An important part of never giving up is making the right choices while you are hurting, discouraged, frustrated, confused or under pressure. The right choice is often the harder choice. When you’re in the middle of terrible stress, you naturally want to take the path of least resistance.
Those are the very moments when you need to make the tougher choice. To reap right results in life, you have to do right when you don’t feel like it. I call this “pressing in and pressing on”—and knowing how to do it is one of the most important components of being a person who never gives up.
You see, progress has a price. Being a person who never gives up costs you. You’ll never get where you want to be in life without willingly sacrificing and pushing through the obstacles or adversities that stand in your way.
Your obstacle might be an attitude or issue from your past, or a relationship, set of circumstances, mindset, feeling, or bad habit. Whatever it is, you are the only one who can press through it; no one else can do that for you.
Maybe you tried to overcome your challenges in the past. Perhaps you tried to the point that you are now weary, exhausted or discouraged. If so, then you are at the precise point where you have to summon fresh strength from God and press in one more time.
We’ll always grow weary, and we may even falter in our determination, if we do not continually lean on God. We have to make the decision to press through, but we never experience success in anything unless we rely on God to help us.
The Bible says that when we wait on God, our strength is renewed as the eagle’s (see Is. 40:31). To wait on God means to expect Him to do what needs to be done, to rely on Him.
One of the definitions I like for the word “press” is: “to exert steady force or pressure against something.” I often say, “You have to press against the pressure that’s pressing against you!” When something is pressing against you, you must be determined to press against it with greater force, because very little that is truly worthwhile or worth having in life happens without this kind of effort.
Sometimes you have to press through circumstances to overcome obstacles, such as when your dream is to open a business in a certain neighborhood but the zoning board repeatedly rejects your request to build the facility you need; or when your dream is to go to college, but you keep getting turned down every time you apply for a scholarship.
I suffered sexual, mental and emotional abuse as a child. Because of this, I needed to move away from home and begin supporting myself immediately after high school. My high school teachers recognized a writing gift in me and strongly urged me to try for a college scholarship, but I did not get to go to college.
Obviously, that didn’t stop God! I’ve written almost 80 books and I never went to school to learn how to do it. I have also received several honorary degrees and two earned degrees because of my writing. I could not go to college the so-called normal way, but God had another way to help me do what He wanted me to do.
I am amazed when I think of what He will do if we simply refuse to give up.
Difficult situations and challenges in life must be dealt with, but I am more concerned about your response to the obstacles than about the obstacles themselves. If you can keep your thoughts and attitudes right—and if you will refuse to give up—you will eventually have the breakthrough you need.
I can’t promise you will get exactly what you want, but if God doesn’t give you what you are asking for then He will give you something better. His ways and thoughts are above ours.
Think about your life and make a fresh determination to pay the price of progress. As you face the obstacles in your life, remember: Press in and press on.
JOYCE MEYER is a New York Times best-selling author and one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers. She has written more than 70 books, including the popular Beauty for Ashes and Battlefield of the Mind, and her most recent, Never Give Up! (all FaithWords). She is also the founder of Joyce Meyer Ministries Inc. and the host of Enjoying Everyday Life radio and TV programs, which air on hundreds of stations worldwide.
