Don't Give Up
Courage is a strange thing. People always think of soldiers and warfare; of heroes and battles. It seems that a single act on a large stage is worth more to many than daily acts of bravery. I believe it takes courage, real courage to go home to an abusive partner day after day and to one day break free and leave. A courage greater that I have known.
What strength of courage to be dependent on alcohol or drugs, to want it and need it to make it through the day. To feel real anxiety or pain in its absence, even fear. To uncontrollably focus on the need for more, the all consuming desire for more and more and yet to decide to walk away. To say "no more”. To turn the corner and struggle through the pain of rehabilitation. Such courage as this should be recognised and praised.
Our lives do not always run smooth. Stuff happens, people hurt each other. People hurt themselves. At times it seems that all of mankind is somehow either crying or shouting. And sometimes we get stuck in the middle. Who has the courage to make a difference? Who has the courage to try to be different? Do you? Or I?
To those of you who are working to change your lives for the better I say ‘Don’t give up’ . God sees your direction, your courage and your fear; ask and He will help you to make it. To those of you who are sitting content with the way things are I say “ Get into the game, take sides – help those who need your help, provide encouragement to those near to despair, provide support to those whose strength is failing”.
We are one in the struggle and the hope and the despair; show the world your courage and try. You may be surprised how much heaven really cares.
Don’t give up – soldiers may fight for their country for a while in some distant land - but for some of us, our battles are right here and right now.
You can make it, and we are praying that you do.
“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord is the one who goes before you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor forsake you”.
Deuteronomy 31: 8 (NLT)
“Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.)
But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”
When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”
Mark 2:15-17 (NLT)
This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.
But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.
1 Timothy 1:15-17 (NLT)
“So Jesus told them this story:
“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it?
And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders.
When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’
In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!
Luke 15 :3 -7