Keep your eye on the prize

June 27, 2006

By Gary Rogers

There will be challenges in reaching any worthwhile destination. People who do not share your vision can stop your progress. Personal inability and feelings of inadequacy can bring a quick halt to stretching yourself past your comfort zone.

Criticism from those who always have a better way of doing it can stall you. Confusion and hurt can destroy your ability to go forward. Fatigue can bring your forward motion to a stop. Veering off course can cause you to lose sight of your dream and leave you stranded.

These obstacles can be overcome. Many times I find encouragement in reminding myself to keep my focus on the end result. Yes, along the way there are the roadblocks, barriers, and even accidents; but if we will keep our eyes on our goal, we can overcome these minor distractions and reach our final objective. How true this is from the perspective of eternity.

“As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:36,37, NKJV).

“I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

Gary Rogers is senior pastor of First Assembly of God in Coweta, Okla.