In these days of deliveries and packages at the door, daily for many people, it does not matter who delivered it.

What you want is inside the package.

FedEx, UPS, the US MAIL, or whatever entity gets it to you…..it really matters not.

If you even see the person after they leave the package, you may say “Thank you”… you are more concerned about opening the package and getting your order.

It’s a great service…. getting stuff delivered.

But it’s the STUFF.

Not the method or one who delivered it.
Take this same understanding to heart and mind the moment in your life when you understand , your parents, your teachers, your mentors and your pastor….

are not perfect.

Many, many people have heard great teaching, received life-long instruction, gained lasting insight from imperfect coaches, teachers,leaders, parents, presidents, and pastors.

It’s not the messenger that really matters in the long-run…

it’s the MESSAGE.

I have had good and great relationships with coaches, teachers, mentors, pastors…and my parents….

not one of them was or is infallible.

My encouragement…
cut them some slack.

For you, yourself….me, myself….

we are not infallible and most assuredly need some slack.
God, Himself led His Apostle to write these words…”for we have this treasure in EARTHEN VESSELS that the excellency of the power may be of GOD, and not of us.”

His Message through us is what impacts others and the world around us…

not the power of our personalities.

The Power of His Message.

If we can allow that message to be seen in us and through us….we can have great influence.

Most people cannot name all of their elementary school teachers, but they implanted lessons you still know and adhere to.

Our failures and imperfections are going to be involved in the transmission of that Greater Meassage….

but our fallibility will not outlast or overpower the Greater Message.

You have heard, as I have, of people being turned off from Church, or religion because of a ministers’ failing. 

Jim Baker.

Jimmy Swaggert.

There are others.

You can recall their failures.

What would the world see of your failures if you were scrutinized as these men were?

In spite of those failures, realize that hundreds and most likely thousands, came to Christ hearing the Word through these and other guys who made mistakes.

That Message mattered….not the man.

I believe this…. if someone leaves the Church or walks away from spiritual life because of a ministers’ failure…

they had not really heard or heeded or accepted, nor had they come to Christ. 

For if they had heard and received and been changed by THE MESSAGE…they would know that the minister, as we all….

are merely an earthen vessel…made of breakable clay.

It is only THE MESSAGE that is made of an unbreakable cornerstone.

It will make you or break you.

It will toughen you or lay waste to you.

It has to be overcome.
A young man who is dealing with IT at the moment said, “This is not something I am stuck in, it’s something I am going through.”

IT will come….if it has not yet.

IT may have come at you already in many ways, many shapes and forms. 

You may be in the midst and middle of IT, or you may be over IT for a while.

IT will return.

IT……..is HARD.

HARD.
Hard comes in different ways.

Hard can be a relationship.

Hard can come at you as a job.

Hard can be the year you are in school.

Life consists of HARD in several different ways.

It’s good to know that it’s coming because it IS.

As the young man mentioned above heard from his Coach,

“I don’t want to make it hard. It’s just Hard.

The Hard he was referring to was football practice, in August, in the South.

Hot.

Humid.

HARD.

The young man and his teammates heard their Leader say that it has to be hard because Hard will come at some point in the next four to five months, and he wants them to be prepared by already having faced IT down.

He said it plainly….

“You have to OVERCOME HARD.”

At various times and in a multiple of ways, Life is hard.

My family moved to six different cities before I graduated high school.

My father died in 1983. My first marriage ended in 1987. My mother died in 2006.

My brother is dealing with IT at this moment. I do not want that for him. But, HARD came and now it has to be walked out.

Moses. Joseph. David. Solomon. Paul. Jesus.

All of them faced HARD. 

All overcame IT.

In January, the young man mentioned above faced HARD. He was replaced, in what he had earlier been greatly successful at, right in the middle of it.

His replacement succeeded greatly after overcoming a bit of Hard himself.

The young man who was replaced handled the HARD he had been handed …..perfectly.

That young man is still, 

as he said, 

“going through IT”.
School was hard…..at particular times.

Your job is hard, maybe a lot of times.

Marriage is hard…for some a little, for some, a lot.

Dealing with temptation is hard.

Being a Christ-follower can be hard.

Staying in shape is hard. Weight lifting, if you mean it…..is hard. Refusing to eat until you are full, is hard.

Maintaining and developing the body gifted to you is difficult….in the midst of soft chairs, air conditioning, television, refrigerators, microwaves, Alexa, Google, Shipt and remote controls.

So many appliances and conveniences make life easier all the time.

One thing that we need to know, and it’s a gift to be taught this at a young age….

is that no matter how comfortable life may get…

HARD is going to arrive 

and hit you in the mouth at some point.

And to quote Sean Connery, in his final line from, “The Untouchables”…..

“what are you prepared to do about it?”

If you are going to have success on any level,

in any endeavor 

lessons have to be learned.

And before any other lesson. We need to know that

HARD will come.

Jack Nicholson stated  in “A Few Good Men”…..”you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.”

This comes from one having learned.

You WANT HARD to come.

You NEED HARD to come.

If it does not come soon enough in life you will fail to learn its lessons for when you need the most.

That’s why sports and other disciplines are so good for us early in life. 

They bring us HARD.

And, if we have the best and correct instruction, we will know that HARD is something we must go through to ever be successful, valuable to others, and any good to ourselves.

Only if you have been through IT do you know.

And it is simply stated but difficultly done.

Overcome HARD.