As I was driving through northern Florida yesterday on my way to Ft. Pierce’s airport, I heard a news report on the radio that struck me as being about the dumbest thing I’d ever heard.\u00a0 The “journalist” was reporting that “researchers” had studied the last meal requests of Death Row inmates and concluded that the meals they wanted were made up of “comfort foods” like french fries and ice cream and were heavy on meat.\u00a0 This was the conclusion after the “researchers” had studied 193 such meal requests.What in the world?\u00a0 I was shocked to\u00a0learn that no Death Row inmates had gone for the low-carb, healthy options.\u00a0 Not a single request for brussels sprouts, either, apparently.\u00a0 Seriously?\u00a0 Someone was paid to study something so worthless?\u00a0 And someone was paid to announce the results over the radio airwaves?\u00a0 I just hope no tax money was involved … but I have a sneaking suspicion.Can’t you just imagine those researchers coming home after a long day of pouring over menus and drawing conclusions and saying to the spouse, “Whew!\u00a0 I am just exhausted and emotionally spent”?I want to spend my life doing work that matters; don’t you?\u00a0 I am reminded this morning, though, that work that matters is tiring.\u00a0 And sometimes when there’s so much resistance, we are tempted to give up and go for the easy work, like researching last meals.\u00a0 It’s tempting to think that if there’s resistance, we must be outside of God’s will or maybe we just aren’t doing it right.A familiar passage in Galatians hit me afresh this morning:Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.\u00a0 Therefore as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.\u00a0 Gal 6:9-10Points that strike me:1) Paul wouldn’t have to say “let’s not become weary” if doing good was not NORMALLY very tiring stuff.2)\u00a0 The harvest comes “at the proper time” – and the farmer is not in control of the timing of the harvest, is he?3)\u00a0 The harvest only comes (in God’s timing) ONLY if we do not give up.\u00a0 How many good works have been started only to be abandoned by those who grew too tired.\u00a0 Let’s do important work and let’s do it with the strength and stamina that the Spirit provides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I was driving through northern Florida yesterday on my way to Ft. Pierce’s airport, I heard a news report on the radio that struck me as being about the dumbest thing I’d ever heard.\u00a0 The “journalist” was reporting that “researchers” had studied the last meal requests of Death Row inmates and concluded that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7455,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7454\/revisions\/7455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}