It’s Always Too Soon To Quit - Jentezen Franklin

I heard a story about a couple in Southern California who lived in the foothills of the mountains. One day as they were hiking through a canyon, they noticed wild mushrooms growing everywhere. They decided to pick the mushrooms and take them home. They invited some friends over for a “mushroom party.” No, they didn’t smoke them. They cooked them. They sautéed the mushrooms, breaded them and fried them. They made mushroom omelets, mushroom salad and mushroom soup. They even concocted some mushroom desserts. After dinner, as all the guests were gathered at the table, having a great time, the host went into the kitchen with the leftovers. He had an old, lazy cat, so he decided to feed it with some scraps from the table. The cat gobbled up the mushrooms. Sometime later, the host went back into the kitchen and found the cat lying on the floor, foaming at the mouth and panting for breath. He immediately phoned the veterinarian, who advised the man that he and his dinner guests had better get to the emergency room as soon as possible to have their stomachs pumped. The vet suspected that they had picked poisoned toadstools instead of mushrooms. After going to the hospital and having their stomachs pumped, the people finally made it back home. They made their way into the kitchen, expecting to see their cat lying lifeless on the floor. Instead, the cat was in the corner of the kitchen with a brand-new litter of kittens! Imagine that! Have you ever felt like that? What they thought were death pains were, in reality, birth pains! It may look like your dream is foaming at the mouth or panting for its final breath, when in reality you’re closer to giving birth to your dream than you’ve ever been. If you’re discouraged and feel as though your dream is dying, don’t give up! Don’t give up too soon on your dream. It may be you’re having birth pains, not death pains. It’s always too soon to quit. When you’ve been through hell, what’s five more yards? Keep going. Keep dreaming the dream God has put into your heart. If it were easy, anyone could do it. When you begin to pursue your dream, somebody will always emerge to try to steal it. Often it will be someone who never had a dream of their own, or if they did they abandoned it. It could even be a family member who constantly reminds you of what God couldn’t or wouldn’t do through someone like you. What do you dream about? What has God enabled you to see that does not yet exist? You will never out-dream God! Listen: “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!” (Eph. 3:20, MSG). God loves dreamers. He’s the giver of new dreams and the mender of broken ones. When you dream, you move closer to the way He sees things. In that moment, you rise above your limitations; you move from where you are to where He wants you to be. In other words, you begin to see your goals in their completed state. The question is not can you dream, but do you have the courage to act on it? Is there a dream in your heart? Has life buried it? Have others told you it’s too late? Don’t you believe it! Pursue your dream no matter how far-fetched it may seem, for dreams are like children—they’re your offspring. They’re the joy of your present and the hope of your future. Protect them! Feed them! Encourage them to grow, because as long as you have a dream, you’ll never be old! I’m talking about a God-given dream that leads to God-honoring results. God has a dream for you, and if you will seek Him, He will reveal it. God bless you.

Adapted from Believe That You Can—It’s Time to Make it Happen by Jentezen Franklin, copyright 2008, published by Charisma House.