little ant

i watched this little ant crawl up a wall today, carrying an egg that was just as big as it's body. questions started popping up in my head. like, who trusted this little creature with such a huge task? how did he know he could carry so much? why didn't his body cripple with exhaustion? you see, i was in pure awe, unable to look away for at least three minutes. that's a long time to stare at something, in case you were wondering. but anyway, i drew an equivalent. we, as humans, do amazing things that, half the time, we cannot explain. who gives us the power to do so? what trust's us enough to take on those tasks? how do we push ourselves to the point of exhaustion, and still keep going? i thought about all the times i wanted to give up on something, but didn't, and was happy at the end that i pushed myself to keep going.

you can probably see where i am going with this. but think about it. when a four wheeler flips on top of someone, and you know that you are not strong enough to lift it off of them, but somehow, you do...how can that be explained. some would say it's adrenaline. to me, that is only a little part of it. this kind of reminds me of david and goliath. david was a very small boy, not a match for the big, giant goliath. but david defeated goliath anyway. again, what gave him the strength? why did he know that he could defeat goliath?

confidence has a play in it. but where do we find that confidence? we find it in I AM. the God of the universe. He is the only answer that makes sense. when He is the center of our being, what or who can rock us from that central point. the second part is our choice. we have to choose Him. we have to choose to tune our heart's ear to the voice of our Lord. how do we do that? by knowing His word. it becomes living to us. and when this voice is the one we are tuned into, the other outside voices are less distracting. we can tell the difference between the voice of our mother, and the voice of her sister, right? the same is for the voice of God compared to the voice of everyone else. when you grow with one voice versus another, your ear is trained to pick it out of a crowd of voices. as for the strength, both physically and mentally, it stems from your confidence and how much you push yourself. "you only give up when you let quitting become an option" (E. Campbell, RMC) an example: you set a goal of running two miles. but after one mile, your mind is already telling you your body can't handle this, your legs feel like jello, and you can't breathe "normally." so when you hit half a mile, you turn off the treadmill, and decide you are done. then you start to relax in front of the t.v. and don't feel like you even worked out at all. why is this? it's called a mind game. and it happens to us more than we think. you could have run five miles, but at mile one, you let quiting become an option, because you believed that little voice in your head that told you you couldn't do it. this happens eighty-percent of the time. God gives us the strength to run the five miles, we have to make the choice to 1. believe we can, with His help. and 2. stop believing that little voice in our head. it's that simple people.

my challenge: finish everything i start. go one day without giving up.

your challenge: try mine. :)