In offering a rebuttal to the popular ideal Money May (Floyd Mayweather) asks, “How about you just don’t get hit?”
Whilst this proved to be an effective approach for the 49 – 0 pound for pound best boxer in a generation; Life tends to have significantly better aim.
Personally, I think Rocky got it right, you will never be smart enough, cautious enough, or just outright lucky enough (I don’t even believe in luck but that’s a discussion for another post ) to totally avoid hardship in life.
So when Life hits and it hits hard, what are you going to do?
Even with his stellar evasive ability, Mayweather still got hit sometimes, surprisingly even when he did get hit, he would till move forward, he would not give up!
The secret to this, as he will be the first to declare, is Hard work and Dedication!
Note this!
So what am I actually saying here?
I’m saying life hits hard and sometimes you might find yourself on the receiving end of a hard blow.This can happen in so many different ways, and you might be attacked from so many different directions, the principle remains the same, keep moving.
As long as there is breathe in your lungs and blood in your veins there is hope.
The funny thing is that external opposition is actually the lesser of two evils, the real killer lies within.
Failure isn’t being knocked down, failure is refusing to get back up!
When you can see the obstacle it’s much easier to overcome it, but after you missed the gym yesterday, and you couldn’t wake up this morning, you start to feel like there is no point to this; Or after you catch yourself eating that packet of crisps after a week of eating clean you postpone your detox to the next week, or the next first of the month, or the next year.
You start to give up, and there’s no devil in red tights and horns with a pitchfork in front of you to blame so you fail to recognise that you are the only one holding you back.
Well I’m saying jump right back up on to that horse and hold on for dear life! Don’t give up!
A friend of mine taught me a grueling abdominal training routine “ten minute abs” and as the name suggests it was various abs exercises for ten minutes straight. Initially, I would try and about half way through, unable to continue due to the pain I’d just stop, promising myself to finish it next time. The problem with “next time” is, it’s not on the clock.
It wasn’t until I accepted failure as part of the exercise that I actually started to make progress, I’d start and collapse halfway through, but as soon as I got my breath back I’d jump straight back in, and I wouldn’t stop when I got tired, I’d stop when I was done. Before too long we had to start incorporating other exercises because we were finding it easy.
Failure is part of the process, and if you’re afraid of failure your not brave enough to succeed!
There will be high’s and low’s on the road but just don’t stop until you get home.
Friends, I’m hoping you find encouragement in whatever you are pursuing. I find it in relentlessly refusing to give up but honestly sometimes even that is not enough and I’ve come to realise that my strength from within actually comes from something more than just me.
Honestly, I truly find the strength to carry on in the simple fact that God loves me and that He’s brought me this far and won’t leave me till I am fully done. I can trust in Him to get me home, and the best application of everything you’ve read so far is actually found in a relentless refusal to stop going back to God for help to carry on.
Sometimes I feel I’m too far, or too wrong to run back but that’s where I remind myself that I have to and whether you know God now or not that’s really the best encouragement I can offer.
The word “God” always tends to make God sound so far away, He actually wants us to call him daddy, that really is the kind of relationship He wants, I mean He created you and a good dad will always welcome you home and that’s exactly what He’s doing, He’s welcoming you home.
It’s not about what perceptions you might have of Christianity or what you might have seen in the media, or in history or in certain groups of christians the truth is God really just wants to make a personal connection with you, He’s right there with you waiting to do just that but it’s hard if you don’t know how and that’s where finding a good community of christians can really help.
You can send me a message, or drop me a line in the comments or you can google it to find a great church around you, somewhere you’ll feel welcome, and where you’ll feel at home.
If you do know God then I encourage you to keep reminding yourself to run back to Him in every aspect of your life. There’s nothing too small and nothing too big, He cares about you and everything you are about, and I hope you begin to discover this more.
Now in attempt to not write too much more of an essay I’ll just say I hope you have a great rest of your day, or night. Thanks so much for reading to the end. Please let me know what you think and let’s connect in the comments and share this post with a friend if you want to, or an enemy if you don’t.
Either way, take care 🙂
The Ordinary Amazing 