The Guy Who Called it Quit

Dear friend,

Consider the below thought. I hope it will encourage you the way it did to me.

And always remember, "A man is not finished when he is defeated, he is finished when he quits"!

Best Regards,

Kayode

The summer sun was unseasonably hot. The strength and conditioning coach, nicknamed "Mad Dog" by the players, seemed unreasonably intense as he pushed harder and harder upon those trying out for the football team during two-a-days in August 1990. The college football world was buzzing with the University of Colorado's golden season the year before, and now everybody wanted on the bandwagon.

There were two guys in particular who showed up supposing they could make it as walk-ons. They were flabby and undisciplined, yet had real potential. I watched as day after day "Mad Dog" pushed these two guys beyond their limits. Drill after drill, lap after lap. He was trying to get them in shape to make the team.

I will never forget the afternoon when these two guys rounded the far corner of the football field on lap five, and suddenly stopped in their tracks. Hands on their hips, heads hanging down, chests heaving for air – they gathered themselves for that long, lonely walk across the field to the coach.

"You guys calling it quits?" the coach asked. "Yeah, coach," they answered, "it's harder than we thought it would be.”

"Alright, then," coach responded, "you guys get in shape and come back next season and try again.”

With that the two walked off the field toward the locker room. What happened next is why I remember this scene so vividly all these years later. The strength and conditioning coach, a hard-nosed disciplinarian dedicated to excellence, watched those two guys walk away—and his eyes filled with tears.

He quietly whispered, "Those guys could've been champions. All they had to do was finish that last lap and they were on the team.”

I was astounded to see how much he truly loved these guys, and how close they came to reaching their dreams—only to walk away. This was driven home with force a few months later when the University of Colorado football team played Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl and won a share of the 1991 National Championship.

Those two guys watched the game on TV—when they could have been playing on the field. What about you? Are you going to quit in the final lap because the going is too hard? Are you going to walk off the field and let your dream fade away? Or, are you going to hang tough and go the distance?

"Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.' But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul"

(Heb.10:38-39).

Finish this lap, my friend. You are closer to the prize than you realize!

kraljic

Refusing to Go Back

Dear reader,

While going through my daily bible devotion this morning, I had some kind of thoughts I am really interested in sharing. Have you ever had some low moments, when you feel like giving up and giving in? Stumbling upon some kind of encouraging words do not only lighten your spirit, it gives you a hope and some sort of courage to move on.

Without much ado, I implore you read the below thought. I wish you a happy reading.

Regards,

Kayode Ashogbon

February 4

Refusing to Go Back

"So will not we go back from thee." Psa_80:18

To go back from God is to desert Him. It is to turn away the footsteps of our heart from Him. It is to doubt the vision we have had of Him in our more intense and illumined moments.

To determine that whatever comes, we shall not go back from God, is one of the open secrets of the saints. To cling to Him when life is difficult and we are tempted to question if He cares; to believe in Him with a simple childlike faith when clouds and darkness hide His throne—this is one of the triumphs of the spirit which makes the humblest life a thing of victory and brings it to the sunrise at the end.

When Mallory and Irvine were last seen climbing Everest, they were "going strong for the top." From that top, a thousand feet above them, nothing could turn them back. What a great victory it would be for all of us were we to say, like these heroic climbers, So we shall not go back from Thee.

When Things Eternal Grow Dim

We are tempted sometimes to go back from God by the apparent indifference of heaven. There are seasons of the soul when things unseen are touched with a strange sense of unreality. The lamp that burns upon my study table is as nothing to the radiance of the moon. But then the lamp is near me, and I read by it till I grow oblivious of the moon.

And so there are seasons when the things around us so grip us in their vividness that things eternal tend to grow unreal. At such times we do not renounce God, but we are often tempted to go back from Him. We grow oblivious to His peace and light and there passes a certain deadness over us as the winter, and we forfeit the joy of our salvation. Prayer becomes a chore; the Bible loses its fragrance and its dew. We are in the dark night of the soul and lying under spiritual desertion. But even so (observe the psalmist's word) the true heart will cry out of the darkness, "We will not go back from thee." To cling to God and His great love to us when things grow dim and shadowy and distant, to affirm God to our own souls in the hours when the unseen is as a dream is one of the tasks of all who claim the name of Christ. "So will not we go back from thee."

We are also tempted to this retrogression in hours when all the lights are burning low. None is so strong that he does not now and then have fainting spells. We lose heart, and a dull depression seizes on our spirits. We move on the flat margins of despair, and are all tempted to go back from God as the disciples were tempted to go back from Christ.

To be perfect as our heavenly Father is a standard that often seems impossible. Is it any use striving to be holy with these insurgent and rebellious hearts? Is not sainthood for rare and elect souls, and beyond the compass of our common clay? So are we tempted to take the lower road, thinking it more on the level of our powers, and we settle down into second best. That is the tragedy of many lives—they have settled down into the second best. They had visions once of the summit of Mount Everest; now they are content to dwell below it. But the real victory of this life of ours is not to gain the summit we have seen; it is to keep on climbing to the end. God's best in Christ is not for elect souls. It is for everyone who trusts Him. Things that are impossible with man are possible with God, and in spite of all our failures, we shall not go back from Thee.