persist and persevere

Press in and press on

I am amazed when I think of what God will do if we simply refuse to give up.
An essential part of never giving up is making the right choices while you are hurting, discouraged, frustrated, confused or under pressure. The right choice is often the more challenging choice. When you’re in the middle of terrible stress, you naturally want to take the path of least resistance.

Those are the very moments when you need to make the more challenging choice. To reap the right results in life, you must do right when you don’t feel like it. I call this “pressing in and pressing on”,—and knowing how to do it is one of the most important components of being a person who never gives up.

You see, progress has a price. Being a person who never gives up costs you. You’ll never get where you want to be in life without willingly sacrificing and pushing through the obstacles or adversities that stand in your way.

Your obstacle might be an attitude or issue from your past, or a relationship, set of circumstances, a mindset, a feeling, or a bad habit. Whatever it is, you are the only one who can press through it; no one else can do that for you.

Maybe you tried to overcome your challenges in the past. Perhaps you tried to the point that you are now weary, exhausted or discouraged. If so, then you are at the precise point where you have to summon fresh strength from God and press in one more time.

We’ll always grow weary and may even falter in our determination if we do not continually lean on God. We have to make the decision to press through, but we never experience success in anything unless we rely on God to help us.

The Bible says that when we wait on God, our strength is renewed as the eagle’s (Is. 40:31). To wait on God means to expect Him to do what needs to be done, and to rely on Him.

One of the definitions I like for the word “press” is: “to exert steady force or pressure against something.” I often say, “You have to press against the pressure that’s pressing against you!” When something is pressing against you, you must be determined to press against it with greater force because very little that is genuinely worthwhile or worthwhile in life happens without this kind of effort.

Sometimes you have to press through circumstances to overcome obstacles, such as when your dream is to open a business in a specific neighbourhood. Still, the zoning board repeatedly rejects your request to build the facility you need or when your dream is to go to college, but you keep getting turned down every time you apply for a scholarship.

There are things I have been told I could not do several times; I seemed to have reached a ceiling, I was a late bloomer as far as education was confirmed, and I struggled to get the required O Levels, yet now I am teaching on Masters Courses at University.

I am amazed when I think of what He will do if we simply refuse to give up.
Demanding situations and challenges must be dealt with, but I am more concerned about your response to the obstacles than the obstacles themselves.

If you can keep your thoughts and attitudes right—and if you will refuse to give up—you will eventually have the breakthrough you need.

I can’t promise you will get precisely what you want, but if God doesn’t give you what you are asking for, then He will give you something better. His ways and thoughts are above ours.

Think about your life and make a fresh determination to pay the price of progress.

As you face the obstacles in your life, remember: Press in and press on.