Why Try?

Do you ever feel like giving up? Do you ever feel like you keep ending up in the same place – a place you hoped never to return to? Does life seem just too hard?

Have you felt victory so close only to have it fade like a vapor? Are you tired of fighting the same sins? Does the thought of doing battle for the rest of your life make you feel beyond exhaustion?

I think of a daughter, caught up in years of bad decisions, entangled in a whirlwind of sins. Does she look at it all, wanting to be free but thinking it could never be… again. The hole is just too deep. How to ever get out; it’s way too complicated. Where would one start?

Would you fight the battle if the end seemed reachable? But now all it seems is sword swinging in the dark, loud clashing with metal, more pain appearing but no end in sight and fatigue makes another round seem impossible.

I think of those who climb a mountain like Everest. Why? Yet it becomes all consuming. Huge amounts of money are spent and the chance of victory is overshadowed by a greater chance of failure or death. Many vow that they will try again, next year.

Here is a quote by Sir Winston Churchill that I remember sometimes when I am feeling discouraged:

When you feel you cannot continue in your position for another minute, and all that is in human power has been done, that is the moment when the enemy is most exhausted, and when one step forward will give you the fruits of the struggle you have borne.

That’s what I need to remember – there is an enemy. I need to remember that an enemy wants to win by me giving up. This devil knows that power is mine if I will have it. He wants me to think that I’m in this by myself. He knows that left to me, operating with my vast resources will insure my dramatic failure.

He also knows that God’s spectacular power is at my disposal if I will just remember. If I will just give up; if I will just give up my feeble efforts. If I will just admit to myself and God and others that I can’t do it, can’t go on. I need to quit making promises to do better, quit making resolutions of reformation. Simply ask for His aid.

That’s it. That’s the victory. That makes the hard road bearable, the impossible possible.

Philip