TR

It's the end of 2008, and perhaps you've had a difficult year in your international ministry. Perhaps you are bandaging up a lot of wounds caused by relentless attacks and criticism. Perhaps you are doubting if God really has you in the right place, or if you're doing the right ministry. Perhaps you're weary and tired and ready to throw in the towel. If so, then please read - and take to heart! - the following words of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, spoken at the Paris Sorbonne in 1910:

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again (but) ... who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

Amen, TR!