Sticktoitiveness Is A Verb

Stick-to-itiveness has been defined as “dogged perseverance: tenacity.” I cannot tell you the first time I heard this word, it’s been around for decades, and though being difficult to pronounce properly and spell correctly, from the get-go I knew exactly what it meant!

Break it down for a moment and you will see it’s: Stick-To-It. Expand the word into the action of doing something with a tenacity of a bulldog that will not let loose until the task is accomplished!

If the truth were told I believe we would all wish for a little bit more of this persevering frame of existence.

Stick to it like glue
until it accomplishes what we first started out to achieve!

Verb or Noun

I’m afraid many of us have very little of this noun active in our lives! Nor do we know how to convert it into a verb where it becomes an action word to push through obstacles that keep us from success! We pick things up, try them for a while and then drop them when some new bauble, or experience, shows up. We expand this habit into our relationships, hobbies, careers, collections, politics, and genres of reading material.

You name it. From Diets to Habits, we pick things up, use them for a while, and then drop them for that new shiny bauble in the window.

This thought popped up on my radar early this morning, and though I was thinking about a totally different subject, a portion of my mind wandered down this rabbit trail.

I’m stuck with my family, but I get to choose my friends.

So I should choose wisely, and invest myself in the one I choose, or the one that chooses me!

A friend may possibly be closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). Choose wisely and develop the relationship so strong that this friend can sharpen your perspective like Iron striking Iron (Proverbs 27:7). But to have a friend like this I must learn to show myself friendly (Proverbs 18:24).

In other words, you have to open yourself up to someone, become a friendly person that can make friends and then with dogged perseverance keep that friend!

See! Turn that Noun into a Verb! Turn that thing, into an action!

The Struggle of Doing Just That

Think about it. Collectors like to store their collection in nice locations and display them to appropriate viewers, but they never take their collection out to use them! They are afraid of lessening the value of the collection, or breaking it and losing the stored valued.

There is a person I’m thinking about this morning. Is it you? Well, probably not. It’s really someone we all know by name. Solomon.

Solomon’s Plight

Solomon was the single most active writer talking about having, and being, a friend. Jesus was next including more phrases regarding friends in his teachings. And this little nugget took me straight to the rabbit warren because I had found my focus!

Among us, there are some who have difficulty obtaining friends. They are either out of the league of everyone around them, or they are unique in their position and personality that it is difficult to find others who can fit into their world, or they have built walls between themselves and others due to some hurt or loss in their past.

Call it a protection zone. Keep everyone at arms distance. A zone of neutrality.

If Solomon was as smart as scripture tells us, then it must have been difficult to find others in his league that he could connect with. He was wealthy, so he moved in different spheres than the majority. (I’m thinking of Gates, Buffett, Bezos, and the like.) He was the highest leader in the land, so he struggled with finding others who could relate to his life. His wisdom, wealth and position pushed him into the strata of a few, but we find him writing much about the blessedness and companionship of friends.

It almost seemed like he was wishing for something that could never happen in his world, he was a seeker and a writer for that which was difficult to find.

Mission of Jesus

On the other hand, Jesus came into the world in a lowly state, without great sums of money or position to promote him into similar strata of existence. He did not live in a palace or have the throne room to look forward to. In fact, we find Jesus communing with everyday people, challenging religious authorities, and, when finally standing in the presence of the highest authority in the land, he hardly speaks a word.

If you think about Jesus and who he is, then you must find it remarkable that the Creator of it all had no problems being friends with everyone around him! In fact, there’s perseverance about his desire to be friends with his creation that transcends all of our puny efforts to become friends with people we see every day!

Buddy Greene sings a song that I enjoy and I have to read the lyrics because he speaks some of the lines so very fast! But he has a description of Jesus that is very appropriate:

He was born of a virgin like the scriptures said He would be
Unto those He had created, but who knew him not
For three years he was preachin’, teachin’, making enemies
Finding fellowship with prostitutes, murderers and thieves
He was nailed to a cross to pay for every sin
In three days He rose in glory, now He lives within
“God is With Us” Written by Buddy Greene on the album December’s Song [Click title to see YouTube Video]

Here’s My Thought Today.

I don’t have many friends in this world. You know, those lifelong examples of friends that were with you in childhood and matured with you into old age. But, along the way, I have made many friends that I would depend on in a pickle. And this friendship mode will continue as long as I have breath. Friends may come and go with time and distance, and the older I get those friends of my youth may pass off the scene long before I do, but the life of friendship will remain until the end.

My bride and I are each other’s best friend! I suspect this is the reason why we are so strong in our relationship.

Jesus changed his relationships with those that were more than simple followers (John 15:12-17). Friends grow with us as our world changes. As we age into the future we will find friends that fit the need of the moment, but we will continue to wish for friends that will be there when we need them the most. Most of those are the “life-long” friends that truly know us!

However, for that to happen, we must learn some perseverance to stick with our friends even during difficult times. And those times will test the bonds of friendship! Politics. Crime. Storms. Life. Separations. Distance.

My parents have been part of a domino party game called “42“…for nearly 60 years! Every several months they would meet at one another’s house, have a meal, play some hands of 42 and then go back to their respective lives, neighborhoods, jobs, churches, and families. But when one goes through a trial then they are all there to step up and help one another. Through the years the faces have changed as they make life changes, but when trials, heartaches, headaches, losses, and wins, happen, they are there for each other during the defeats, as well as the victories!

Now. That’s Stick-to-itiveness!

This is an example of how to create friends that will be there for you as your life ages and changes. This is no longer a common way of doing it, but I realize as this 42 party has existed for a long time, it is never too late to set up a similar process that draws your friends together for some “sticktoitiveness” development!

One last thought about this. I’m reconnecting through Social Media to “friends” from my past. They’ve changed. I’ve changed. The bond we had in our past is no longer there as it was decades ago. Still, there are connections that make me happy that Social Media has opened my past to my present, and I will still reconnect where, and when, I can.

You gotta have the “want-to”!

I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I did it!