day 763: Committed For The Long-Haul

"Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about what happens to you."

The other day a colleague and I were debating a company's strategic direction and came to the conclusion that regardless if they were right or they were wrong, they were to be commended because they are committed and sticking to it and only time would tell whether they are correct in their assumptions or not. A month or so ago I mentioned Netflix as an example of a company who was so committed to moving into the future that they were burning the ships behind them with the spinning off of their DVD shipping business so they could focus on their streaming segment. It was a gutsy move and I applauded them for it because no matter how flexible and how long your legs are, you can't do a deep enough split to keep one foot in the past and another far enough in the future. Something has to give and it should be the foot that moves out of the past and into the future. Netflix was doing that, and then they changed their mind. They were not committed to their strategy for the long-haul. They vacillated and now they are stuck. I was surprised because it is a company built on strong convictions and some unshakable points of view. If we are going to be committed, we need to be really committed. Once we go, we need to keep going. Like an airplane, we lift off, we adjust the engines for less thrust, and then we level off, but an airplane knows no reverse and if the engines stall, bad things happen. Once we decide to go, we must go and stick with it.

As individuals it is hard to stick with things. Too many distractions are out there and we can find ourselves casting about and not following through. We must also be committed for the long-haul in our spiritual lives and committed enough that there is no going back. We can be that example to others in our work lives and that example can be the glimpse of what it is like to follow Christ. He never looked back. He was committed beyond any commitment that we will ever know. He left the earth for us, but He did not leave us. We know that we can give all of our worries, our doubts, our fears, or anything that gets in the way of us following through for Him, and He will take care of us to get us through. Undoubtedly, we all have one, or many of those cares upon us today. Let's start this work day with giving them up to Him and asking Him to carry us through the long-haul, with no going back.

Reference: 1 Peter 5:7 (New Living Testament)