IF YOU’RE GOING TO GIVE-IN, AT LEAST DO IT PROPERLY!
What has God put you on this planet for? Chances are you don’t have to stress too much about discovering it. You have probably already found that God has placed within you certain abilities, certain passions, which cause you to continually see the same need. Chances are also that when you apply yourself to meeting those needs you have gained a tremendous sense of satisfaction and fulfilment in the process. Yet, despite this, there will occasionally be times of discouragement when all you want to do is give-up. But it’s at these times when you must especially be careful to do it properly!
Joseph was given a dream from God that he would one day become a powerful governor. After spending more than ten years in an Egyptian prison, we would have forgiven him for giving up and for thinking that God had abandoned him. But if he had, he would have missed his moment! Joseph remained faithful to God, day in, and day out.
Moses was called to be the deliverer of Israel from Egypt. But he made a mistake and failed. This led him to flee into the desert. I wonder if he thought that God would rescue him from his woes in a short time. But he didn’t hear from God again for another 40 years! He never completely gave-up!
It seems to me that the most successful people are those who have learned to hang-in when the temptation to give-in is nearly overwhelming. They are prepared to give to take one more step, have one more go, knock on one more door, write one more song, play one more tournament, do one more day.
I recently spoke with a successful businessman who had gone four months without making a dollar in his new business. He had exhausted his reserves and had lay off each of his staff. Despondent but not despairing he gave it one more shot. “I was ready to throw it all in and stack shelves in a supermarket” he said. “But then God gave me a break. I met someone I could help. That led to another person I could help, and then another who referred me to another. In the first three months of this year I’ve done $17,000,000 worth of transactions and am on track to generate over a million dollars in profits this year!”
Not all of us are in business, but we should all be in God’s business of helping others in Jesus’ Name. Yet when you’re trying to do good by others and help them, it can get quite discouraging when they don’t appreciate it or are even rude in return. I recently heard Jossy Chacko tell his story of having a Christian Grandmother who prayed fervently for young Jossy to come to know Christ. Jossy ridiculed such praying. He told his ageing Grandmother not to waste her time on him. But she kept going – month after month, year after year. She died never seeing the answer to her prayers for her Grandson. Today though, Jossy is an in-demand preacher and conference speaker who heads up the Empart Church Planting organisation which helps to facilitate over 9,000 churches across northern India.
We should not easily lose heart in our pursuit of doing the will of God.
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:9
Galatians 6:9
This admonition not only applies to each of us, it also especially applies to us as a church. Too many churches are set back because someone gives up after taking offence at something someone said or did (or didn’t say or didn’t do). It’s too easy to give up on each other or those who are trying to reach. The cousin of not giving up is patience. There will be some people we will reach who will take years and years to see won to the Lover Of Their Soul. Whenever I get frustrated with some of the things that our non-Christian politicians say, I have to remind myself to pray for their salvation and be patient. When the story of our church is told to generations to come – long after you and I have gone onto our true Home – I trust we will be remembered for our faithful prayer and proclamation to our generation and that we didn’t give up. The proper way to give-up is to at least give it one more shot.
Pastor Andrew Corbett
As I watched these contestants jogging up mountains, through forests, along creeks, via drains, and heard them talk about the discomfort (and eventual agony) they have to deal with, I recalled each of my 5-day-plus hikes and the gruelling pain I experienced doing each of them. But then the horror of these contestants’ feats grew as I realised these people were doing the equivalent 18 days of normal-person mountainous-bush-walking in under two and half days! As the contestants progress through the race, they battle cuts, abrasions, bruises, exhaustion, and the breaking of their wills. Curiously, most of the people who compete in this race, and even more curiously, the only people who ever completed the race are those with advanced Graduate College Degrees (Engineers, Chemists, Physicists and the like). I wasn’t surprised to hear this, and probably neither would anyone with a higher degree. The little known reason for this is that higher degrees aren’t so much about intelligence as they are about endurance.
The Documentary gave opportunity for those surviving contestants to share their stories. This was when I was a little stunned by what one of them said. He shared the story of how his father had worked hard all his life and saved for his retirement which was to commence with the trip of a life-time. But then, one year before his father was to embark, he suddenly died. This caused his son to reassess his own priorities. He had previously been a keen jogger. One of his jogging buddies mentioned that he had just run his first marathon. He wondered if he was capable of running a marathon. He gave it a go. After completing several marathons, then ultra-marathons, he heard about the Barkley Marathon (considered one of the world’s most difficult ultra-marathons). As he shared his story, it turned out that the loss of his father was not the only pain he had experienced. He had become accustomed to pain – not just the physical affliction type. Somehow, this gave him the mental strength to be able to endure these gruelling running races. As he was talking, the documentary showed him during this Barkley Marathon – cut up, blistered, dehydrated, running in the dark with a small head-lamp, as he trudged up a hill covered in briars. Then he said it.
As I think about how we can win our community to Christ and see Christ’s church in Legana grow with the fruit of this quest, I know that this greatest of all quests will require extraordinary endurance. Together, we must endure in prayer, endure in our witness, endure in our observance of the Sunday-Sabbath, endure in our private devotions of Bible reading and prayerful reflection, endure in our sacrificial giving, endure in our prophetic stand for righteousness. And if this formula for achieving great things is correct, we will have to endure through adversity, discomfort and pain. The winner of the Barkley Marathon wins nothing other than the glory, but compared to the cost of our marathon to win lost souls from our community to Christ, the Barkley Marathon is a walk in the park in comparison! 
In the year 2000, $32M (thirty-two million dollars) had been raised to produce the movie - The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The cast was hired, including Johnny Depp in the lead role, a director appointed, and budget allocated. Shooting commenced. It was to be the biggest European film ever made. After one week of filming, a support actor developed a double herniated disc and the director, Tony Gilliam, scrapped the project. While I haven't yet spent $32M on any of my unfinished projects, I do have several unfinished projects. But the difference between me and Mr Gilliam is that I intend to finish each of my currently unfinished projects. Do you? The answer to that question is increasingly determined by which generation you belong to.
In 1968 at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, John Akhwari from Tanzania was competing in the Marathon. Unaccustomed to running at such altitudes, he cramped badly. Then at the 19 kilometer point during the 42 km race he was bumped by other runners and fell badly and dislocated his knee. His shoulder was also injured in the fall. He continued running, finishing last among the 57 competitors who completed the race (75 had started). The winner finished in 2:20:26. Akhwari finished in 3:25:27 after sunset, when there was only a few people left in the stadium. As he crossed the finish line a cheer came from the small crowd. When interviewed later and asked why he continued running, he said, "My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race."
When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.