by Ken Costa
But most of us will quit too soon. That is what separates the winners from the losers. Those who achieve much press on without holding back. They do not quit easily. And often, when every circumstance is against them, they still push through. Caldwell and Jorgeson persevered even as the skin was ripped from their fingers.
Paul knew what it was like to be overwhelmed by challenges and yet to press on. He told us,
Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. (2 Corinthians 11:25–27)
And his list of challenges goes on.
Yet there is in these accounts one overriding, compelling, and driving force: the indomitable conviction of calling. In Paul’s case of preaching the good news to the Gentiles, he would do it, whatever it took.
Calling without conviction is ineffectual. Conviction without calling is delusional. But calling and conviction empower us to endure.
Joshua marched around Jericho seven times before it fell (Joshua 6). How easy it would have been to give up after six! Elijah sent his servant seven times to check the sky before a tiny cloud appeared (1 Kings 18:44). What got them through the middle numbers?
I start down a path with conviction that it is the right one. I press on three times to lay hold of God’s promise, but nothing seems to happen. Do I continue to press on or pull back? I wish I could give the definitive answer. But if I could, you should distrust me, because to do so would be to undermine the very nature of trust. It’s precisely because we don’t know that we have to trust God. We have to keep on keeping on until we hear otherwise. It might be seven times, or it might be seventy-seven times.
We should remain alert to the voices of people God has sent us. We should steep ourselves in the reading of Scripture and assess both our gut instincts and what the Spirit is telling us about whether to persevere. In the theatre of war, when an officer has to make a snap decision, it is made using the “go-no-go” formula; in an instant, the factors for and against are calculated. If two-thirds align positively, it’s “go,” and if not, it’s “no-go.” This may seem a crude calculation, but I have found it a useful tool.
MOVING ON
While the go-no-go model is useful, we all know that life cannot be lived according to percentages. There is another layer in decision making that relies on our gut instincts or intuitions—and if we are walking closely with God, we trust that this is where the Holy Spirit speaks to us.
And God does indeed speak. “The LORD said to Samuel, ‘How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way’” (1 Samuel 16:1).
We can get so downhearted by the problems we face, uncertainty of the future, comparison with the seemingly hassle-free lives of our friends, and lack of opportunities to use our talents effectively, that we lose hope.
When we are heavily burdened, it is right to acknowledge our state and ask God to minister to us in that painful place. But there comes a moment, which we must discern carefully, when we risk wallowing in the pain and discomfort.
I can recall a time when, between jobs, I became introspective and needed a word from God to jolt me out of dwelling on the past and move me on to new challenges. It was the right time to be rebuked, to be led “to the rock that is higher than I” (Psalm 61:2). The Spirit has often put this verse on my heart to force me to look up out of the near depression of navel-gazing and searching for solutions. Within no time I could see the future not as a painful uncertainty but as a dynamic challenge to be tackled with strength and vigor.
The past is the past, I sensed God saying to me. It was once a great job that I called you to, but I have moved on and want you to move on to another path. Similarly, Samuel had to come to terms with the fact that Saul, whom he had personally anointed as king, was no longer the anointed one. He had to face the biggest mistake of his life. It was hard, yet he moved on to seek out and anoint David. He had to leave behind the memories of his errors and press on to know the new season God was leading him into. Left to himself, he would have remained depressed. But so often there is a clear call from God to get with the program.
About twenty years ago, a group of us had a dream: we believed that London needed an international and nondenominational worship center. We identified the Battersea Power Station site as a place to build such a center, and we started praying. We got excited. We believed that this was the place. A Buddhist pagoda had just been put up in Battersea Park, and I thought that if a Buddhist pagoda could be built there, why not have a worship community on the Battersea Power Station? We dreamed up the scheme, we talked to architects, we talked to planners. We had the support of Prince Charles. We had beautiful images of what this centralized place would look like, with lots of ministries in one large worship community that could feed London. We had a talented team of people, developers, and planners. We put money together. But it was not to be.
I remember going there with Jamie Haith, who was one of our church youth leaders at the time, for one last chance to pray. Maybe God would give us one final miracle and turn the project in our favor. We arrived at the site, but where we would normally go into the area, through a gate, someone had moved an enormous boulder sealing it off—we couldn’t go in. Like the tomb of Jesus, it was sealed. How we hoped for a resurrection! There were many tears at the time. It seemed that a dream had died.
I picked up a little stone, which was lying next to that great big rock, as a reminder of that moment, and this stone has been on my desk for more than twenty years. I think of it often, and I think of that moment of intense disappointment. It is a reminder of the prayers and the perseverance and the fact that not all our planted seeds will germinate.
