A long obedience in the same direction….

How are you at “staying the course?”
Sometimes we have to move on, situations change, and circumstances conspire to prevent us from going on in the path we have been following or to open up new opportunities. At that time it is right to stop what we have been doing and start new things.

Yet as I look around I think that more and more you and I live in a culture of quitting.

People try marriage, find it hard, and quit.
We try jobs and find them difficult and walk away.
We take up diets and we quit.
We take up fitness programs for a few weeks, then quit.
We start going to church and quit. 

More than half the members on the average church roll of our denomination rarely darken the doors of the church. What happened to them? They quit. 



Eugene Peterson wrote a book on the Psalms called "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction." That line is a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche who wrote, "The essential thing 'in heaven and earth' is...that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living." 



What he calls "a long obedience in the same direction," the Bible calls steadfastness, faithfulness, and perseverance. It means to get on the road and stay there. To hang in there and keep on, keeping on.

Take dieting! How many diets have you tried? We have all done it, start a diet, don't see any quick results, get discouraged and quit. We start well, and then we have a ‘few days off’, and we feel so guilty that we quit.
Did you know that God has made us so that we lose weight slowly? It's a built-in protection against starvation. Maybe it doesn't mean much to us, but countless millions of others across the world owe their lives to God's creative genius in the way He made us!
Perhaps the goal we should be aiming for is not to lose weight. Perhaps our goal should be good health! And Good health does not come in a weekend, so give it a couple of years before you start checking your statistics!

That is how the Christian life is lived: regardless. Regardless of circumstances, opposition, feelings, discouragements, and hardships. Regardless of emotions, put-downs, doubts, and obstacles. Day by day, one step at a time, persevering to the end.
 It is a long obedience in the same direction.

2 Corinthians 4 gives us several reasons to keep on keeping on.

“We do not lose heart” Paul says, “We do not quit.” Why?



Because in the past, as he says in verse 1, God has shown us mercy and given us a ministry.
Because in the present, as he says in verse 16, even though our outer man is wasting away yet our inner man is being renewed by the Lord day by day.
Because in the future, as he says in verse 14, the Lord has promised the resurrection and a harvest.

How do we make sure we hang in there? Paul gives us one answer in verse 2. "Renounce the hidden things." Come clean. Harbour no secret sins. Deal with them or they will sabotage your life.
 A long obedience in the direction of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way to go. 



As Winston Churchill once said, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense."