Keep on keeping on...

[Sister Alvear]

There are lots of people that have made shipwreck of the call of God on their life´s.
Someone said that, every pioneer must learn that blood and sweat of our own personal sacrifices are not in themselves payment enough to redeem souls. No souls are won without them, but they are not in themselves payment. Redemption is God's gift.
The glittering peaks of Everest look beautiful in a magazine with its dazzling snow crest, and the blue, blue sky above. But the climber has to tuck that vision in his heart and climb on when there is no beauty visible, only the biting cold blasts whipping against him, the slippery ice imperiling his foot hold, and only canned food in his stomach from dreamy aspirations to laborious doing. The doing of the pioneer is to go on enduring privation, and preaching the Gospel when it seems foolish.
"It is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are most likely to meet the new thrills in some quite different direction,” says C.S. Lewis. The pioneer has come to the place where he is willing to go on without thrills, and march to the drumbeat of the Lord that calls to that continual plodding.
I cannot remember who said everything but I have remembered that all my missionary life...Preach when it seems foolish...the continual plodding...
Not all is glamour...not everything you do makes you feel like a real missionary...some things are just the same every day...day in and day out...the prodding…
Some people come to the field for a thrill, a joyride, a free lunch, a vacation...but to get anything done for eternity we must be consistent...continual...walking by faith and not by sight...
We must be humble and ready to obey our leaders. There is no room in God´s army for foolish egoist soldiers...they fall out of the ranks and leave no lasting results...
Someone said we must live in a manner that when our name is mentioned in hell the devil trembles...I would say he trembles not to those that are just a bunch of talk and fly by night but he trembles in the face of a real solder…the one who may not see victory everyday and have big tales to tale but the soldier that just stays in rank and leaves no open breech for the devil.
I have lived my life on the mission field…I know about loneliness, solitude…being without, the pressing needs of the people and the churches, the darkness of paganism, the temptations to flee to a better land yet the call of God is stronger…
So lonely pioneer...Keep on keeping on....that makes the devil tremble!