It’s amazing what persistence brings. We might not have the same ability as someone else but if we persist the results will be good.

We haven’t had much rain at our cottage over the last little while. I don’t usually mind though because we go long periods of time between visits, especially during the spring.

When we’re not there, my brother cuts my lawn for me. I don’t really want it growing like crazy so he doesn’t have to cut it as much.

The problem with that is, by the time the summer drought comes, my lawn is all brown, with mostly sand and a few green weeds. There’s just not much else.

To give you an idea of what my lawn is like right now, I haven’t cut it in three weeks and it still doesn’t need cutting. It looks like it is in a semi-desert climate! All I need to do is take a whipper snipper to a few weeds that are raising their heads above the dirt.

However, my brother’s lawn is lush and green; his grass is thick with no weeds at all.

The difference is a stark contrast. His cottage looks like it is in a little oasis surrounded by a parched and weary land.

Now my brother is no landscaper, and he’s not some kind of super horticulturist. All he does is put water on his lawn, and not just now and then, but regularly, every day.

He has been persistent to the point of installing in-ground sprinklers on timers. So every day, whether he is at his cottage or not, his grass gets the water it needs to thrive and grow thick.

On the other hand, I bought a soaker hose a few days ago and watered my lawn for a couple of hours … It looks just the same as before.

It’s not just the water, it’s the persistence of putting the water on the lawn that makes the difference.

In fact, persistence has made my brother’s lawn respond to water better than mine does.

Yesterday we got a downpour. The rain came down so hard we had puddles all over the lawn. My lawn got more water in the first fifteen minutes of that downpour than it did in the two hours I watered it the day before.

So today I thought I would see a difference, maybe just a little more green, maybe a few more patches of grass starting to spring up. No, it looked like it did the day before and the day before that.

It reminded me of the dream Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh in the Bible, where the skinny stocks of corn ate the thick full ones and still looked as skinny and scrawny as they did before.

Over at my brother’s place, after that rain last night, even the one patch of grass that doesn’t get quite as much water as the rest had responded and was now as green as ever.

Here’s the thing: We may not be the greatest prayer warriors, or be able to dig the deepest into the riches of a Bible passage. We may not be theological giants like some. But persistence in praying and reading your Bible will pay off in a lush, rich understanding of God and result in a vibrant relationship with Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to be more persistent in? Leave your comment below.