MINISTER'S MOMENT
We do not give up
CHARLOTTE AUSTIN

Charlotte Austin McCary's Chapel United Methodist Church

A red clover blossom contains less than on-eighth of a grain of sugar. Yet, seven thousand of these grains are required to make a pound of honey. A bee, therefore must visit 56,000 clover heads to get enough sugar for a pound of honey. But there are about sixty flower tubes to each clover head. So the bee performs that operation 3,360,000 times t get enough sweetness for a single pound!

The truth is that most things worth doing take a lot of determination and just plain persistence. Rousseau said, "My manuscripts, blotted, scratched, underlined, and scarcely legible, attest to the trouble they cost me." After completing The spirit of Laws, a work that influenced the framing of the United States Constitution, Montesquieu said, "You will read this treatise in a few hours, yet the labor expended on it has whitened my hair."

It is a principle that holds whatever our goal may be: getting an education, for instance; or having a really successful career; or developing a strong personality; or building a Christian character and home. These things don't come overnight. They come after countless minutes and hours and years of effort. A good name or a solid reputation grows slowly with the patient, daily blending of the right ingredients. These include such simple things as honesty, truthfulness, faith, and purity. If we are as wise as the bee, we will "not become weary in doing good" (Galatians 6:9). Great objectives require great perseverance.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." (Galatians 6:9-10)