Don't Give Up!

by Morris Chalfant

Louisa May Alcott, Ludwig van Beethoven, Hans Christian Anderson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Burns, John Burroughs, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Carlyle, George Goethals, Oliver Goldsmith, Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther, Franz Schubert, and Booker T. Washington. What did all these famous people have in common?

They were born in or had to fight poverty. None was aided by "relief" or a "guaranteed" income. They overcame their handicaps of being without funds, and didn't even have the opportunities that exist today. Yet each in his or her own way gave something good to the world. Each one will always be remembered.

Vision of the soul

When a person is fettered by handicaps, he is not permanently hindered unless the vision of the soul is gone (Proverbs 29:18). He is tempted to surrender because there seems to be no future, nothing ahead. Some staggering loss has shattered life's plans; the light has gone out on the hilltop; and the desire to try again has withered under the fierce onslaught of trouble and sorrow.

Remember, it is always too soon to quit. The stone that crushed your hope may be just the elevation needed to see new frontiers.

He who quits because of crushing defeats or because a dreadful handicap is thrust upon him will discover that something inside him has been surrendered. The men who have made history have been men with handicaps.

Blessing through blindness

Louis Braille, who developed a system of writing for the blind, often watched his father (a leather-worker) labor deftly with awl and hammer as he perforated the leather. One day in his father's absence, young Louis thought he would try to operate the awl. But the tool slipped from his unpracticed fingers and penetrated his left eye. In a few days infection had spread to his right eye, and soon he was permanently blind.

But this boy did not bow in helplessness before his handicap. He possessed courage and willpower and imagination. In Paris he studied the methods then being used by the blind in reading and shortly afterwards developed a much better system himself. He was only 20 years old when he gave the blind an "alphabet" by which they would eventually read the world's best literature.

So grateful was France that the nation erected a statue to Louis Braille. The blind from all over the world still come to rub their sensitive fingers over the face, eyes, mouth, and nose of the statue. In this way they "know" and thank this man who could not be stopped by adversity, this man who, because he had faith and courage and was utterly lacking in self-pity, brought blessing to thousands.

From tragedy to triumph

A painting shows the Devil at a chessboard with a young man. The Devil has just made his move, and the young man's queen is checkmated. Defeat and despair are written on his face.

One day the great chess genius, Paul Morphy, stood looking at that painting. He studied carefully the positions on the board. Suddenly his face lit up and he shouted to the young man in the painting, "Don't give up! You still have a move!"

We come to those moments when it seems we are checkmated. We see no winning move we can make. Then the great Master of all life comes closer to us. He remembers one day when He prayed to be spared from the cross "Let this cup pass from Me," he pleaded.

The cross seemed the end of His world, but there was yet another move. Beyond the cross was an empty tomb and victory.

The same Christ can see beyond your cross to some triumph. He says, "Don't give up! You still have a move!"

Morris Chalfant is a retired evangelist in the Church of the Nazarene.

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