trouble getting motivated to plod ahead in finishing the revised edition of Only Believe. I have done little work on the book about our revival last August. I have new project in my mind for a book titled: I Will Follow. It will take a lot of plodding to getting those books from idea forms to manuscripts on the printed page. The books will not be completed without plodding ahead. I know every Sunday is not going feel like a revival. I have to plod ahead preaching when the altar is flooded and when not one person responds. I know every dinner is not going to be a “Ward and June Cleaver” moment. Brenda plods ahead cooking meal after meal we eat as a family. She plods through laundry. The boys plod through school work and athletic workouts.

I am feeling like a plodder. Even writing this blog feels like plodding. There are days when the ideas and words flow faster than I can type. Today I have started over four times. Every sentence seems to be labor. Each idea must be pulled from my head onto this screen with great effort. Through plodding it is coming together. I am learning to fight through my feelings of abandoning this task for something easier. By plodding ahead I will get finished.

I know there are many of you who know what I am talking about. You have plodded through marriage, raising kids, and mortgage payments. Some of you have had to plod through painful divorces. Others are plodding ahead in life coping with the death of a spouse or a parent. Many plod ahead week after week from paycheck to paycheck. It is not easy. How many have plodded ahead in jobs they did not always enjoy. How many have plodded ahead to meet deadlines, finish school, to volunteer at church and in the community. We are all a bunch of plodders.

What are you plodding through right now? Grief, debt, work, marriage, divorce, toddlers, diapers, plowing, praying for rain or something else? I wish there was an easy button like on the commercials. We all know better. We have to keep plodding ahead. We get up each day and set our hearts to plod. Over time plodders can accomplish a great deal.

I am plodding through a season of sorrow and suffering in Seminole. Each day seems to bring a new wave of hardships. I visited people in two different emergency rooms yesterday in two different cities. I have prayed for and ministered to some who have spent weeks in the hospitals plodding through rehab back toward good health. I have grieved with those who walked through the valley of the shadow of death. I have stood next to families who have been decimated by injuries and heartaches. All of this in the past couple of months.

All I can do is keep plodding along with the people. I keep plodding ahead in prayer trusting better days will come. I keep pressing my heart toward Heaven asking for rain that has not come now for months. The farmers plod ahead in the fields irrigating and plowing. Farmers know how to plod.

Our circumstances may not change. We might have to spend a whole lifetime plodding ahead but God gives strength to plod. [Phil 4:13] Through Him we can get up each day and put one foot in front of the other. He can enable us not to grow weary and quit. [Gal 6:9] We might not make great advances each day. We might not see great achievements but we will progress if we keep plodding. So to all my fellow plodders, full steam ahead.