Climb over your mountains

A young man asked a holy man to pray for him to have more perseverance. The holy man got on his knees and began,

“Lord, send this young man problems in the afternoon, send this young man adversity in the evening, send this young man…”

“Stop!” shouted the young fellow, “I didn’t ask you to pray for problems and adversity, I asked you to pray for more perseverance.”

“Ah,” responded the holy man, “It’s through adversity that you learn perseverance!”

I saw this happening to an Indian athlete at the Olympics some years ago with J. J. Shobha, the runner from Hyderabad. Shobha ran with an injury.

Spectators cheered as they saw her surging forward, grimacing with pain from her torn ligament, they cheered as she gritted her teeth and slowly, steadily inched past her competitors.

“I was shocked,” said one of the others on the track, “to see her striding past me.” But Shobha put her heart into that race and finished third!

Nobody is ever going to forget the gutsy, gritty girl. She taught the world that injury, problems and adversity could spur one on to success.

Yet, we pray for wonder drugs to help us win battles. We pray for easy solutions where we won’t have to put too much effort or muscle. “Take away the mountain in front of us God!” we shout.

“Climb over it my child,” He whispers.

“I can’t.”

“You can!”

“My feet hurt, my legs ache!”

“Climb,” says the Lord with a smile, “climb!”

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