Key Bible Verse: So, my dear brothers … be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord's work"(1 Corinthians 15:58). Bonus Reading: Ephesians 4:14–15

When I was young, I was a creature of sudden but short-lived enthusiasms. I had a passion for building model airplanes, and then one day, mysteriously, all desire left and the basement was left littered with half-finished models. Then stamp collecting became an all-consuming hobby. I received an immense stamp album for Christmas, joined a philatelic club, acquired piles and piles of stamps, and then one day, unaccountably, the interest left me. The album gathered dust and the mounds of stamps were left unmounted. Next it was horses. Each Saturday morning my best friend and I would ride our bikes to a dude ranch two miles from town, get horses and ride up into the Montana foothills imagining we were Gene Autry and the Lone Ranger. And then, overnight, that entire world vanished and in its place was—girls.

During one of these transitions my mother slapped me with the reprimand "Eugene, you have no stick-to-itiveness. You never finish anything." [continued 11/4]