Creating that worship center had been my plan A—it was all I wanted. But plan B was to work with the team in my home church, helping the ministries there grow, to develop Alpha, and to plant church communities across the United Kingdom. In hindsight, that was God’s plan A. It would not have been the right thing at that time to pull a high-profile set of ministries into one central place, when in fact growth has come much more rapidly to varied ministries at Holy Trinity Brompton.
A disappointment encountered is not a destiny canceled. We may not see the fruit of things that we would hope for, but just as the stone was rolled across the tomb of the crucified Jesus, there was, three days later, a different story.
PERSEVERANCE CREATES CHARACTER
We know that life does not always run smoothly. It takes time and perseverance to realize our God-given ambitions. Think back to Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson climbing the Dawn Wall. Caldwell had been working on this unclimbed route since 2007 and experienced numerous failed attempts before finally finding success. In 2011, he spent six days working on just one of the thirty-two sections, suspended a third of the way up El Capitan in horrendous weather, only to be eventually forced into defeat. Even during the successful ascent in 2015, things did not go smoothly. On one of the most difficult sections, Kevin Jorgeson fell at the same point ten times over seven days, before he finally managed at the eleventh attempt. By this point, before he was even halfway up the wall, his fingers had been sliced open repeatedly on the razor-sharp rocks.
One of the most incredible aspects of Tommy Caldwell’s story is that he completed this seemingly impossible climb with only nine fingers. When he was twenty-three, Caldwell accidently cut through his left index finger with a table saw—taking the finger off just above the knuckle. At the time, the doctors suggested he find a new career, and the climbing world mourned the apparent loss of a rising star. But
Caldwell would not be undone or deterred. This monumental setback only made him more determined to achieve his goals. Reflecting on the value of adversity, Caldwell later wrote, “Through these experiences I learned that hardship is what changes us the most. It puts us in an intensely meditative state where we figure out what we really want. And it motivates us to go for those things we have always dreamed of.”6
It’s incredible to think that one of the first men to free-climb the unassailable Dawn Wall—the man who had pioneered the expedition and who is regarded by many as the greatest all-around climber in a generation—has managed to achieve that epithet while missing a finger!
Character is wrought in adversity and hardship. The Dawn Wall was never going to yield to a first, second, or even third attempt. Every slip and failure was a learning curve for Caldwell and Jorgeson. Every year of failed attempts added fuel to their fire. After slipping from the same spot for the tenth time in seven days, Kevin Jorgeson could muster an eleventh attempt only because he had acquired the character that comes with perseverance.
Few people achieve their life ambitions without persevering against the odds. Calling and perseverance are siblings; they grow up together. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, tells the story of how seventeen years ago he tried to raise $2 million to start his online retail business. He traveled from China and visited thirty investors in Silicon Valley. He was turned down by each one in turn. He was dejected and returned home. He then scraped together the money needed to start his business from friends and family. Finally he succeeded, and in 2014 Alibaba became the largest company to raise money on the New York Stock Exchange, valuing the company at $250 billion.
One of the early investors remembered meeting Jack on a visit to China to find investment opportunities. He said he met twenty entrepreneurs but invested in only one—Alibaba—because he had never seen such hunger in the eyes of one young person. Hunger to fulfill our God-given callings and perseverance remain inseparable from achievement.
Paul made this very point in his letter to the Romans, when he told the church in Rome to rejoice in their sufferings, for “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3–4). Paul teaches us that when we press on, something meaningful is happening, even if we don’t recognize it. Our characters are being formed. Character is forged in the struggle to persevere. Setbacks do not end our aspirations; they teach us to build resilience, to learn how to flourish even when the chips are down. We toughen up. We are not fazed by adversity. We learn to trust in Jesus. This is an integral part of the way the Spirit of God increases the tenacity within us. Resilience enables us to grow into the people we would like to be when no one is watching.
CELEBRATE THE END
Finally, and gloriously, we celebrate because our plans are completed.
In the story of Zechariah, there was a paean of praise because the work was done: “What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of ‘God bless it! God bless it!’” (Zechariah 4:7). This verse rings with the sound of grace. The stone was taken from the quarry where it had been excavated, chiseled, and refined. His hands laid this capstone, the crucial part of the building, and they would also complete it. And then the people would know that God had been in the project. “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you” (v. 9).
There comes a time when, after the quarrying and chiseling and refining, we show the completed product. After a time of trial there is a time of grace in which we achieve what we have been called to do. Perhaps someone’s life has changed from being self-driven to being Spirit-led, or a new task at work is finished against the odds, or a manuscript is accepted for publication after the seventh rejection, or a challenge has been completed on the eleventh attempt. Whatever it is, it is time to celebrate, to rejoice, and to look back and see the hand of God guiding you through the trials.
