Double or Nothin'

Never in my life has failure been a bigger part of my vocabulary than it is these days. Oh there have been a few things I tried in the past that didn't work out, but I usually quit them before the depth of my failure at those particular tasks became apparent (to me or to anyone else). Then I could just lie (to me and to everyone else), saying that my lack of success was really just a lack of interest.

I wrestled for a few years in middle and high school. No, that wasn't one of my failures. I wasn't great, but I wasn't terrible either. My biggest problem was sucking weight. If you don't know much about wrestling, you are matched up with people according to your weight. So it can be an advantage to lose a few pounds to get matched with a smaller, weaker opponent: this is called sucking weight. I was very careful about what I ate for about two days, and then my parents ordered Chinese take out. Chinese food is like my Kryptonite-- except it isn't green and it tastes great. My diet didn't last beyond that meal.

The point of bringing up wrestling, though, was to talk about one particular match. Wrestling matches are short (less than 5 minutes long), but completely exhausting. Every muscle in your body is used the entire time, to the point where walking off the mat at the end of a match is almost too much work. In this particular match, I was losing by one point with just a few seconds to go. I wasn't in a position score two points which is what I needed to win. But I could feel my oponent weakening by the second. I knew I would be able to score a single point before the end of the time. This would force an extra, 30-second, period. The question I asked myself then was if I wanted to force the extra period. Was the chance of victory (probably about 50/50) worth that extra bit of energy it would take to break free at that moment? More importantly, was it worth the energy of the next thirty seconds? Because, the reality is, the longer you fight for victory, the more you lose if you lose. My point is that I'm a natural quitter. I hate to lose. And I would rather lose a little than fight on and risk losing a lot.

Responsibility, though, has a habit of discouraging quitters. The more you have to lose, the longer you will fight for the slim chance that you might actually win.

On the other hand, God has a habit of encouraging quitters. Because He is always quick to forgive and quick to save, God encourages quitters by making a way for failure to not separate us from Him.

Not that God wants people to quit. Actually, followers of God are often much less likely to quit because they believe that miraculous outcomes are possible. And the same forgiveness and salvation that takes away the fear of quitting also takes away the fear of failure. So God not only encourages but also discourages quitters.

OK, now I'm talking in circles, slowly spiraling in toward the only possible solution... I'm not giving up.
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