Want vs Determination

Mark 2:1-5, 11-12 NIV

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” [then later] “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

It was the very last day of work before my vacation when I realized I needed to update my out-of-office voicemail. Normally, I record voicemails through an app on my work computer. That day, however, the voice-recording app was malfunctioning. I put in a ticket to my IT department in order to fix the app, but by the time I had submitted the ticket, everyone from IT had pretty much gone home. And so I thought, “That’s it. My clients are gonna be left wondering where I am all week when they call me.” 

As I was getting ready to close down for the day, a thought occurred to me: “Why not record my out-of-office voicemail on my phone and then transfer it over to my work computer?” A very simple solution that I hadn't considered. All it took to solve my problem was to think a little outside the box. And this is the concept I believe God has been teaching me: Attack your problem from every angle before calling it quits. Put another way: When you don't see a way forward, be determined to create a way yourself!

I think it's very easy to take for granted what happens in the story of the paralyzed man in Mark 2. This man had four friends that wanted to bring him to Jesus. But it wasn’t a matter of simply wanting to help their friend. They were determined to get him to Jesus by any means necessary! When they couldn't see a way to Jesus through the crowd, they made their own way—through a roof! 

Looking at my own life, I think about how many times I get stuck trying to solve a problem and then give up. I think about how many times I've limited my own growth and progress by taking ‘no’ for an answer without putting up a fight. Maybe I try one or two ways to solve my problem, and after repeated failure, I declare defeat. But the question I must ask myself is this: "Have I attacked this problem from every possible angle?" 

More recently, I had lost a very valuable item that was stuck somewhere inside my couch. I tried several different ways to dig my hands through the couch crevices to retrieve my item. After a while of trying with no luck, I began to wonder if I should give up the search. Having gotten fed up, I lifted the couch and flipped it on its side. Once I did that, out came the item I had lost. It was the relentless determination that got me what I wanted. 

Now don’t get me wrong. There are some pursuits that are not worth fighting for. There are clients that don’t want my product. There are people that don’t care for a deep friendship with me. There are opportunities that don’t belong to me. It would be foolish to try and force some things to happen. There are points where I do need to take ‘no’ for an answer. However, I am concerned that we jump to the conclusion of ‘no’ too quickly at times. Some real opportunities can be lost due to a lack of persistence and imagination. 

And so dear friend, my encouragement to you today is this: Don't give up on your breakthrough just because your solution didn't come the way you expected! If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And if you still don't succeed, try it from a different angle. And then a different one. Don't be one who goes down easy! Give it your all, and even if you never end up winning, you'll be able to honestly say that you gave the challenge its due work! 

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)