Just Before You Give Up -By Gabriel Agbo

You are at the eve of your miracle. That is why things are getting extremely rough. Don’t give up now, please! Push on! You are about to break forth. Yes, most divinely-appointed projects, dreams, visions, lives go through stages, periods of extreme frustrations, some it will look as if that project will never be achieved again. True. The eve of very great miracle, breakthrough, birth is always most painful, frustrating and breaking. Sometimes, you will be tempted to run back or regret why you even ventured into the project in the first place. Or haven’t you heard successful people saying they almost abandoned the vision before the sudden breakthrough. In fact, some will even tell you that they didn’t know how they managed to wriggle out of that impossible situation. And I think a woman in labour typifies this. That point of giving birth is the most serious part of the labour. Some women will swear and curse everything at that time. They will curse their husbands and the day they took in and vow never to go through that process again. But soon after, you find them still joyfully have more births. I know one, a neighbour that naturally gave birth to eleven. They are all still alive today – grown, married and very successful. Thank God for the noble nurses who will always standby to encourage them to push and push harder until it is done. In life, in that seeming hopeless situation, you just have to push, push and push harder until you break forth.

Now, let’s briefly look at some people in the bible that were at hopeless situation and had given up or were about to when God miraculously showed up. Let’s start will Paul. When he was arrested and was being taken to Rome by sea he had so much trouble because the enemy had seen that God is taking him to Rome to spread the gospel. And this is exactly what is happening to you now. The enemy has seen your future, the future of the vision, project and wants to thwart it by all means possible. He wants you to give up. See all the ‘negatives’ that Paul encountered on just one journey:

 Storm at Sea

  We had several days of slow sailing, and after great difficulty we finally neared Cnidus. But the wind was against us, so we sailed across to Crete and along the sheltered coast of the island, past the cape of Salmone. We struggled along the coast with great difficulty and finally arrived at Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea. We had lost a lot of time. The weather was becoming dangerous for sea travel because it was so late in the fall, and Paul spoke to the ship’s officers about it.   When a light wind began blowing from the south, the sailors thought they could make it. So they pulled up anchor and sailed close to the shore of Crete. But the weather changed abruptly, and a wind of typhoon strength (called a “northeaster”) burst across the island and blew us out to sea.  The sailors couldn’t turn the ship into the wind, so they gave up and let it run before the gale. We sailed along the sheltered side of a small island named Cauda, where with great difficulty we hoisted aboard the lifeboat being towed behind us.  Then the sailors bound ropes around the hull of the ship to strengthen it. They were afraid of being driven across to the sandbars of Syrtis off the African coast, so they lowered the sea anchor to slow the ship and were driven before the wind. The next day, as gale-force winds continued to batter the ship, the crew began throwing the cargo overboard.  The following day they even took some of the ship’s gear and threw it overboard.  The terrible storm raged for many days, blotting out the sun and the stars, until at last all hope was gone. Acts 27:7-9, 13-20

Did one of the above phrases qualify your current situation? Read them again. About twenty-one very negative, opposing phrases! I took time to highlight them all. Look at the very scary last one – terrible storm raged for many days, blotting out the sun and the stars, until at last all hope was gone. My God! But the testimony was that after all these, Paul and all his co-travellers made it alive and he later fulfilled the divine mandate of declaring the gospel before the Roman authorities. That your mission, project, dream will surely succeed. You will fulfil that mandate. Push on. Help is coming for you. Don’t give up now! Let’s continue next week. Please, share this message. Till next week, God bless!