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When You Keep Starting Things and Not Finishing Them · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: Every summer, new cadets arrive at West Point for
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  a training so brutal, they simply call it beast barracks.
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  Some of the most talented young people in the country walk in,
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  and a lot of them do not make it to the end. A psychologist,
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  Angela Duckworth, wanted to know why. She had the cadets' test
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  scores and their fitness numbers in front of her. She figured the
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  strongest and smartest would be the one still standing when it
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  was over.
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  she had measured told her who would finish. The answer turned
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  out to be something she almost missed. We'll come back to what
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  she found, but first,
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. I
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  know a little bit about from my own life. I went to college
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  right out of high school, and I didn't go back for the second
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  year. Quit is the word for A few years went by before I went back,
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  and that time was different. I put everything I had into it,
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  and I kept going. Grad school after that, then a Ph. D. What
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  made the difference? What changed was that the second time,
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  I meant it. Some Christians have noticed a pattern in themselves.
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  They start with excitement, a new project, or a new commitment
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  at church. For a few weeks, it's the best thing going. Then
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  somewhere, maybe around week six, the momentum runs out. It stops
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  being fun, and the thing stays half done while you're already
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  getting interested in something else. What wears on you is the
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  accumulation. One unfinished thing is nothing. Eleven of them
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  start to feel like a character flaw. Solomon knew all about
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  this. Here's Ecclesiastes 7, verse 8. Finishing is better
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  than starting. Patience is better than pride. Look at what
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  he says. Finishing is all about patience. Starting? Mostly about
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  pride. The second sometimes stings a little. Solomon sets
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  starting next to pride. And there's something to that, I
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  believe. The start is where you get to picture yourself finished.
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  You see the completing thing in your head, and you get a little
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  of the feeling of having done it before you've done any of it.
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  Starts are cheap. A start costs you an afternoon, maybe in a
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  trip to the store. A finish costs you the 90 days in the
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  middle when nobody's watching, and it stopped being interesting
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  a long time ago. So ask God for two things, and understand that
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  there are two different requests. The first is the grace to finish
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  what you start. That's endurance. The willingness to keep going
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  after the feeling that got you started is long gone. Nobody
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  finishes anything on the strength of the excitement they
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  had in week one. The second request gets less attention, and
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  it may be the one you need more. Ask for the wisdom to know
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  what's important enough to start in the first place. Here's why
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  that's important. Some of your unfinished things were never
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  yours to begin. You started them because somebody asked you, or
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  because starting felt productive that week. A man who starts six
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  things and finishes one has a discernment problem as much as
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  an endurance problem. Fewer better chosen. Then stay with
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  them until they're done. What predicted who would make it came
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  down to one quality Duckworth called Grit, a blend of passion
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  and sheer endurance. The willingness to keep going long
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  after the excitement wore off. The cadets who finished were the
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  ones who refused to quit when it stopped being fun, gifted or not.
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  Duckworth spent the rest of her career showing the same thing in
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  classrooms and workplaces. Starting takes a spark.
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  Finishing takes grit. Look at what she had been measuring.
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  Test scores and fitness numbers, the things you would put on an
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  application. Those tell you what a person is able to do. They
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  tell you nothing about whether he will still be standing on day
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  39. That difference is where most of our half-finished things
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  live. Here's the encouraging part. Grit gets built the same
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  way every time by finishing something small, then finishing
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  the next thing after it, and so on and so on. Here's today's
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  challenge. Pick the smallest, unfinished thing you have, the
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  one that would take you maybe an hour. Finish it today before you
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  go to bed. Then look at the rest of that list and pick one thing
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  to quit on purpose. Take it off your list. is a different act
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  from letting it die of neglect, and it clears room for what
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  matters. And pray the second prayer. God, show me what you
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  would have me start and what you would have me leave alone.
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  Father, finish what you began. Everything you have ever started,
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  you have brought all the way to completion. We are not built
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  that way, and you know it better than we do. For everybody
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  listening who is looking at a pile of things they started and
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  walked away from, give them the endurance to finish the next one,
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  and give them the wisdom to start fewer things and to start
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  the right ones. In Jesus' name, amen. If this episode encouraged
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  you today, would you share it with someone who might need to
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  hear it? Just go to DailyDevotionsForBusyLives.com
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  slash 339 and copy the link. It only takes a second, and it
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  might make a real difference in someone's day. Thanks for
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  joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember,
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  finishing is better than starting, and Solomon set
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  patience right next to it on purpose. Finish one small thing
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  today and quit one on purpose. Come back next time for more
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  encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until
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  then, God bless and have a great day.