Effort

Base hits win games. I’m not much of a baseball fan, but I know that getting on base is a solid strategy for putting up runs and scoring more than the other team. If everyone keeps getting on base, you don’t need home runs. Overnight success happens over a lot of nights. People you’ve just heard of have likely been slugging away at their business, craft, or ministry for years or decades or their entire life. No one is an overnight expert. Perhaps an overnight celebrity thanks to YouTube videos with catchy auto tune action, but surely not a success. These people aren’t hitting home runs, they’ve been faithfully and consistently building their skill over time. In fact, overnight success isn’t ideal. Here are a few problems with attempting home runs every at bat. The problem with swinging for the fences When you swing for a home run every time, you’re going to strikeout often. That comes with the territory. If you’re swinging hard and fast, you’re going to whiff pretty regularly. Your timing is going to be a bit off when the pitches aren’t coming as you intended. You’re going to get frustrated quickly. If your goal is a home run, a base hit won’t satisfy you. If you’re just trying to get on base, day in and day out, when the homer comes, you’re going to be ecstatic. And trust me, it will come. ...

**Most things we need to do to succeed are boring. **But we all want a perfect formula that does the work for us. Something new, flashy, easy. That’s why ridiculous fad diets, get-rich quick schemes and overnight success are all the rage. We know what it takes to change, succeed, and win, but we know those things are hard. Everyone knows how to lose weight. You just need to burn more calories than you consume over time, and viola the number on the scale starts reading lower. Building a popular blog means writing well, over time, and boom you’re an overnight success. Retiring well means spending less than you earn, over time, and investing wisely in boring mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that return well, consistently, over time and wham you’re a millionaire who never even made six figures a year. Building a movement of university students fits here too. Helping students walk with Jesus, by sharing your faith with them and teaching them to do the same, over time, leads to lots of people walking with Jesus and leading others to him. But it takes time. You want an instant formula for success? Here you go. ...