Press On…
Thomas Edison made some 2,774 attempts to find the right filament for a light bulb before he finally discovered a carbon filament that would both work and last. Charles Goodyear began working in the 1830’s on a process to harden rubber. In 1839, he accidentally dropped some rubber and sulfur into a hot frying pan, and to his amazement, it hardened. However, it wasn’t until 1844 that he was able to develop a consistent process and patent it.
Alexander Graham Bell began work on existing technology to transmit speech over telegraph wires. After two years of labor, he was finally about to transmit voice over a wire, resulting in the telephone. An engineer named Charles Babbage proposed an analytical engine in 1833, but not until 1943 was “Colossus” built, a British device used in code breaking. It is generally considered the first true computer. It took another thirty years for technology to shrink to a personal computer. Hundreds of people, working for over a century, finally succeeded in making computing power accessible to us all.
There is no way to get an accurate account of the total number of rockets that failed before Apollo 11 finally landed on the moon. Every time a multi-million-dollar rocket exploded, NASA engineers would ask, “What did we learn from this failure?”
During the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Australian Patrick Tiernan was keeping pace with the leaders in the men’s 10,000-meter run. About 200 meters from the finish line, he hit the wall (in case you are not familiar with the term, it means your body gives out and shuts down. This happens to me in a 10-meter race). The leaders surged ahead. Patrick stumbled. He got up, his legs swaying, and fell to the ground a second time, 180 meters from the finish line. Patrick’s body was saying, “We will not go further.” But Patrick got up a second time and stumbled his way to the finish line, coming in 19th place. “It’s the Olympics and I’ve been waiting for five years for it,” he said afterwards, “It was about 180 to go that I collapsed the first time. You don’t stop when you’ve got 180 meters to go.”
“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was rejected by twelve publishers before finally being accepted for a publishing run of 500 books. John Grisham’s first book, “A Time to Kill,” was rejected by twenty-eight publishers. Theodore Giesel, better known as Dr. Seuss, had his first book, “To Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street,” rejected twenty-seven times.
In the Bible, there are people who had to keep trying. Noah spent a hundred years building the ark. Abraham and Sarah tried to have a baby for twenty-four years. Joseph was sold into slavery, got promoted, was falsely accused, put in prison, rose to be the head trustee, had the chance to interpret a dream for Pharaoh, and was finally made second in command of Egypt. Every time he was knocked down, he got up and started over.
Moses kept the people of Israel on the move for an extra forty years before they could enter the Promised Land. David was anointed King, but waited fifteen years before he actually became King. Jeremiah preached for forty years, warning people to turn to God. They never did. Paul was converted between 33 and 36 AD. He waited ten years before his first missionary journey.
What do all these stories have in common? These people did not give up. They pressed on. Failure was a teacher, not a dead end.
In the last years of his life, Paul wrote, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” What was the goal Paul pressed towards? It was not, as many think, his reward in heaven. Paul explained, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” Do you hear what Paul is saying? His goal was to know, to experience Jesus, and to become like him. He would not quit on that goal.
I wonder how many followers of Jesus have this as their goal. Not many, I’d wager. Somehow, we lost sight of the goal: to know Jesus and to be like Jesus. Being a Christian is not just about going to heaven; it is about living your life as Jesus would live it.
I’ve seen people who called themselves Christians quit on God. When faith was hard, when prayers were not answered, when other people who called themselves Christians acted up, they bailed out. They did not press on.
Followers of Jesus, hear this simple call: Press on. Become more and more like Jesus. When you fail, learn. When you fall, get back up. When you are rejected, try again. When you have to wait a long time, keep trying, keep believing. Press on.