Don't give up

© Joe Pepper

One of my favorite movies is "The Devil Wears Prada." In one of the climax scenes, Stanley Tucci's character, Nigel, thinks that he is going to get a promotion. In fact, he is the one to his knowledge, that is in line for the promotion. Meryl Streep's character, Miranda (his boss), get's on the stage to announce the promotion, and doesn't call out his name. She instead calls out the name of an enemy of her's. We find out that Miranda would have lost her job, so she chooses to sacrifice Nigel's job instead of her's. With tears in his eyes Nigel turns to Anne Hathaway's character, Andy, and says, "She'll pay me back one day..."

In my current season of life, I can't help but feel the same way about the Lord. "He'll pay me back. He'll come through. He'll prove Himself faithful." I find myself saying these statements with tears in my eyes. You may be confused on why God would need to pay me back—honestly He doesn't need to. The only thing God is guilty of, His growing me up. In this moment, I just feel a tad deserted. I feel a tad abandoned. It doesn't help that my circumstances of late have included radical injustice by "God's people." What's good is that this is just a season. What's great is that I am just feeling a certain way. What keeps me going is that God will pull me through.

I run three miles every other day. This morning towards the end of the run I started to get very sick. My body wanted to stop running, but I really wanted to beat my previous time. I chose to push through the last little bit. While I was pushing, I glanced at my phone to see how I was doing on my time and was very uninspired to find that I didn't beat my time. Never the less I sprinted till the end and stopped the clock when I finished. I thought to myself that I should have just stopped earlier, since I didn't beat my time, and then I wouldn't be in the high amount of pain that I'm currently going through. While my thoughts were fresh, I looked at the stopped time on my phone and found that I had read it wrong. I had actually beat my previous time by 18 seconds and had even run a tad further. I had achieved my goal! What was the key here? I didn't give up.

How easy is this to translate to my Spiritual life. I don't think I can make it through this season, and yet God just keeps saying to push. I have to push through. I'm going to make it. It doesn't always feel like I will, but I will. Just because I'm in pain, doesn't mean I'm being harmed, it's actually good for me. I'm not called to "feel good" all the time, but I am called to press on. I am glancing at my stop watch of Spiritual life and it looks as though I have missed my goal. I haven't—I just read it wrong.