“…and endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation.”

The band “The Fixx” had a popular song in the 80’s called, “One Thing Leads to Another”. (Once this gets into your head, it is going to hang around awhile, sorry.) Whenever I hear this song’s refrain I think of how true it is in our work that one thing leads to another, over and over and over. What starts out as something small can turn into something big in a matter of hours or even moments. Many times these chains of events are created by misspoken words or errant actions. So, in actuality, what we do all day at our jobs is launch out actions like boats launching out to sea, and we wait to see what the reactions and what down the chain of event things will be the outcomes. Of course, there are also some very positive things that also happen from the actions taken today that we may not know for years to come. The point is that one thing leads to another and we have to be cognizant of that if we want to be our best.

I am reminded of this each time I am faced with a problem that God set them up for us so that we could also have our own chain of events that we experience. In Romans 5:3-5 Paul tells us that from problem comes a learning about endurance. From these problems and trials comes endurance. From endurance comes strength. From strength comes character. From character comes confidence. And that confidence is the confidence in an expectation of something wonderful, the expectation of our salvation. And, Paul goes on to say, “And this expectation will not disappoint us.” Yes, one thing does lead to another, and in God’s will, each and every thing we face leads us back to the expectation of our salvation. This promise makes me say on this morning, “bring it on!” because I want to be reminded and always rejoicing in the problems that can turn to the confident expectation of my salvation. Today, may you feel the same!

Reference: Romans 3:3-5 (New Living Testament)