Your Personal Best

I wanted to take a break from writing book reports since I’m not posting quite as often.  I don’t want to bore ya’ll 😉

Okay…Book reports aren’t boring, but I like writing about more than just book reports.  So there.  Here it goes!

A couple months ago, I was running very hard to hit a goal in my business.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, and I felt like I was doing everything I possibly could to get there.  The trouble was, the stress was starting to overwhelm me.  Big time.  The deadline was getting closer, and I felt like I was getting no where.

“What is this?!”  I screamed to myself, “Why can’t you do this?”

It got to the point where all I thought about was my unachieved goal, and my chest would tighten whenever I thought of it.

Less than a week.  The pressure was on.  I had committed to many of my teammates that I would make this goal, and now I wasn’t sure if I was going to.

Well, not surprisingly, it was the topic of my prayers during my morning devotional 3 days before my deadline.  I was writing in my journal, and then it hit me.  This phrase just suddenly popped into my head:

“Give me your best, and I’ll do the rest.”

Call it what you will, I believe it was God reminding me that I had forgotten about Him.  That I had been trying to do this all on my own.  That I had been praying for HIM to help ME do it by MY own strength.

I had tried to push my Lord out of the very thing I was doing for His glory.

Instantly, I remembered the message of one of audios I had listened to the day before.  The speaker was talking about giving it your all and leaving it all out on the field.  In his talk, he referenced a movie called Facing the Giants (an independent Christian film).  In this movie, there’s a scene called, “the death crawl scene.”  I have included it in this post for your convenience – the rest of the post will make a lot more sense if you watch it 🙂

Suddenly, the message from the above clip – “Don’t quit!  Don’t QUIT!” – and the phrase from my devotional – “Do your best, and I’ll take care of the rest” – clicked together.  I realized that I had forgotten to trust in God.  It was like God was saying, “Give me your personal best, and I’ll get you the rest of the way.  But give me your personal best.”

So, that night, I kept running for my goal.  I prayed and asked God to help me trust Him whole-heartedly, and I gave it my best.  I poured everything into what I was doing and ran until the last minute.

And I made it.

I didn’t make it on my own, but that’s kind of the point.  Achieving anything great on my own is impossible without God’s help.  He desires my personal best because in that work ethic, I give Him glory – my personal best on its own isn’t enough.  In addition to that, it wasn’t even my efforts that directly contributed to the achievement – it was my amazing teammates’.  They rallied for me because I was running hard, and we did it together.

The victory was even better because I didn’t do it by myself.

It gives me sense of peace to know that the God of angel armies is always by my side.  Trust Him, and give it your all.  He’ll give you the strength to do your personal best in the first place, and you’ll know you’re not alone.

Even though sometimes not everything goes as I planned, I am learning to trust that everything will work out according to HIS plan 🙂

To God be the glory!

Until next time,

Hope Frances