I shared with you last week that we recently had our grandson
stay with us for a few days. We spent
quite a bit of time outside with him shooting baskets, watching frogs jump into
our pond, checking the garden to see how our plants were doing, picking
strawberries, riding on the tractor with Grandpa, etc.
I think one of his highlights was riding our tricycle and toy
John Deere tractor, since this has been a goal of his since last summer. Last year, his legs just weren’t long enough,
even after Grandpa put wood blocks on the pedals. As hard as he tried, he just couldn’t get a
forward motion on either “vehicle”. So,
when the weather started to turn warm this year, he wanted to try again. Unfortunately, the first time he tried, he
failed as before. His feet were just shy
of where they needed to be to get the wheels turning.
It was interesting though to watch him after he failed the first
time. He walked away and started doing
something else. Then after awhile, he walked
back, sat on the tricycle and tried again.
After several attempts, he got frustrated and once again, gave up and
returned to another activity. But then,
something very interesting happened. He
walked back over to the tricycle for the third time, sat down, and rode it
across the driveway! I’m not sure who
was more shocked, him or me, but both of us smiled broadly and I let out a hoop
and a holler. It was time to celebrate!
I thought about this event when I read our quote for this week –
“Giving up on your goal because of one setback is like slashing your other
three tires because you got one flat”. Elias’s
desire since last summer has been to ride the tricycle all by himself, but he
had lots of failures in between his first attempt and his final success. If he would have given up after his first
try last year or his first try this year, figuring that he would never be able
to do it, he would have missed out on the excitement of reaching his goal.
This got me thinking about the times when I have given up on a
goal that I have set. I usually have
good intentions at the beginning, but when I have faced a setback, there have
been times when I just gave up. I have
figured that if I couldn’t succeed in my
time schedule, I might as well just accept the “fact” that what I thought I
should work towards just wasn’t attainable.
It is at those times, when I have often failed to remember that maybe my
timing and God’s timing are different and I just needed to be patient. It makes me wonder what would have happened
if I just would have kept trying. Who
knows, maybe my ability to reach my goal would have occurred on my next try…or
even on the third or fourth try…causing me to be able to hoop and holler
because of my achievement.
What about you? Have you
given up on a goal that you have set, because a setback made you think you
would never see success? I want to urge
you to give it another try, whether it is your second, third or even fourth
attempt. Remember, God’s timing for you
to reach your goal may be totally different than yours and His timing is always
perfect. You just never know, success
might be just around the corner and then you will be smiling broadly and have
the opportunity to hoop and holler too.
Believe me, Elias and I can both attest to the fact that life doesn’t
get much better than that!
“But
as for you, be strong and
do not give up,
for your work will be rewarded.”
2 Chronicles 15:7
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