Training to become a Navy Seal is considered to be the most difficult military training in the world. It starts with 8 weeks of basic training, 24 weeks of underwater training, 3 weeks of jump school, and then 28 weeks of intense qualification training. Only 6% of applicants are chosen, and of those only 1 out of 4 make it through the initial training phase. A favorite slogan used by Seals trainers is “give up, give in, or give it all you’ve got!”
Good advice for Navy Seals, and for Christians as well. Navy Seals never stop training and so it is with the Christian life. God is constantly working on us, training us, molding us into His image, all of which makes us fit for service. Walking and talking the Christian life can be difficult. There will be obstacles, disappointments, and difficulties, making it too easy to “give up.”
“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Corinthians 9:24).
You’re tired, hurting, and God seems so far away. You’re ready to “give in” to your feelings, to what others are saying, to the temptations of Satan. Don’t give in, fight it! Don’t succumb to your circumstances, rise above them!
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9).
To “give it all you’ve got” is to give God 100% of everything you do, it’s passionately living the abundant life that God has for you. It’s forgetting past failures and forging forward. It’s a lifetime relentless pursuit of holiness! It’s putting others first, it’s picking yourself up when no one is there to help. It’s a life of loving and caring for others. It’s never, ever looking back!
“And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23).
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
Don’t ever give up, don’t ever give in, but do give it all you’ve got!