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Persistence

【Motivation】The story has been told about a frog who fell in a large pothole and couldn’t get out. Even his friends couldn’t get him to muster enough strength to jump out of the deep pothole. They gave him up to his fate. But the next day they saw him bounding around just fine. Somehow he had made it out, and so they asked him how he did it, adding, “We thought you couldn’t get out.” The frog replied, “I couldn’t, but a truck came along and I had to.”

【Motivation】In his book Dedication and Leadership (South Bend, Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1966), on why Communism has more apparent success than Christianity in reaching out to new areas, Douglas Hyde said: “If, on the other hand, the majority of members, from the leaders down, are characterized by their single-minded devotion to the cause, if it is quite clear that the majority are giving until it hurts… then those who consider joining will assume that this is what will be expected of them. If they nonetheless make the decision to join they will come already conditioned to sacrifice till it hurts.”

【Motivation】Dr. Frederik Herzberg, writing in the Harvard Business Review, concluded from his research that six factors must be present to keep people highly motivated about sustained responsibility:

1.Achievement

2.Recognition

3.The task itself

4.Responsibility

5.Advancement

6.Opportunity for growth

【Persistence】A common phenomenon in nature is “the path of least resistance.” Electricity moving through a circuit will always travel where it has the “easiest” route. Cars are developed aerodynamically so there will be minimal wind resistance. Rivers always travel around a mountain because it is easier than going through one.

Frequently people are like that, too. It is easier to sit in front of the T.V. than to care for a neighbor’s needs. It is easier to get angry at your mate and let that anger diminish (or smolder) over the course of time rather than sitting down and working the problem through. Thumbing through a Reader’s Digest is much easier than a time of personal Bible study. And so we find that we humans are prone to take the “path of least resistance.”

But there is one difference between ourselves and electricity or a river. They will never have to give an account of what they have done. We will. Thus, perhaps we should incline ourselves to take the path of greatest persistence.