Home About 5:16 Club Forum Contact

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Do You Live In The Gray?


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled 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, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually try to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the worst,if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Roosevelt

3 comments:

Teri Lynne Underwood said...

Wow ... had to copy that into a Word doc so I can really process it. It is hard sometimes to give up being an "armchair quarterback" and risk getting into the game. At least, I find it difficult. Great quote!

JC said...

I do live in the 'grey' a lot due to my health but I try to enjoy it as best I can.

I will try to do better ...

Thanks for the reminder ...

Prodigal said...

Doesn't this describe the American church as a whole? Aren't we lukewarm and rarely see God move in big ways.

We're unable to pray our government back to a righteous path, even on the biggest issues, like abortion or even whether we're actually a Christian nation.

Are we too American, too wealthy, too distracted to see anything but shades of grey?