Get Serious
Ask most kids in the dugout of a Little League baseball game if they intend to play in the big leagues someday, and you’ll likely find a respectable percentage answering in the affirmative. However, that percentage drops precipitously with time and the filters of talent, parental guidance, support, and genuine desire. My sport was basketball. I loved basketball. Thus, I prayed fervently that I’d grow to at least 6-foot-5. By college, I made it to 6-8, proof that He is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think”! However, I later dropped basketball as a life pursuit, considering reality and my fading passion for the sport. God replaced that dream with the surprising goal of being a (pointlessly tall) pastor.
Realizing dreams requires a confident attitude. It takes time, effort, sweat, maybe blood and perhaps even tears. You’ve heard the stories of those who have labored at something, relentlessly pursuing success, only to experience rejection time and time again. Nonetheless, today, many are some of our biggest stars, writers, most well-known politicians, or athletes. They are the ones who stuck to it.
Speaking of sticking, one story with which you may not be familiar had to do with trying to create a lubricant through displacing water. The concept seemed sound, but it was proving almost impossible to get it to work. Chemists tried more than 39 different combinations of chemicals and had failure after failure. Finally, on the 40th try, it worked! Today you can spray it from a blue and yellow aerosol can. You probably have one or more around the house. It’s called WD- (for “water displacement”) 40!
Great successes are also attained by those willing to stand alone, even when the crowd is against them. Surrounded by those who wanted to give in and negotiate with the maniacal socialist dictator, Adolph Hitler, Winston Churchill refused to slide into defeat in the face of what seemed hopeless for England. As prime minister of the United Kingdom, he could have given in to the weight of the world that was on his shoulders. To many, it seemed like the wise choice, like self-preservation, to give in to the Nazis, to hope for mercy from these murderous aggressors.
Churchill knew better. “Never give up, never give in … never surrender!” He held his ground and inspired a nation. Today England is independent, and Hitler is history. It’s easy to see now that Churchill had no other feasible option as we look back at history. Any alternative would have meant suicide for England. Our decision to follow Christ is that way.
There’s no negotiating with the evil one. It’s not the same as the pursuit of professional sports, working your way to stardom or setting some other high goal and going after it, only to opt for the safe, familiar path of the majority. There are no grave consequences to that. People do that every day and go on to lead everyday lives.
When it comes to faith, we either get serious or there are real and eternal consequences. The writer to the Hebrews says, “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it” (Hebrews 2:1). Drifting away from a New Year’s resolution or a dream to participate in a triathlon are not likely big disappointments to God. But drifting—like a ship losing its mooring and heading for the rocks and certain destruction—from God’s Word, about that, He cares! And so should we.
How many times has the evil one tried to get you to give in? Do you ever want to quit? How serious are you about what you believe? Many Christians don’t outright walk away from their faith, but they surrender too much territory of their lives by not being the committed believers they set out to be when they came to Christ in the beginning. As a result, they don’t live genuinely victorious lives.
Christ has won the ultimate victory for us. We can’t earn it, no matter how hard we work. But we can still lead defeated lives. Whatever you have as worthy dreams and goals, “pay much closer attention” to what God has given us in His Word. Satan is an aggressor. Never give up, never give in, and don’t surrender an inch!
“Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” —Galatians 6:9