Big Results From Small Beginnings

A big year

Full of wonder and joy

Starts from something

That might even annoy.

Small and humble starts

Invariably prepare our hearts

So don’t be put off

By an initial testing trough.

Big things that were built strong invariably had small, underwhelming beginnings. The key to life change and the achievement of goals is bearing any initial discouragement and distraction admirably.

***

Just about the start of every year, I have found, starts slowly. It’s almost as if January commences with a setback or two, as if God is testing the resolve of my faith to patiently bear with the anomalies of life I hadn’t predicted. Like the desire to get physically fit, and then there is an injury to deal with – like constant lower back spasms and misalignment of my spine.

The test is to patiently bear the slowness of January, to not give up on the targets I have set myself, and to loan from the experience of yesteryear. Past years have told me to not be discouraged, as I look back on them, because life gets cranking again, and normalcy returns, in February and March. Big years emerged from small, faithful beginnings in January.

Bearing Patiently to Slow Time

There are downtimes as well uptimes, and we are blessed to bear the boredom as well as the chaos of busyness.

Patiently bearing a time when progress on our goals is blocked is certainly a test of faith. When we don’t need to put pressure on ourselves, we shouldn’t. Why would we get frustrated with ourselves when the matters of blockage are out of our hands?

When you are out of step with continuity, or the continuity has slowed, there is no benefit to anyone in getting frustrated. The only sane option is to bear these things patiently, and we know we can.

When we focus on the vision ahead, and we don’t lose sight of what we believe we can achieve, and we bear the frustration patiently, we are doing everything we can do, and our goals will be achieved at the proper time. Not only do we achieve what we set out to achieve, we prove to ourselves that we have the fortitude of faith, to rely faithfully on God even when the chips are down.

***

Bearing our frustrations patiently is the engagement of faith within a testing life. And if we are able to see life as a series of tests, intermingled with various joys, we are no longer surprised and hamstrung when they come. In bearing tests patiently we take innocuous beginnings and give to them power for significant outcomes.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.