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Earnest Shackleton and his men sailed for Antarctica on the very day that England declared war on Germany in World War One. At their first port of call the party sent word they would abandon their expedition and offered themselves and the ship to their country. But Shackleton received a cable from a man who could see the ultimate value of the venture even in the moment of a national struggle for survival. The message was a single word: “Proceed,” and it was signed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
It’s so easy to turn aside from our main goal and be lured in other directions if we are not careful. That happened to the Rich Fool in one of the parables of Jesus. The man was so focused on his success, and building additional barns, he forgot about his soul. The verdict came suddenly, and without warning, when God said, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you.”
Life comes to all of us as it did to the Rich Fool. We know not when the pronouncement shall be made, “This night your soul is required of you.”
All of us need to proceed in the Christian life with the same determination of the apostle Paul who desired to attain the resurrection from the dead. Listen to his resolve: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil.3:12-14).
When Paul writes to the churches of Galatia he says, “And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” To the Thessalonians he said, “Brethren, do not be weary in well-doing.” The writer of the book of Hebrews enjoins us, “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”
We must proceed so that Christ may say of us as he did of the church at Ephesus, “I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary” (Rev. 2:3).
John Gipson