Do Not Grow Weary   

Ignace Jan Paderewski, the famous Polish composer-pianist, was once scheduled to perform at a great American concert hall for a high-society extravaganza.  In the audience was a mother with her fidgety nine-year-old son.  Weary of waiting, the boy slipped away from her side, strangely drawn to the Steinway on the stage.  Without much notice from the audience, he sat down at the stool and began playing Chopsticks.

The roar of the crowd turned to shouts as hundreds yelled, “Get that boy away from there!”  When Paderewski heard the uproar backstage, he grabbed his coat and rushed over behind the boy. Reaching around him from behind, the master began to improvise a countermelody to Chopsticks. As the two of them played together, Paderewski kept whispering in the boy's ear, “Keep going. Don’t quit, son; don’t stop.  You’re doing great.  Just keep on going.”

That’s kind of what Paul wrote to the Philippians.  You’ve read and heard about the apostle Paul and the kind of life he had in serving the Lord.  There were so many challenges and obstacles.  Surely he found himself often tired and weary, and perhaps even tempted from time to time to take a break and find an easier way of life. 

He also realized that others might feel the same way.  And so he wrote in Philippians 3:12-14, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  In verse 15, Paul then exhorted us to do the same in continuing on faithfully in living for the Lord.

Here’s one more illustration about perseverance. “American history shall march along that skyline,” announced Gutzon Borglum in 1924, gazing at the Black Hills of South Dakota.  In 1927, Borglum began sculpting the images of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt on the granite face of 6,000-foot Mount Rushmore.  Most of the sculpting was done by experienced miners under Borglum's direction.  Working with jackhammers and dynamite, they removed some 400,000 tons of outer rock, cutting within three inches of the final surface.  When Borglum died in March of 1941, his dream of the world's biggest sculpture was near completion.  His son Lincoln finished the work that October, some 14 years after it was begun. 

Are you ever weary of doing good?  Ever discouraged as you strive to live the Christian life?  Yes, it can seem long and difficult at times, but what a great blessing there will be to you and others if you just keep on keeping on.