Reuben Morgan and Ben Fielding of Hillsong have written one of the most awe-inspiring songs of our time, “Mighty to Save.” It has been sung millions of times all over the world. There is a line in the song that has become a refrain to many throughout the world—the declaration that our Savior can move the mountains.7
Over and over again, in times of praying with people, I have come back to claiming this promise with them. I remember one occasion sitting in church next to a distressed man who was a foreign exchange trader. He had dabbled with a number of things that were clearly unhelpful, from pornography to semioccult activities. It was by chance that we happened to be sitting next to each other, but hindsight tells me it was another instance of God working all things for good. As the worship grew, I sensed this man’s continuing distress until I eventually plucked up the courage to ask whether there was anything I could do to help. He looked at me as if to say there was nothing that could be done. “My life is a mess,” he said. “I have big issues. I sense darkness within me.” I took him into a side chapel where we could be alone, and we began to pray. At exactly the same time the worship team, led by Tim Hughes, was singing “Mighty to Save.” It was new to me then. But I knew in an instant that there was great power in the words and the music.
As they sang about the Savior who can move mountains, I encouraged my friend to speak directly, in the name of Jesus, to each of the “mountains” he was confronting. It was an alarming experience. He became contorted and physically sick (fortunately the door was close by!). We prayed on with determination. And slowly but unmistakably, these strongholds of despair that had been there all his life, deep-seated like a mountain, began to move. We recognized in that moment the power of worship to unlock the power of God to move mountains of shame, oppression, and guilt.
This man was clearly under an attack, an attempt to destabilize his life. But the power of God was upon him. Freedom came to him. Even now, years later, I can still see the color come back in his face and the peace surrounding him. He never looked back. Those mountains had been truly moved and thrown into the sea. For him it happened in an instant; for others (such as me) obstacles take longer to be dislodged. I wish it were not so.
A South African friend once said to me, “You must not say, ‘God, I have a big problem,’ but, ‘Problem, I have a big God.’” Simple but true. And sometimes our God takes his time in removing those mountains, as he teaches us about his faithfulness, tests our trust in him, and edifies our characters. In all cases, however, our God will flatten the mountains that are opposed to his ways in our lives. Only his time will tell when and how.
NINE
CALLED TO WORSHIP
WORSHIP LIFTS OUR EYES TO ADORE THE CREATOR. IN WORSHIP we seek the presence of God. In his presence there is perfect peace. As such, worship is not just a momentary impulse or a feel-good expression of gratitude for a happy day. It is more. It is the architecture of life: the constant reminder that we are enjoying the favor of God. When fears threaten to overwhelm us, worship reminds us of this favor. Our callings make no sense outside of worship, because worship acknowledges that calling as coming from, inspired by, and sustained by God himself. We buy in to a plan bigger than our own. His purposes are “for welfare and not for evil”; his plans give us “a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11 ESV). Therefore, the search for our callings needs to take place within the search for intimacy with God. It is only from a relational perspective that we will be able to discern his plans for our lives.
Of all the rituals and traditions of the Christian faith, singing songs of worship to God can seem most peculiar. Can it really happen in the real world? It feels so surreal. I was talking to a friend of mine some time ago who simply didn’t understand worship. “Is it just about singing or is there more? Does worship have any relevance to my everyday life? Why are these songs so important to God? Does God somehow need the constant praise and affirmation?”
The answer, of course, is
no. God does not need our worship or praise. He is complete in and of himself—he has no needs or requirements. And yet worship forms an integral part of our faith. Many of the major figures in the Bible sang songs of praise not only in times of victory but also in the valleys of despair. Worship is for all seasons of life. The book of Psalms is full of songs of worship. Paul wrote to the early church of the importance of singing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs . . . to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19 ESV). The book of Revelation speaks of four creatures who worship God day after day and night after night (Revelation 4:8), and it looks forward to a time when all creatures in heaven and on earth will praise the Lamb (Revelation 5:13).
Clearly, we are called to worship God. But why does it matter if we give praise and glory to God? And what does worship have to do with our wider callings to engage with the world?
It’s important to point out that worship is not confined to music. After all, we can’t go around singing songs all day unless we are a little unstable. Rather, worship is a broad term describing any display of surrender, praise, and submission to the name who is above all other names, Jesus Christ.
Far from being limited to singing songs on a Sunday, worship is the lifting of all that we are to God—in song, but also in prayer, in the natural world, in meditation, at work, in creativity, and with humble and reverent adoration. Worship should be apparent at all times, not just at church on Sundays. The supreme objective of our worship is to be drawn into the presence of the living God. We become parched and thirsty during our ordinary routines. We worship God to refresh ourselves and, above all, to encounter him.