We’ve all heard that saying – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Fair enough. But sometimes that’s a cop out. Sometimes we use that to dodge the fact that something is broken in our lives. That there’s something that does need fixing.

I love what I do in life, particularly what I’m doing right now, sitting chatting with you through this program. I guess the thing that drives me is that I know that as each day we unpack a bit of wisdom. It makes a difference in people’s lives and my prayer is that it makes a real difference in your life.

The other day someone wrote to me and said, “thanks Berni for your hard hitting and relevant program. Your stuff is always so relevant in my daily grind.” Now that’s not a boast, I’m not particularly anything special, it’s just that I get to do the things that I really enjoy doing. There are some things in my job that I don’t enjoy doing so much, we all have those things in our mix, but by and large I love communicating wisdom, Gods wisdom and love into people’s lives.

What you may not realise though is that a lot of work goes into producing the almost five hundred different radio programs that I produce every year. Not to mention writing the books and the articles and the blogs and all that stuff.

I’m not complaining but the point I’m making is that even when we get to do something that we really, really enjoy, the daily grind, the workload, the pressures, the deadlines, the obstacles, they all take their toll. And frankly there have been one or two times over almost the last ten years that I’ve been doing this where it’s just all been too much.

And that’s if you’re enjoying what you do. A lot of people are on a path where they don’t so much enjoy what they’re doing and we talked a bit about that the other day on the program and for those people it’s even harder.

So what do you do when you just want to pull over and give up on your dream, your vision, that thing that you were hoping would be the thing that you were made to do? I remember a time when I came to one of those low points that we all inevitably come to in life. You know I felt really called by God to be doing what I’m doing. I left a pretty good job in the IT industry to take on running a not-for-profit organisation and for the first several years as tough as it was some days we saw a lot of growth.

From a standing start of being on precisely no radio stations at all we grew to be on a thousand radio stations around the world and hey anybody would be pleased with that and we saw so many doors open quite miraculously and really amazing stuff that I wouldn’t dream of taking credit for, it would be just ludicrous to do that.

No, God was in it and He went ahead of us and that was brilliant but then a few years ago there were a couple of major setbacks, a couple of things that happened with some key radio networks that made it so hard for us (the details are so totally unimportant) and on top of that when you’re working long hours and producing that much content, you do get tired.

It was a low point as I said and one of the reasons I’m sharing this with you so openly and so frankly is that the last thing I want you to think is, that just because I happen to be the guy on the radio talking about this stuff that somehow I get to live on a different plane to you, that somehow I’m immune to all the ups and downs of life, not at all.

And so I’m at this particularly low point, can I tell you that at that point it was so very tempting to fall back on my pretty lucrative business consulting skills, it would have been so easy, I mean really easy to turn my hand back to what I know, have a much easier life than what I have at the moment and go and do something else.

The temptation is to pull over to the side of the road, take a breather and think about turning back because at some point we all run out of steam. Now there are some people trying to do things that they were never cut out to do, there are some people in jobs that they just shouldn’t be in and if you’re in that boat to you I say what I said on the program yesterday, if it’s broken you need to fix it.

If you’re doing the wrong job go and find the one you were made to do, absolutely. If you’re on the wrong road find the right one but I knew in my heart of hearts that that wasn’t the case for me. I was doing something I enjoyed, something I was made for and something that I feel powerfully called to do.

So what do you do at that low point when you just want to give up? If in your heart of hearts you know that you should keep going, you don’t hear people talk about this stuff very often do you? But these are exactly the sort of questions and dilemmas that we face in life and that’s why I talk about them on this program.

Well at that point I did what I always do when I’m faced with tough choices. I went to God, I talked to Him about it and this is what He said to me, it comes from the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Church in the New Testament of the Bible, 1 Corinthians chapter 9 beginning at verse 24:

Don’t you know that in a race the runners all compete but only one of them receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self control in all things, they do it to receive a perishable wreath but we an imperishable crown.

So I don’t run aimlessly nor do I box as though I’m beating the air but I punish my body and I enslave it so that after proclaiming to others I myself shouldn’t be disqualified.

Somehow that put it all into perspective for me. If God made me, if He knows what I’m good at and what I’m not good at, if He really has a plan for my life and I’m in the middle of living out that plan with all of its ups and downs, it just doesn’t make sense to walk away.

I read that passage quietly one morning in my study where I get alone each day to spend some time with my God and it’s as though, well it’s exactly like this, He lifted this huge burden off my shoulders. My heavy heart was filled with joy. My burdened demeanour all of a sudden it was a whole new start.

I didn’t do anything, I didn’t have to, it’s just that God came along and lightened my load. He came along and said, “well you know Berni, when you’re living out the plan I have for your life it’s bound to get hard sometimes and that’s not the time that I want you to give up.”

I’m a strong guy but I don’t have the strength and none of us does to follow the call in our lives, make a real impact in this world just on our own, its the way it is and you know what? I thank God that that is exactly the way it is.

Years later this same Apostle Paul is writing you his young protégé Timothy, looking back on all his trials in ministry and if you know anything of Paul’s story you’ll know that he had a really tough ride, he was locked up, he was beaten, people rioted against him, they tried to kill him, he was abused, shipwrecked, bitten by a viper, imprisoned for years on death row. So when Paul gets towards the end of his days on this earth how does he look back on it all? Well here it is, 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 6:

As for me I’m already to be poured out as a libation and the time of my departure has come. I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I’ve kept the faith, from now on there is a reserve for me, a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will give me on that day and not only to me but also to all have longed for his appearing.

You see at this point in his life Paul can look back on it all and see the link between that and the glory that he’s soon to experience as he goes to be with Jesus. The prize at the end of this long, long, long marathon we call life is an eternity in the presence of God Himself.

In my heart of hearts that’s what makes the difference. Not success today, not what other people think about me, not whether people are falling over themselves to help or standing against me in opposition. None of those things really matter, what matters is running the race that God sets before each one of us and it was at that realisation, at that point that I started up the car and kept heading down the road that God had prepared for me.

That’s my story, what’s yours?