Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. Philippians 3:13

It came in the mail just yesterday, a desperate letter from a young man who was madly in love with a beautiful young woman. But he was confronted with a big problem. She doesn’t know that he cares for her, and he doesn’t know how to go about telling her. Young love can be so frustrating, but there is one thing for sure. Either he’d better learn how to put it in words, or else someone else will find those important words and win her heart.

Destiny in life is not the result of fate or chance. It’s the result of our decisions, the direction we go with our life, and our determination to follow through with our commitment to our goals.

A challenge which seems to be a rebuff may actually be the making of an important accomplishment. Take, for example, Isaac Watts, who complained to his father that the hymns which were sung in church were boring and old‑fashioned, with words that had no meaning to his youthful generation. Challenged by his father’s words, “If you think you can write better hymns, why don’t you?” he set out to improve the music of his day.

He did, too, and today Isaac Watts is remembered as the author of the Christmas carol, “Joy to the World,” and among the 350 hymns of his are favorites such as “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and “I Sing the Mighty Power of God.”

Scores of people are stopped by a single rebuff, and others are only goaded on by rebuff. Grace Livingstone Hill’s first novel was rejected by 40 publishers before one would publish her first manuscript.

In the year 1902, the poetry editor of The Atlantic Monthly returned a sheaf of poems to a 28-year-old poet with a curt note saying his magazine had “no room for it.”

The man whose poetry was rejected didn’t stop writing, and eventually Robert Frost became Poet Laureate of a generation who did understand vigorous verse. Albert Einstein knew rejection as well. In 1905, the University of Bern turned down his Ph.D. dissertation as being “irrelevant and fanciful.” But he didn’t give up.

And ponder this. His rhetoric teacher at Harrow, an exclusive school in Britain, wrote on a report card: “a conspicuous lack of success.” A generation later the same individual, Winston Churchill, then serving as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, thundered, “A thousand years from now all the world will say this was Britain’s finest hour.”

Going one step further, it takes a certain amount of determination to accomplish anything spiritual for God, for many people will rebuff you and tell you that you aren’t good enough. Don’t listen to them. Your determination to do the will of God, regardless of what others may think or say, helps write your future.

Take a lingering look at some of those in Jesus’ day who were rebuffed and how their determination to reach Christ was rewarded. Read Luke 19 about Zacchaeus, the short little man who climbed a tree to see Christ, and was rewarded with dinner for two. Remember Bartimaeus, blind from birth, who couldn’t be stilled by people saying, “Don’t bother Jesus,” and he received His sight.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Note especially those last words: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.   God rewards those who seek Him, and in your determination to do His will, you will find peace and great joy.

Resource reading: Psalm 46.