Never Give Up! Never Surrender!
I love watching movies. My favorites are comedies. Just stupid, silly, stuff, because I love laughing and these types of movies keep me lighthearted. But sometimes a line from one of these movies will jump out at me and make me think in real-life terms.
In Tim Allen’s movie Galaxy Quest, he played a washed-up actor from a space themed TV show. As the captain of the ship, his famous saying was, “Never give up! Never surrender!”
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As I remember this line I begin to think, this is what God wants us to do. Never give up. And most definitely never surrender to the enemy.
Think about that for a minute. How many times are we compelled to give up? When things get bad, the stress mounts, the drama doesn’t quit, people continue to badger, manipulate, intimidate and bully. When the depression hits full force and the anxiety threatens to overtake us, that’s when we need to stand strong and continue fighting.
Don’t for one moment think that I don’t have issues even now. God healed me five years ago. However the pressures of everyday life, the struggles with others, the drama with people who love nothing more than to spread malicious gossip and lies still exist. But there is a huge difference now in how I handle all of it.
For years I would get upset, cry, and feel helpless and hopeless because I just couldn’t figure out why these things kept happening to me. I wondered, why wasn’t God doing something about it? Why wasn’t I getting any better? Why did people seem to always say hurtful, nasty things, or make up lies about me? Why do they twist words? I just couldn’t figure it out. Maybe you can identify.
The pressure mounts. The anxiety gets so heavy that your heart even hurts. The depression gets so deep that you can’t even see the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe the hopelessness that you feel is so overwhelming that you truly wonder if you’re even saved. I’ve been there, too. For years I wondered, how could I be saved if I was feeling this down?
This, my dear friends is one of the most common attacks of the devil; to get you to question your salvation, your relationship with God. What a dirty, rotten, trick!
Ah! But God knows otherwise. When I wanted to give up, He kept my head above water. When I wanted to run, He kept me grounded. When people let me down, He showed me that He was still there. How? Through the grace, mercy, love, and understanding of true saints who were willing to take the time to show me and love me back to a God who was waiting patiently for me to just ask for help.
You see, I once lived in such a beat-up state mentally and emotionally that I couldn’t function properly. I literally had to have someone tell me how to get better. Because I was afraid of everyone and everything, someone took me by the hand and said, “Do this, ask that, receive this…” on and on until the next thing I knew, I seemingly woke up. I walked out of the fog, the black hole, and the misery and intimidation of others, back into the land of the living, breathing the life that God wanted me to have!
I never gave up although I wanted to. I never surrendered although I wanted to. Now I’m here to encourage you;
Never give up! Never surrender!
Your situation may seem impossible. It’s not. People may try to tell you to give up. Don’t. Stand your ground. Put your foot down. Even Job had people come to him, trying to give him advice. None were right. Job stood his ground. Yes, he stumbled a time or two, but in the end God blessed him even more in the end than he was blessed in the beginning.
No matter what you’re going through, keep trusting God. Keep going to Him for direction, for healing, for comfort, for everything. Never give up on your situation. Never surrender to your feelings or to the well-meaning advice of others (even if they’re family) unless that advice comes straight from the Bible. Then still check it out for yourself. Read. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Let Him guide you.
Bottom line: whenever you are faced with an issue, when the pressure is on, when you feel as if you’re at your wit’s end, never give up and never surrender.
Blessings!
Shelley
** You can find more encouragement and inspiration in the books, Walking Healed and the Walking Healed Companion Bible study. You can find these books on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. For more information on upcoming books, new projects, free downloads and upcoming events, subscribe to my newsletter in the upper right hand column.
