I have an aversion to quitting. It might be a genetic trait. My favorite story to tell about my sister as a child is her having to have forced breaks in her soccer league because she had asthma and would run until her lips turned blue and she passed out on the field.
I am sure I have quit many things throughout my life, particularly since I have always had a fondness for being the best (which I realize now is likely to never happen). Yet, for whatever reason the most memorable thing I ever quit was Track in seventh grade. I don't even know why I quit but I just remember having to negotiate with my parents at the dinner table to quit something I had hardly even begun. It probably had something to do with thinking that track looked cool and believing that I was a fast runner only to discover after the first meeting that it was really not much fun and I was really not that fast. So I quit.
This past week at a clergy gathering one of the theories we discussed was that it isn't the decisions that we make that are right or wrong but what we do after the decisions are made that is right and wrong. So here is my example. Think of yourself driving a car. Imagine yourself making a right turn with a blindfold on going eighty miles an hour. Now imagine yourself taking a left turn with your eyes open going the slowly. See, it doesn't matter if you go right or left. What matters is how you drive. Sort of like the decisions we make. In this model, our decisions matter less than how we live our lives.
I guess I can see truth in this model because in many ways decisions can be 'undone'. We have the ability to change our minds. To quit what we are doing and to go in a new direction.
So, I have been thinking about 'quitting' since the moment this theory of decisions made itself home in my head. Reflecting on a general pattern I have of always obsessing over each decisions as if they can never be undone, as if when I begin a new direction I can never go back...as if there is no grace in this life.
And so I found myself stuck in this place between understanding when we are supposed to keep fixing our broken down car in the sweltering heat and when we are supposed to leave the broken down car behind and fuel up a new car so we can keep heading down the road. (Beware of the girl who knows nothing about cars using them as metaphors for life). How about this...I was trying to figure out when/if we should ever quit.
It wasn't until our closing worship service, listening to a fellow clergy person reading a Scripture, that a new way of seeing quitting came to me. "Do not quit" she read. The words echoed in my mind and I realized that my perception of quitting had always been a negative thing because it had never been understood in the context of God's grace. That for me, the words 'don't quit' had always essential meant, 'don't fail because you will never be forgiven.'
I don't know why when my friend said 'don't quit' my whole perception changed but it did because all of a sudden a feeling of great freedom was introduced to my life (and a whole lot of fear but that's for another post). It was seeing that God doesn't want me to quit on myself, on the person I am to become, and that meant fully accepting Her grace...and quitting.
I had never thought of quitting as NOT giving up. That to not quit was to stop searching, stop living, stop growing. To accept life as if where we stood right now was where we should always be and we just better buck up and keep taking the hits; that is quitting. What in the world would this say about the image we have of God? That we are Called to perpetuate an unhealthy pattern, to limit ourselves, to squelch our potential in the name of loyalty, or fear, or despair...
It is true that I hate the idea of quitting anything because I don't want to be perceived as a failure but I believe I could get over that. What is harder to overcome is the fear that rises up when I think about quitting, when I think about taking a risk, when I think about taking one step away from this solid ground into God's hand, towards a vision, an idea of who I could be, if I just could quit. I never thought of quitting as requiring faith. I only saw faith as necessary to not quit.
And while clairty in one place leads to confusion all around, as I sit and pray today, I hear a constant whisper, "keep going, keep searching, keep looking, don't give up...Other's might think you are quitting on them, but I know you are not giving up on Me." Amen.
