Good Grief!

Have you ever felt like Charlie Brown?

There's Lucy, the perpetual holder of the football. And here comes Charlie Brown, determined this time to finally kick the ball. Perhaps he can run faster than Lucy can snap the ball aside. Perhaps this time she will relent and let him have a go. But always and forevermore, Lucy pulls the ball aside, and poor Charlie Brown goes flying, never to learn the lesson.

Or perhaps he learned the lesson after all. The point may not be to actually kick the ball, but to never give up. Often we scratch our thick skulls and wonder, why didn't Charlie Brown just quit tyring to kick the ball? Or why didn't he learn his lesson and not play games with Lucy, choosing instead to play catch with Linus or somebody? Or why didn't he hold the ball for once, and let Lucy kick? And yet I don't really think those were the things either Charlie or us were meant to understand. I think, rather, that it is a lesson in persistence.

Call it whatever you'd like--persistence, determination, perseverance, stubbornness, confidence. Patience. Hope. I heard one preacher call it "sticktuitiveness". It's a virtue, a fruit of the Spirit, the character of Christ created in us. It's something we are told never to pray for, and something we hate to learn. And yet there are rewards for persistence, for patience, for perseverance, especially when the thing waited upon is the right thing. Persistence eventually pays off, they say. I rather prefer God's version--perseverance builds character, character builds hope, and hope does not disappoint!

Of course, you have to know your persisting for the right and not the wrong, for good and not for evil, for God and not your own glory. You have to know the truth, and trust the Lord in the things you cannot see. You have to listen to His voice, hear His direction, follow His lead. But if the Lord says persist...you stick to it!

So your enemies surround you and cry out against you, calling you ugly names and spitting their curses, all the while swearing that you are never going to make it. Stick to it!

So your troubles are many and your triumphs few. Stick to it!

So things don't go as you plan, or turn out like you thought they ought to. Stick to it!

So disappointment and discouragement hound your heels, mocking your every move when nothing you do works or turns out right. Stick to it!

So the work is hard and long, and you weary in what you are doing. Stick to it!

So the way is rough and your companions few. Stick to it!

If you know you're right, though everyone says your wrong. Stick to it!

If you've heard from God, stick to it!

And suddenly I'm reminded of Tolkien (or at least Peter Jackson's version of Tolkien), and the words of Samwise Gamgee:

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo,

the ones that really mattered.

Full of darkness and danger they were,

and sometimes you didn't want to know the end

because how could the end be happy?

How could the world go back to the way it was

when so much bad had happened?

But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow,

even darkness must pass.

A new day will come,

and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you,

that meant something even if you were too small to understand why.

But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand,

I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back,

only they didn't.

They kept going because they were holding on to something.

And then Frodo asked:

What are we holding onto, Sam?

And Sam replied:

That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo.

and it's worth fighting for.