Dilettante or Diligent?
Here is a great story that I came across, so I re-printed it for you. Quote; “According to the Associated Press, on December 14, 1996, the Bright Field, a 763-foot grain freighter, was heading down the Mississippi at New Orleans, Louisiana, when it lost control, veered toward the shore, and crashed into a riverside shopping mall. At the time, the Riverside Mall was crowded with some 1,000 shoppers, and 116 were injured. The impact of the freighter demolished part of the wharf, which was home to some 200 shops and restaurants, as well as the adjoining Hilton Hotel.
The ship had lost control at the stretch in the Mississippi River that is considered the most dangerous to navigate. After investigating the accident for a year, the Coast Guard reported that the freighter had lost control because the engine had shut down. The engine had shut down because of low oil pressure. The oil pressure was low because of a clogged filter. The oil filter was clogged because the ship’s crew had failed to conduct routine maintenance and taken care of the engine properly. Furthermore, the failure was not out of character. According to the lead Coast Guard investigator, the ship’s owner and crew had failed to test the ship’s equipment and repair long-standing engine problems.
The truth is that many so called, “sudden disasters,” have a long history leading up to them. A little diligence would have saved time, money, reputations, and most importantly, many lives! Diligence is defined as constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken; persistent exertion of body and mind. Diligence is usually exercised in proportion to the desire or need to possess or attain what is sought. If we want something very strongly, then we will expend a great deal of effort and energy to attain it. Diligence can be a consequence of need, or it could be simply thee way some of us approach challenges.
Dilettante or Diligent? By nature some of us are dilettantes in our endeavours, while others are diligent. In most cases, it is usually this second facet of life that determines the difference between success and failure, rather than genius, or being smarter than everyone else. A dilettante takes up a given activity in a superficial, half-hearted way. He dabbles or even toys with it, only to find in the course of time that this “toe in the water” kind of living never allows him to accomplish anything of consequence.
The truth be told, everything that has to do with spiritual growth and victory in our Christian walk is the result of “due diligence” in all the things of God. This theme is an ethic I have heard repeated by a number of people of late. As we are all possessed by the realization that the hour is late, there is a universal feeling that the time of the end draws near, and that the world, and God’s people in particular must get and stay ready for “that great and awful day.” No half-hearted effort will suffice. We must be diligently as we pursue Christ and his Righteousness.” By CA Murray
How is it then with our own individual “Christian Walk” are we reflecting clearly “Jesus Christ” or are we Dilettante or Diligent in our work, play, families and our Christianity, just remember the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids where half were “Dilettante” and half were “Diligent”, and this brings to mind some admonition from the Apostle Paul. Here we have this great quote from 1 Corinthians 9:23-27 “And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with [you]. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they [do it] to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring [it] into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”
Paul has also this additional admonition as found in Hebrews 12:1-6 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
God is doing all he can to get us his children into his Kingdom, but are we Dilettante or Diligent in using the “Free Gifts of God that bringeth Salvation” and stepping up higher, or will we on that great day find ourselves locked out of the Kingdom as we were “weighed in the balances and found wanting.” {Daniel 5:27}
The Apostle Paul gives us yet another point to contemplate upon as found in Hebrews 3:12-19 “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end; while it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? [was it] not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.”
So are you, or am I “Dilettante or Diligent?”
