Too Much At Stake

"Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain"- 1 Corinthians 15:58 (NIV).

We discovered we have a family of raccoons living in an old tree behind our house. We saw the mother, while sitting on our porch in the cool of the evening, with three kits in the top fork of the tree. Once she saw us she began trying to get them back into their den. She carefully carried one down in her mouth, deposited the kit into the hole and climbed back up for the next one; however, as she left, the kit followed her mother back up as she was gathering kit #2 for the trip down. This scenario played out a couple of times, but mother raccoon was persistent. She finally got all three safely back into their tree home. There was too much at stake for her to give up. There are times we believers feel like we're not making any progress in our mission field, but today's verse promises our labor in the Lord is not in vain; we will make progress. Like the mother raccoon, we just need to continue standing firm in our endeavors to do the Lord's will. There's too much at stake for us to give up.