The War of the Day

Every morning you start…it may seem it’s simply routine and much the same as yesterday. However, today can be a new war that you’ve never battled before!

How do you make it through the day?

Win it? Or Lose it? Either way, it’s something personal that needs to be manhandled into submission, or it’s something that is slipping into your world from another source and you need to defeat it before it defeats you!

Recently, a photo went viral. A woodpecker about his business doing what woodpeckers do. Typical day. Suddenly, he had a passenger! A Weasel! Can you see it?

Like all the parables of old, you may think that the bird is giving the weasel a ride, but in reality, it appears the weasel is trying to EAT the woodpecker! Check the story here: Weasel vs Woodpecker!

This made me stop and think about all the weight we carry that is attempting to consume us. Perhaps things we do not even realize we are carrying, or we have been carrying it so long that we do not even realize it’s there.

The writer of Hebrews tells us something about the loads we carry, about how we are responsible for the weight we have picked up along the way.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”
(Hebrews 12:1-4 ESV)

Here’s my thought today. I remember a story in a literature book, oh, back in my junior high days. It was about a little boy who wanted to run a race but never seemed to get his speed and endurance up to the level that he needed to be successful. Someone encouraged him to add more weight to his training so as to build up his strength, so he filled his satchel with rocks and practiced running with the added resistance. Then, on the day of the race, he laid aside the satchel and enjoyed his win.

This is a little different from the scripture admonition, but the concept of physically, mentally and spiritually laying aside the weight which hampers us must be our focus if we are to win the war of this day. And tomorrow.

These are the worst things we carry that slow us down. We have voluntarily picked up some of them, others were slung on us by others, and some we get simply by proximity. (Think about the current Measles epidemic. Just breathing the same air!)

Has what we’ve been carrying keeping us from being successful?

The monkey on our back is slowing us down! Molasses, anyone? My feet are mired in quicksand. My vision is growing dim. The breathing is becoming labored. The load is crushing my will to win.

How can I free myself from this load that weighs me down?

Perhaps it begins with knowing the “what”, then the “why”, and naming the role you will play in accomplishing the “how do I get rid of this?”

It’s really up to you! You know what needs to be done and you are the one to make it happen! Quit letting your mind tell you the fault or exercise belongs to someone else. This is your day! Take control! Lay it aside! Get up and move!

Your daily load will prevent you from winning your daily war! It’s a daily exercise to equip yourself for the “win of the day”! What are you loaded down with that is keeping you corralled from your potential? Take control! Be a winner and not a whiner!

Just like you drag yourself out of bed and go to work! Fight the war! Win!

There’s no substitute for Hard Work. You have to get up, leave the cave, kill something, drag it home, and eat it!

Dave Ramsey

The woodpecker unloaded the weasel and flew away. Perhaps even wiser, but definitely freer!