Plan B

Recently a man approached Dezra’s grandfather about doing a video biography of his life. You see Chuck is kind of a living legend, if you will. He was apart of a small group of men that started a ministry of laymen (that means non-clergy) called Light For The Lost. He would flatly reject the notion of being a hero, but the truth is he is literally responsible for taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ all over the world. The primary thrust of Light For The Lost is to purchase evangelistic literature and see it distributed worldwide. Chuck has been a part of raising multiple millions of dollars for this purpose over his life time.

In the video biography, Chuck recounted the early days of starting Light For The Lost. He told a story about meeting with a particular man he was trying to get to support LFTL. This was his first real contact in starting the group in his assigned region of the country. Without this man’s support Chuck felt it would be impossible to move forward with the ministry. The man told Chuck he wasn’t interested and didn’t want to hear about it. After that meeting, Chuck reasoned the man must have misunderstood him so he scheduled another meeting. Again the man told him he wasn’t interested. Chuck recounts that upon his second abrupt rejection he told himself, “I’m not the kind of person that quits.”

Chuck determined there was only one way to get this man to listen to him. The man was in the habit of arriving at work everyday promptly at 9 am, so Chuck would get there earlier than that and greet the man at the door. For days the man walked in the building, and Chuck would greet him then leave. On the seventh day, the man acknowledged that Chuck wasn’t going to give up so he must really believe in this new program. He invited Chuck into his office and let Chuck present LFTL to him. That man became one of Chuck’s best friends and more to the point, his chief supporter. Through his relational connections Chuck was able to take LFTL all over his region and do more than he ever dreamed. I believe this is the direct result of a man determining, “I’m not the kind of person who quits.”

I am convinced that as long as quitting is an option continuing will always be an issue. I’m not sure one can even say they have started until stopping is not an option. I guess that is why Jesus made a radical statement like, “If you’re not willing to give up everything you’re not really following me.” You see as long as there is a Plan B, Plan A will be in jeopardy. Not only do you know it, but everyone around you does to. When we decide quitting isn’t an option, finishing won’t be in question and people to journey with won’t be a problem.

The Hill

During off season when I was in Junior High our coaches made us run the hill three days a week. The hill was basically the stretch of street that ran beside the school. We would run a mile and a quarter to a stop sign and then turn around and run back. The distinctive thing about this particular stretch of road was that it was two big hills. Literally half of the time you were running down one hill and the other half back up another. Because we back tracked it was the same process repeated down then up and down then up. Have you ever run down a hill before? It sounds great right! You have gravity in your favor. It can be fun at first, but after a while it becomes a beating. The tendency to over stretch and get ahead of yourself starts to wear on you. Then there is the uphill climb. Wow, you feel like your going no where fast.

Life often seems to be like running the hill. Things are either going faster than it feels like you can handle or so slow and tedious you’re not sure if you’re making progress. One thing I learned from running the hill was that the only way to finish was to keep putting one foot in front of another. If I just kept putting one foot in front of another I always finished. Always! Most of the time you can’t control the terrain or even the pace of life, but you can control if you finish.