The Cost of Giving Up

Giving up is easy. Just throw your hands up, walk away from what’s challenging you or frustrating you, and stop thinking about it. It doesn’t take effort or inner strength to give up. It just takes a choice.

I’ve been there before. Actually, I think I was there this morning. Faced with all this overwhelming stress, this crushing workload, and the exhausting struggle of planning for the future, I considered just walking away from all of it. I was ready this morning. Because what does giving up actually cost?

If I didn’t have to work so hard to make a living, maybe I could rest. If I didn’t have to take care of family members and friends so often, maybe I could actually take care of myself for a change. If I didn’t have to plan for the future outcome of two businesses, maybe I could make one of them work. Sounds to me like giving up would be a greater benefit to me than pressing onward has been.

But is that the truth?

The truth is no matter how little I work, I don’t rest. I don’t know how, and that’s a soul issue. The same is true in taking care of myself, and spending more time to myself won’t help my heart any. And maybe my focus is pulled in two directions with two businesses, but I’m not ultimately responsible for the success of either. And maybe it seems like giving up won’t cost me anything, but that’s an illusion. Because giving up on any of those fronts would cost me the blessings I haven’t received yet.

Work will be rewarded (2 Chronicles 15:7). That’s a promise God makes us. When we work for Him, He promises to reward us for what we’ve done. But the truth about rewards from God is that they don’t always follow the work immediately. Sometimes you have to wait for a while.

Think of it like a harvest. It’s wintertime now, and across Kansas all the wheat fields are dormant. They were all planted before the first freeze, and most fields are already sprouted. Some are green, although right now most are yellowish and brown because we’re having such a dry year. But the farmer who planted the field doesn’t know how the field is going to grow.

He planted the field before winter, and he’s trusting that the field will bring a great harvest in summer. But there’s six months between planting and harvesting.

The same is true with any great objective in our lives. First you plant the seed. Then, you wait for it to grow. Then, you keep waiting. Sometimes you have to tend it, water it, feed it. But mostly you have to leave it alone and just keep living your life. Eventually, the time will come when you can harvest, when the seed has grown into a strong, beautiful plant. But it never happens overnight.

Think about it.

When you try to get in shape, you have to exercise. You don’t develop strong muscles overnight. You have to keep at it. You have to keep walking, keep lifting weights, keep doing your best and working hard to be able to claim the benefits of exercise.

When you start a business, you can’t just let it sit. You have to work it. You have to build contacts, reach out to potential customers, create products, manage campaigns, and talk to people you don’t know. Your business won’t sell a million products overnight (unless you’re just super blessed … and if you are, can you give me a lesson?).

What would have happened if J.K. Rowling gave up after her tenth publisher’s rejection? What would have happened if Edison gave up on inventing the light bulb or if the Wright brothers decided that they should stick to making bicycles?

Giving up before they succeeded wouldn’t have cost them anything they currently had. It would have cost them what they were going to achieve. And it’s the same with the rest of us.

If you give up now, you’re forfeiting something great. No, you don’t have it now, but that doesn’t mean you’ll never get it. You’ll get that reward when the time is right (Galatians 6:9) and not a moment sooner.

Here on Earth, we get focused on time. We live and die by the clock. But when we come face to face with God’s schedule, we need to readjust our perspective. Time has no meaning to Him. He made time. He is beyond time, and so He’s not subject to it. God sees time very differently than we do (2 Peter 3:8-9). And just because He isn’t running according to our watches, doesn’t mean He’s late.

God is always on time. We’re the ones with the watches that run too fast or too slow.

Think about your deadlines that way. So many times I feel the urge to give up because I’m not going to achieve something by the time I set. But who cares about the time I set? My timetable isn’t the one that matters. So how can I even consider giving up when I don’t even have access to the timetable God’s running on?

Yes, giving up is easy. But it costs more than we’ll ever know. So just hold on. I know it’s hard. I know it’s frustrating. I know it’s taking everything you have to just crawl out of bed in the morning. (I know because I’m there too.) But the reward is bigger and better than we can imagine.

Keep walking. Keep writing. Keep believing. Keep building. Keep moving forward. Keep on keeping on. Don’t give up. The ones who came before us endured more than we have, and they’ve received their rewards in full, just like God promised (Hebrews 12:1-3).

Who’s to say we won’t be next?

Jet lag and God’s timetable

If you’ve never experienced real jet lag, I don’t know if I can adequately explain it. I thought I had prepared myself for it, but I don’t think you really know how you’re going to react to it until you go through it. My brother and I returned safely to the flatlands of Kansas from our week-and-a-half journey to Scotland and England Sunday late. Yesterday, I did nothing but rest and recover, and I managed six hours of good sleep plus a nap, which was great. I thought I’d do great today. Well, I barely slept at all last night. Not sure why. But the same thing happened over there. The first night, I slept fine. The second or third night, I didn’t sleep a wink. I’m very thankful I can work from home today.

So this morning as I was trying to get back into my routine of morning devotionals, I couldn’t help but think about God’s perspective on time. Six or seven hours of time difference or even twelve is nothing compared to the time difference we’re talking about with God.

Big Ben at the Houses of Parliament, London, England, United Kingdom

Today’s verses are 2 Peter 3:8-9.

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

A day is like a thousand years. Can you even imagine what that’s like? I can’t. To be able to know what’s going to happen a thousand years from now? To be able to know for sure what’s going to happen an hour from now is too much for me. I’m glad God is God and that He knows what He’s doing.

This is a good reminder for me because I like plans. I like outlines. I like knowing what’s coming before it gets here so I can get ready and think about how I’m going to respond. God doesn’t always allow us that opportunity; sometimes He expects us to jump when He says jump, even if we’re not sure where we’ll land, trusting that we will land on Him.

God’s thinking, His designs, His entire being, is so much bigger than we are. So I suppose this only makes sense. Would you want a God who was tied to time like we are? I wouldn’t. We can’t pick and choose what’s true about God and what’s not. God is who He is, and the trade-off for having a God bigger than time is surrendering to the idea that we’re not in control of our own lives.

God works on His own schedule. He works on His own time. He isn’t bound to our perspective of time. Maybe we think He’s being slow or dragging it out, but He’s not. Maybe we think He’s rushing it and pushing us too hard, but He’s not. He’s simply operating on a timetable that suits His plans, and it’s our job to keep up and hold on for the ride. He’s told us enough about Himself that we know His plans are best, but we aren’t always going to know the details. Part of me likes it that way because if I know the details, I’ll worry. But the other part of me–the planner, the scheduler, the thinker, the control freak–wants to be in on everything. But God knows me well enough to keep me in the dark, and for that I’m thankful.

So if you’re frustrated with God because He’s moving too fast for you or not moving fast enough, just take a deep breath and step back. Remember that God isn’t bound to your schedule; it should be the other way around.