Giving Up?

    Giving in, but not giving up? Ever feel like just throwing in the towel, but just not quite ready to give in....Been beat down so often that when you see the bully you start to pull out the money, but for some reason you put it back, standing yet once again defiant in the face of certain bodily punishment. Why do we stand yet again after we have fallen so many times before. When they stand and say Ah Hah, the moment we trip or stumble. It may seem as the whole world is waiting for it. Why don't we just quit, give up, concede? What is it that keeps us from laying on our backs, keeps us from throwing in the towel and saying "DAMN IT" I give up..!
     Psa 37:24  Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand. That urge to just press on, to get back up JUST ONE MORE TIME....a still small voice that comforts you saying "I will never leave you nor forsake you". When we as parents see our children fall we often times rush over to help them up, but sometimes we stand back watching them wait for us to rush over and fix things. When we do not immediately make our presence known we can watch their reaction change from that of expectation to one of fear. Where is Dad, Mom ? How am I going to get back up, but after thrashing about a bit they realize they have a little pair of legs and hands that are quite effectively able to right them. We often have to let them thrash about a bit that they learn something they would have otherwise never learned. It is not that we left them, but we left them to let them learn. We never really went any where, in reality we were there the whole time. But as far as they were concerned we were miles away. It may seem like that when times are rough. When we are at our bleakest moments it may seem just like Christ has left us, that our Lord is no longer concerned with our well being. The reality could not be any further from the truth.
     So many of the things that come to our lives door step, we have invited. It's not as though God sent them...though He does at times send hardships or trials our way that we may learn. But much more often its a self wrought invitation signed by our own Foolishness, not Ignorance that would imply we didn't know better. We did, we do....so many of the things that bring and have brought hardship we knew not to do...or we didn't seek counsel from our Lord before hand when we knew to. All the same it was avoidable. So what do we do since it was by our asking that misfortune knocks? Simply giving up is always an option....For some, but not for us. God's Word says "Pro 24:16  For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again:" So why do we keep pushing on when it seems that everyone around us says "Why don't you just curse God and die !" Well ....It is so much easier to push on when you have some one their cheering, whispering songs of encouragement making it all....well for lack of a better word OK. Paul says it so much more elegant than I do...."Rom 8:31-39 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.  Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."      ......Just A Thought