Don't Ever Give Up

"But as for you, be strong and courageous,

for your work will be rewarded."

2 Chronicles 15:7 (NIV)

God wants us to never give up in doing His work. If we give God our whole hearts and lives to Him, God will give us the strength and courage to press on, and our work will be richly rewarded. But if we are half-hearted and hypocritical in living for God, then our work will become nothing more than a drudgery and an everyday struggle, creating a life of misery and unfruitfulness.

As God's children we are never to give up in serving Him. God may lead us down an unexpected path, and we may not understand why, but if we are faithful to Him, our work will always be rewarded.

Osha, our young Lynx-Point Siamese, constantly torments Hunter, our Black Angora Cat, and Barlow, our Yorkshire Terrier, by ensnaring and biting their tails. So the other day I bought Osha a tail toy. My son Tim placed the new toy on the top edge of our dinning room table with the tail dangling below. Then Tim took a slow-motion video of Osha as he cautiously tried several times to catch the tail of this previously unknown and unseen subject.

Osha isn't sure what to expect, but he follows his God-given instinct to capture the snake-like moving toy. Eventually he succeeds! It's priceless to see Osha's face as he struggles at first to accomplish his goal, and his reaction when the tail finally falls off the table without a dog or cat attached to it: he stares perplexedly at the lifelessness of it as it lies on the floor.