I think effort really does count

Many of you who know our family are familiar with the blog that Julee maintains -

It chronicles our journey through the autism world with our fourth son Nathan. Now if you have spent any time reading that blog, you might have this thought going through you mind once in a while - "Why in the world are they doing all that?" Come on, I know you've thought that. How do I know? Because sometimes I think that. Take for example the latest entry in that blog. It talks about all kinds of crazy things like - biofilm, stir up - attack - clean up, it even talks about stool!

I read that entry and I'm tempted to0 think - "What in the world is this lady talking about! One too many kids in that home for clear thinking." And yet, when my mind starts to wonder down that path, I remind myself that one day I will stand before a certain Awesome one named Jesus and I will be judged for this life that I have lived and for the things and PEOPLE that He as entrusted too me. At the core of who I am I want to be able to say "By Your wonderful grace I did everything I could to honor you in every aspect of my life."

It is a strange concept I think - that effort really does matter to the Lord. Where statements like "I'm doing the best I can to get to heaven" has absolutely no merit at all in view of eternal judgment for heaven and hell, effort has tons of merit when it comes to the Christian life. We might call it perseverance, endurance, longsuffering, surrender - effort takes a bit of all those things. If there is ever a chance to share the gospel, I want to make the effort to do so. If there is ever an opportunity to shed the love of Christ on a person, I want to make the effort to do so. And if there is ever an opportunity to better the life of my child, I want to and I must make the effort to do so.

My greatest fear is to look back 30 years from now, or even worse, as I stand before the Lord, and ponder the question "Why didn't I try? What would it have hurt?"

~ Effort really does count!

BTW - Since our trip to Canada, this biomedical stuff makes a lot of sense to me and I'm all behind it. In fact, we are moving forward with doing some biomedical intervention for our oldest son Timothy.