PUSH: Persevere Until Success Happens Through Prayer (21 page)

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.
—H
ENRY
D
AVID
T
HOREAU

In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, You have the dew of Your youth.
—P
SALM
110:3

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
—A
UTHOR
U
NKNOWN

T
he apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:14,
“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”
(KJV).
He was prepared to push through until he broke into that place in God where he found pure expression of destiny and purpose. Sometimes, like the Israelites, we must take an indirect route to get there. I want to encourage you not to give up on your dreams when faced with challenges or when your trajectory ceases to become a straight path. Do not give up on your dreams because God is not through with you.

When you feel yourself slipping, just remember Sparky. He was not even disliked by his other classmates; he wasn’t important enough for that. He was the invisible kid at school and was astonished if a schoolmate ever said “hello” to him outside school hours. School was all but impossible for Sparky. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics, algebra, and English in high school. He didn’t do much better in sports. He was clumsy, uncoordinated, and untalented. Although he did manage to make the school golf team, he lost the only important match of the year. There was a consolation match and he lost that too.

Throughout his youth, Sparky was socially awkward. He never once asked a girl out. He presented himself as nondescript: simple, bland, unassuming—just another face in the crowd. With his regular looks, he passed for ordinary so easily that most people believed him when he insisted, as he did so often in later years, that he was a “nothing,” a “nobody,” an “uncomplicated man with ordinary interests.” With the exception of his ability to draw and sketch, he was a pitiful failure at everything else. He was proud of his artwork, though, and while no one else appreciated it, Sparky had found his passion.

Upon graduating from high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios. He was told to send some samples of his artwork. He spent a great deal of time on it, and finally submitted something. The reply from the Disney Studios came. He had been rejected once again. After a stint in the military, Sparky wrote his own autobiography in cartoons, focusing on the kid who could never accomplish anything. He described his childhood self, a little-boy loser and chronic underachiever who had a female friend who constantly rejected him. He was the little cartoon boy whose kite would never fly, who never succeeded in kicking the football, whose Christmas tree was never quite right, whose loud mouth gal pal never appreciated him nor had faith in him, and who became the most famous cartoon character of all—Charlie Brown!

Sparky, the boy who failed at everything and whose work was rejected repeatedly, was Charles Schulz. Charles Schulz persevered. He succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. He earned and deserved that success. He endured rejection. It took lots of failing and falling, but he never quit.
Peanuts
ran for nearly fifty years without interruption and appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in seventy-five countries. Charles Schulz held on to his dream, and because he did, the world today is a richer and brighter place.
⁸⁰

I pray that you will persevere too. Do not give up on your dreams. God is up to something great and He has you in mind. You are loaded with something spectacular…

Persevere Until Something Happens—PUSH until it manifests…

Take hold of the birthing power of prayer today!

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand, was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!

I asked for strength—God gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom—God gave me problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity—God gave me a brain and brawn to work.

I asked for courage—God gave me danger to overcome.

I asked for love—God gave me troubled people to help.

I asked for favors—God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted—but I received everything I needed!

May your path be bright and full of light everywhere you go. I pray your feet will never stumble out of God’s plan.

May the desires of your heart come true, and may you experience peace in everything you do.

May goodness, kindness, and mercy come your way, and may you gain wisdom and grow in the Lord every day.