My precious daughter Lindsey turned four last week. One gift we got her for her birthday was a game she had really wanted. She was eager to play it, so we worked on setting up the game together.
Part of the setup involved making nets by threading the plastic net frame through the channel on the piece of netting. I sat on the floor, putting assembling one net. Lindsey chose a frame and a piece of netting and began trying to pass the curved frame through the netting. Finding it difficult to force the plastic through, Lindsey held the plastic steady and brought the netting down over it as far as she could, then reached up and threaded the next section on.
I watched her working diligently and bit back my offer of help. After awhile, though, the netting got all bunched up, and she couldn’t get it to go any further. “Will you please help me?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s almost done,” I said, making a minor adjustment and sliding the rest of the netting on. “You were so close. You almost had it.”
Lindsey had been so close to success. Had she persevered just a little bit longer, she would have made it. But she quit, believing that she couldn’t do it.
You and I do the same thing.
We fail to realize how close we are to success, and we give up.
We’ve disciplined the same child for the same infraction a hundred times, and it hasn’t worked yet, so we quit.
We’ve given the same explanation a thousand times as to why we don’t hit each other or why we go to church, and our kids don’t seem to get it in our time frame, so we figure they never will.
Maybe we’ve tried multiple times to lose the baby weight, or establish a quiet time, or learn to like cooking, and we’ve failed every time, so we don’t try any more.
I wonder how many of these times we’ve quit right before success—when we “almost had it”? When if we’d just kept on a little longer, we would have achieved our goal?
The problem is, we often don’t know when we’re almost there. We can’t see the finish line, so we don’t know how close we are. We struggle on, getting more and more exhausted and discouraged. Finally, we give up.
If only we could see the finish line and realize that we’re almost there.
Precious mom, we can’t see the end, but there is Someone Who can. We don’t know whether our efforts are ever going to succeed, but there is Someone Who does.
Our Heavenly Father knows when we’re this close to success, and when we need to stop, reassess, and go at things a different way. He knows when the battle we’re fighting is about to be won, and when it’s the wrong battle entirely.
Even better, He’ll tell us. He’s promised in His Word that when we really need answers, He’ll give them to us. They may not be the answers we expect, and they may not come in our timing, but they will come.
So the next time we’ve had it up to here, or we’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and tempted to quit, let’s stop and ask the Father. He’ll tell us what to do. And if the answer is to keep going, He’ll give us the ability to do it, and He’ll cheer us on while we do it.
Let’s not quit early. Let’s not miss out on the blessings God has for us if we’ll only keep going. Let’s let Him tell us when to continue, and when to reverse course.
We may not be able to see the right decision in our own wisdom, but He can in His.
James 1:5—If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives graciously to all without finding fault, and it will be given him.
1 Corinthians 15:58—Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
2 Timothy 4:7—I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.