Very strict

I helped a bit this week with the medical brigade that is visiting us.  I was particularly keen this week to take time to think about what was happening around me.  Who were the patients being helped?  How amazing is it to see people study for years, and then be able to visibly make a difference in a few minutes in other's lives...and on and on.  

Yesterday, as sometimes happens, before, and then while I was conversing and setting up this Jets fan with some readers he needed, I was seeing/hearing/feeling a heaviness, in that I was in fact accomplishing nothing, that it doesn't matter, and everyone can clearly see that I am just wrong about everything.  

Thankfully, I had just been listening to a sermon on the way there by Tim Keller (the group members in the cab with me were rather quiet, so we went that route instead of music) talking about persevering and dealing with attacks.  Also, interestingly, on Sunday Rony in Las Botijas preached on something very similar.  

I took the picture as this was going through my mind, because I imagine I am not alone fighting such battles.  It is one thing when you know you are screwing up, but quite another thing to be struggling with such feelings when in fact good is happening around you. 

​When attacks come, from outside or inside, where do we go?

Clothes were purchased for all the work that will be done in the coming weeks to measure all the Milk Project children to see what they will need for Christmas this year.  Here we are in Cantarranas doing some measurements...one of 220 children to measure.  That's a lot of measuring/writing/planning.  

Work continues on the clinic campus, with the roof up on the second floor of the office building, and the walls going up as well.  This is a separate crew from our regular guys, who are still working on the office building itself with all the details left to do.  As you can see...it will be a big building space up there.  

Right now, we are just doing the roof and walls for the water issues we were having with the floor, plus the heat issues for the office building.  Perhaps next year we will work with groups to put up the false ceiling and setting up the new porch, but it will be a while before that all gets built out.

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Turns out, the word persevere originates way back being "very strict" or "very severe."  

Persevering, staying the course in doing good, in the right frame of mind, in resting in the shadow of the Almighty, requires continual training, and a mindset of very strictly moving forward in Him. 

Otherwise, even in times of good, "stuff" will conspire to throw us off course.