I'll simply define Persistence here, as the act of Winning By Sticking Around.

Now here's a short story...

John Osteen was the founding pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest church in the United States. But Lakewood Church was not always a large church. Started in 1959 In an abandoned feed store in a predominantly black neighborhood, Osteen was faithful to give his best every day to the small group of people who initially attended his church. His passion & his zeal then attracted many more people, & by the time Osteen died in 1999, he had built a thriving congregation of over 43,000 people under his son & successor, Joel Osteen.
Towards the end of his life, Osteen was being questioned by a writer about the great church he had built. And, of course, the writer wanted to know Osteen's "secret" for success, that which had enabled him to do what few church leaders had ever done in the history of Christendom...



Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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When confronted with this question, Osteeen simply said that he had been successful because he had been in Houston longer than any other pastor. The other pastors who where there when he first arrivf in 1959 had died, retired, or accepted positions in other comunities. They where no lmger at their posts in Houston. Osteen attributed his success, therefore, to the fact that he had simply been around longer than his peers. While others had packed up & moved away over the years, he stuck things through, & he stayed in Houston so long that he basically outlasted all others.

Persistence is one of the mort common qualities of great achievers. Sure, other qualities play a role. But persistence uniquely stands out.
The longer you stay in the race, even if you aren't the fastest or the most highly conditioned, the more likely you are to prevail. Success often comes, not through skill or ambition or even ingenuity, but through simple, old-fashioned guts.



Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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I don't have to tell you that your climb to the top of the ladder won't always be easy. You already know that. But what you may not always consider is that persistence pays off. Sometimes you just have to plant your feet, dig in, & refuse to be moved. No matter how much passion you may posses, or strong your vision may be, people, circumstances, & distractions will always raise their ugly heads. In the end, you just need to stick around, no matter how hard it gets & long it takes.
The "greats" are committed to their goals, & that commitment is not built upon emotion or circumstances. As they face difficulties along the way, they learn lesson they didn't know when they started out, they develop new attitude they previously never had. They face setbacks & defeats that force them make difficult decisions & to reevaluate their priorities & methods. With a strongly positive attitude, they just won't forfeit the game.



Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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Most people give up when they are just about to achieve success & it's most likely because of their ignorance about how far they've gone in the struggle for greatness. That's true. Sadly people will fight hard the entire game & then give up during the last minute of the game when they have the ball.

There's a story abouth a woman, Edith. When Edith was in high school (in a small town), as a young girl, she was an impressive long-distance runner. She was fast. She had endurance. Nobody could compete with her. Edith attended a tiny school in the middle of nowhere, & in those days when she was growing up, she rarely had the opportunity to travel to a large town, much less a city. But when Edith was running track for her small rural high school, her school won the regional championships, & Edith had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run in the state championships in a large city.



Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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When the time came for Edith's event, she ran her typically strong race. Coming around the last corner of the final lap, Edith had her typically commanding lead over the rest of the feild. The second-place runner was many yards behind her. But as Edith approached the finish line, she encountered an obstacle she didn't know how to confront. Astonishingly, Edith came to a screeching halt & just stood there & stared @ the strange sight. It was a tape, stretched across the track @ the finish line, & Edith had never seen a tape before. She didn't know what to do. Was she supposed to Crawl under it? Jump over it? Had the race been stopped? What was going on?
As she stood there pondering m the strange sight, the second-place runner finally caught up with her & broke through the tape to take the gold medal. Edit was the fastest runner in the event, but just one foot short of the finish line, she failed to take her rightful prize.



Apostle Paul Eshiet
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Here's another story about giving up @ the edge of success, ignorantly.

A group of miners were trapped a cave-in in West Virginia back in the days before they had sophisticated search & rescue equipment. As they were prone to do in those days, these miners ured their own tools to begin digging toward the surface. They knew their chances of survival was slim, but they kept digging with the hope they might beat the odds & break throuh to freedom.
Eventually, they lost their battle. They had dug for days, & had made commendable progress, but they died before they could areak through to the fresh air & sunshine. When the search & rescue team finally found their corpse, they where alarmed to learn that the miners where only a couple of inches from the surface. If they had just slung the pick a couple of more times, they'd have broken through, to survive. They lost their lives just a couple of inches from safety.



Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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In the Bible, few people were as tenacious as the apostle Paul. That poor man went through beatings, imprisonments, false accusations, loneliness, sickness, persecution, rejection, & a whole host of other things that'd have caused the most committed among us to give up. But Paul never gave up, he became one of the greatest leaders in the early Church, established countless churches around the Mediterranean, mentored strong men to succeed him in his ministry, & wrote most of the NT epistles.
Paul used the analogy of a race to describe his own approach to his vision & life's work @ th end (2 Timothy 4:7).
Most real-life situations has shown that disciplined consistency can often win in the end. No matter how severe it may be, your storm can't last forever. You can change course if need be. But, don't quit paddling your boat.
With persistence & patience, you can actually become the creator of new circumstances.



Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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There's an old Japanese proverb that says, "Fall down seven times; get up eight." And the Bible declares, "For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again..." (Proverbs 24:16 NIV). The secret is to not quit.
Your ability to stay on target in the face of setbacks & disapointments is really a measuring rod you & others can use to determine your level of belief in yourself.
Ross Perot, who eventually became a billimaire, was rejected 78 times before he made his first sale. And Thomas Edison made over 10,000 attempts before he finally crafted a viable light bulb. Micheal Jordan missed-basket 5,000 times before becoming NBAs' best.
Persistence, therefore, is one of the key traits that seperate those who just get by from those who are truly remarkable. So don't quit! Don't give up. And never, never give in.
If @ first you don't succeed, then you are among most of the world's greatest achievers.



Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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When you run into a roadblock on your journey to greatness, stop & think for a moment before you turn around. First, think about it that this highway of achievement needs to be riddled with potholes & barriers. The roadblocks are there to seperate the strong from the weak & truly great people from those who just think they're great. Knowing the roadblocks are purposely built into the journey should help you continue because you'll then have realistic expectations. The trip is an expedition, wasn't to be easy.
Second, seing at obstacle, there's always a way around it. Perhaps underneath it, around to the left or right, or perhaps over it. There's more than one way to scale a mountain. So instead of crawling back home in defeat, take a few minutes & brainstorm with yourself. Think of three ways you can overcome this challenge. Sometimes the best strategy won't always be the obvious one or the first one.



Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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For centuries, Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain loomed insurmountable to the world's best climbers, due to the climate, altitude, & terrain. With all these, it seemed impossible for a human being to scale the peak of that monstrous edifice of nature. But in 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary successfully ascended the summit of Mount Everest. Since then, around 3,000 people have made the journey.
Building on this knowledge, i've come to a state of beiief, that there's no such thing as a problem without a solution.
As long as there is breath in your lungs & a head on your shoulders, no matter how hard it gets along your path to achievement, always tell yourself, "It's too early to quit."
You can keep up the good faith-race in the marathon of life. If you don't quit, you'll eventually "inch" your way to the finish line & wear the victor's crown.

GLORY AWAITS THE PERSISTENT.

The end.




Apostle Paul Eshiet.
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Try to follow my other thread (RELATIONSHIPS-no man is an island) to its conclusion.

May the grace of God which abounds around you, cause a favourable event to take place in your life this weekend.

Have a wonderful week ahead.

If at first you don't succeed, then you are among the world's greatest achievers...

when the dust settles, it will be truly rewarding.