Giving Up

     Have you ever felt like just giving up? No matter what it is we just can't see the future in this thing and we are struggling and are panicked and worried. The stress is taking years off our life and each day we can mumble around "Why am I doing this?"

My daughter had a very important test. She had been riding the train everyday but with her older brother and younger sister. Today was the day she was going to assume responsibility for herself. Confidence was exuding from her prideful stature. She was going to get up early and then hop on the train all by her self and get to school on time for the test. Well, she hadn't paid attention to the names of the train and the one she boarded blew past her stop as an express train that doesn't stop there. She went into panic mode. But she held it together I'll just get off and go back. Yet she calls us only to cry and say, "I missed the test." "We comfort her and tell to do her best and continue on." She says she is going back to a certain stop and catch another train to her destination. That stop is only one or two stops. But that stop never appeared. The 3rd and 4th stop pass by and she realizes she went to the wrong platform and boarded a train that went even a different direction. She was now in major panic. She calls and is broken and crying I wanna come home. Mom consoles her and tells her what to do. Her crying was blinding and sobbing and she was fearful. She is lost and missed a test but most of all she was humbled that she needed our help. This time she got on a train going in a third direction she is now on her way to Shinjuku Tokyo one of the busiest stops for trains in the world. We start to panic. Mom tells her to get off at the next stop and to wait. She does. Mom rescues her by physically going to get her and take her to school. She still wants to come home for all the embarrassment. But no her job is to go to school. Her job is to face her responsibilities head on and do her best.We are not to give up.

I have been here as I am sure many of you have too. Exasperation leads to absolute desolation and depression and we drop our hands and resign to just give up. "I quit!" In the Bible, we are encouraged by the Apostle Paul to in these times to look unto Jesus.In Hebrews 3:1-2a, the writer encourages, "Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. ² He was faithful to the one who appointed him," 

God will give us trials and will speak to us in these times. We are encouraged in the Bible to over and over again never give up. But to press on reaching for a prize, running to win, looking to the author and finisher of our faith. there are many more themes that come out of the life of faith. 

Hebrews 3:7 " So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion during the time of testing in the wilderness,"(NIV) In the NKJV it says, "In the day of trial in the wilderness." The days of trial are plentiful. And the Bible says there will be many. It also says our God is with us and the Holy Spirit is speaking. Look at verse 7. "The Holy Spirit says." That means He is speaking to us. Listen, don't go in your own confidence. But do what is right and obey. If you don't obey the consequences are worse. But it you do obey when we are done with that trial there will be some rest.

This scripture speaks more to the culmination of life and that when we die to self we can enter that rest even while we are in the trial.