Part-Way People

If we were to mention the things that people start and stop, it would add up to a very long list. There are so many once-promising projects that have been abandoned – like roads that start to go somewhere, but fade out before they arrive. One reason is lack of solid plan and purpose in the first place; and another is failure to follow through. The first fresh enthusiasm for a new thing so often disappears when the newness gives way to routine duty and drudgery. Sometimes, of course, there are real reasons why people can’t follow through – misfortunes, illness, unforeseen circumstances. And sometimes when people start out on a wrong road, they shouldn’t finish, they shouldn’t follow through. When a mistake has been made, it is better to stop and turn around than stubbornly continue on a wrong road. But it is still tragically true that one of the most frequent factors of failure is failure to follow through: to start too many things and not stay with them; to fail to meet commitments; to be only partly dependable; to be a ‘part-way’ person – a person that can almost be counted on, but not quite completely. With a “part-way” person we always have to worry and wonder if this is the time when he will find it inconvenient to do what he has agreed to do or to go where he has agreed to go. There is much difference between the person who can be trusted to follow through and the unpredictable, undependable, “part-way” person who starts many good things and finishes few. Being where one should be when he should be there, doing what one should do when he should do it, seeing a good purpose to completion are priceless qualities of character. And when we stand before Him who is the Judge of us all there will be a much different judgment for him who endures to the end than for him who fails to follow through.