Stick to Your Work by Christian Union

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 28, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 21.

Stick to Your Work.

By Christian Union

"Hard pounding, gentlemen," said Wellington to his aids, at the battle of Waterloo; "we will see who can pound the longest." It is this long pounding that wins life's battles. There is value in force, but the greatest value is in the most persistent force. Victories are won by overcoming obstacles. He who by his patient persistence vanquishes them is the victor. The man who is always trying new experiments rarely succeeds in any of them; the man who finds one thing to do and does it, is the successful man. The difference between doing and dreaming is made by patience, persistence, steadfastness, firmness. Patience is firmness in enduring pain, physical or mental; persistence is firmness exercising force against obstacles; steadfastness is firmness adhering to a purpose. I meet in every walk in life men whose ill-success used to be a mystery to me. They are brilliant in conception, fertile in resource, energetic in action; and yet their lives are failures. Men of less capability win the successes their friends were confident they would win. I now know where always to look for the secret of these failures: unstable as water, they could not excel.

To cultivate firmness, never enter on an undertaking until you have counted the cost. Forecast the difficulties and impediments in your way. When you have once entered on an undertaking, never abandon it because of difficulties and impediments, unless your judgment definitely pronounces it impossible. Then abandon it absolutely and forever. Never leave one enterprise half done because another looks easier. All enterprises look easy before they are undertaken; all useful enterprises are difficult when they are undertaken. After you have begun your work get all the counsel you can as to how it shall be accomplished; never listen to any advice as to whether it shall be accomplished. The worst possible symbol to put on your coat of arms is an interrogation mark. No man can develop a spirit of courageous firmness who lives in perpetual doubt about himself and his work. Believe in your work; believe in yourself. And believe in both because you believe that God has given you your work to do. "Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy God;" this is the secret of the divinest firmness. He who possesses this secret of the Lord, who believes himself set in his place and given his work by God, has the means for preserving an unwearied patience, an unshaken persistence, an unfaltering steadfastness.