I watched tonight as Michael Phelps won his 21st and 22nd  gold medal, the most by any other athlete in Olympic history. How does a person do that? Some kind of luck, or did he just inherite the right genes from his parents? One of the ads that played tonight was something like this, “Everyone was born with gold in them, but only a few are strong enough to dig it out”. I would change that a bit to”everyone has gold created in them, but only a few have the grit to develop it”. It obviously takes a lot of help from others, especially in the early, formative years where attitude is developed, muscles and coordination are being trained, and that relentless, determination that is a clear characteristic of all champions is shaped. I am to old to train and win a gold in the Olympics, but I pray every morning and ask God if He would work in my life so that I can bear more fruit for God and for eternity in the next ten years than I have in the previous 40 years of being a pastor. I really believe that God is going to give me this desire of my heart. I pray everyday and ask everyday, but one of the commentators made this statement, “everything else being equal, the person who practices the most will win the most”!  So I pray and ask and trust, but I am also going to work as hard as I can, and I am going to work at developing a relentless determination that won’t die in me.