Probably the most spoken phrase of all time, every time we fail or see something is too difficult for us, or even if it requires too much time or sacrifice. This is probably one of the most difficult habits to break in life. Why? Probably because it roots to self. The one thing that keeps us away from most of things, self like most of us know only consists of 3 things; “me, myself and I”. Oh sorry, that’s all the same thing, just goes to show how bad self is, self-centred and selfish.
But how do the words “I give up” fit into this equation? If you look at the phrase it starts with I, we think it’s too difficult, too much so “I’m not going to” or worse I’m not even going to try, and that’s that. This kills most dreams that God has for us and wastes so much time, time that God granted us by His grace, time we never earned or deserved and we quit at the first “too much” and after never asking God for help or wisdom of any kind. We don’t realise that that’s why stuff don’t work out. We try to do stuff out of our own strength so that we can gain honour, but when we fail, then God is good enough to bring in the mix and not to ask for help but to blame for the mess (to be fair, not everyone does it but most do “face it”).
To take an example out of my own life - this happened to me when my parents divorced. Before this happened we were fine, all was good. The household never prayed to God on a regular basis to thank Him, but after everything went south we turned to God asking Him why he is allowing this to happen. After all, He is able to fix it – why is He not? We tried to shift blame from us to God wanting to protect our own dignity, this is one of many examples that I can share out my own life and something that is also true for many people I know.
After hearing the stories of the Syrian refugees, after hearing what they went through, after being denied refuge, after losing all that they know, after being shot at, bombed on, beaten, ridiculed, and shunned by the world, they still go on and on looking what they can do next. Just put yourself in their shoes - how many of us (myself included) will curl up in a ball of despair after one of those things happen to us, let alone all of them in sequence. But the points that I want to make is, they don’t believe in the Holy Spirit (the breath of God), they don’t have the power that dwells in us, well not yet. Godly power that we can’t even comprehend or understand, God said that we can do anything as long as we have faith that He can do it through us, like raise the dead and move mountains, so why on earth do we give up to things that are easier than breathing, compared to what the Holy Spirit can achieve?
The answer to that is simple, I actually said it before, we are afraid God will ask “too much” of us in exchange for that which he wants to give us. However we must remember that life on this earth is not eternal and we are not going to be able to take what we “earned” to heaven, so stop hording goods and stop being selfish with what God gave us. If He says give, you do so without question. Why? Because we don’t own anything, all we are or have is God’s and we all know that and He only wants to replace not take away, fake for real, and when we accept that fact the self will starve and die and in time after all you gave back, only God will remain and the notion of quitting won’t feel like an option that you want.
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