Why You Should Persevere When You’d Rather Quit

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. – James 1:12

Last summer, I ordered two black bookcases I’d been eyeing for weeks. I was so excited to get these bad boys assembled and put up in my new home office, knowing they’d be the perfect addition to the room. Not to mention my book collection was outgrowing my current bookshelf, so I needed to address that problem ASAP.

After just a couple of days, they were delivered to our house, and I got to work on assembling them.

Now, just for some context, I have a love-hate relationship with assembling furniture. It always takes longer than you think it will. The instructions always seem to have 800 steps. And I get irritated enough to start lecturing the furniture at least once per piece. But I love the feeling when I finish putting it together and get to experience the finished product in all its glory.

Knowing all of this, I tried to mentally prepare myself to assemble the bookcases, but when the time came to put them together, it ended up being a much more frustrating afternoon than I expected.

I’ll spare you details, but basically what you need to know is that I put the top half of the bookcase on backwards and didn’t realize it until I had hammered forty-five nails into the backing of the bookcase. Yes, you read that correctly…forty-five.

I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not.

So I spent over an hour prying each nail out of the backing with a flat-head screwdriver (my hammer wasn’t working), and then taking the bookcase apart so I could reassemble it correctly.

Needless to say, I cried a lot that afternoon.

To be honest, I thought about quitting. I thought about leaving the half-assembled bookcase in shambles on my office floor, not to mention the second bookcase that was still in the box. I thought about walking out of the room, closing the door behind me, and focusing my attention on something that wasn’t so frustrating and discouraging.

But I knew how badly I wanted those bookcases in my office. I knew how rewarding it would feel when I finally completed the project. I knew I couldn’t give up in the middle of something I had been thinking about and looking forward to for weeks.

So I dried my tears, ate a snack, took some deep breaths, and got back to work.

And I’m so glad I did. A few hours later, the bookcases were up, holding all of my books and office supplies that had been piled on the floor and overflowing off of my desk for far too long. They were exactly what I had hoped for, even if the journey to get there didn’t go exactly how I planned.

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. How often do our lives look like my afternoon did? We have a plan. We have desires. We have dreams and goals and aspirations. We know it’ll take some work. We know it won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.

But then the rubber hits the road, and things turn out to be way tougher, way more frustrating, way more discouraging, and way more tear-inducing than we ever expected.

And that’s when we want to quit. That’s when we want to say forget it. That’s when we want to stop chasing after that dream or that calling that we know God has placed deep inside our hearts and instead take the path of least resistance. We want to go down the easy road, not the one that makes us cry this much.

But then…there’s that still small voice. The voice in your soul that tells you to keep going, keep pushing, keep trying. That, my friend, is the voice of the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t want you to give up. He wants you to persevere because He knows what lies ahead. The enemy, on the other hand, wants the exact opposite. And he will do anything he can to keep you from pursuing the plan God has for you.

But that’s exactly why you need to keep going…because God does have an incredible plan for your life. He has a plan and a purpose for you. But living out that plan and that purpose is going to take some perseverance.

So whatever it is you’re walking through, whatever it is that’s making you want to give up and go the easy route, I’m begging you to push through it. Keep going. Choose to persevere. I promise you’ll be so glad you did.