Sticking With Discipleship, Even When It's Hard

There are quite a few tools or verses I could slap up here to encourage you to use with your disciples. The supply is truly endless!

But sometimes that is not what you need...

Sometimes you just need an encouraging voice to stay, "Stick with it!  Even if there isn't much fruit, even if they aren't grateful, even if you don't feel like you're making a difference...stick with it."

Honest moment: I'm involved in a discipleship situation where I just don't see the fruit.  If I'm even more honest I want to just dump the people and start over.  Or never start again.

Yikes.  That can't be right, can it?

I read this lovely quote several weeks back and has really spoken some fresh encouragement and energy into this area of my life.  It's been hard for me to shake which has to be good...

Becoming the best versions of ourselves often requires that we stay. Stay when things get hard. Stay when we get bored.  Stay when we experience periods of unhappiness.  Stay when the excitement wears off.  Stay when we don’t like those we are in community with.  Stay when we fail or are betrayed.  Stay when we know who we can become if we have the courage to be faithful in the undramatic. 
-Christopher L. Heuertz

Staying.

You, faithful woman of God, are equipped to disciple the women in your life because of Christ.  And second to that, you are quipped just because you stay.

Will you stay today?  Keep shepherding and discipling through the difficult seasons.  Through the criticism, rough patches, stubborn hearts, fatigue, or fruitless weeks.

Stay.  Stay.  Stay.

Because God has called you with intention and purpose.  Disciple the sweet women placed in your life, not because it's always easy, but because staying will produce a sweeter fruit that you can even imagine now.

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 1 John 3:11

About Carly

Carly is a husband-swooning, health-inspired, simplicity-loving, Jesus-follower.  She and her hunky husband Ryan adventure wherever the Lord takes them and most recently that has been into the often scary world of chronic illness.  Connect with Carly on her  personal blog,Pinterest and at Reaching For Fringe, a resource for chronic illness and marriage. Very nice to meet you! 

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