Are we doomed to failure?

It’s too easy to quit these days. Quitting, in fact, is seen as an acceptable path, almost a virtue. Don’t like a course in school? Drop it. Don’t like the pastor? Get another one. Don’t like your church? Find a new one. Work a little tough? Quit. Having a rocky marriage? Get a divorce. Parents a little hard on you? Run away from home. Unexpected pregnancy? Kill it.

These “solutions” are never, of course, true solutions. They simply delay one from dealing with the reality of life and allow one to take what seems to be the easier path — which, in the long run, it is not.

Part of our growth as human beings is learning to deal with the difficult moments with grace and determination. We learn, as the Marines say, to “improvise, adapt, and overcome.” We learn to grit our teeth, to do the hard things, to gut it out, to keep at it, to prevail.

We love “come from behind” stories and films. The drawing power of a movie like “Rocky” or “Cinderella Man” is that the main character faces insurmountable odds. He’s up against a superior foe, it’s hopeless, he can’t possibility win. Even his friends speak discouraging words and prepare him for defeat.

Yet, as the character bears down, gives supreme effort, refuses to quit, accepts and faces the challenge, the audience is drawn in, their hearts race, and they shout their cheers as their hero, bloodied but unbowed, is still standing at the end of the conflict, weary but victorious, and a legend begins.

Those who quit the field before the game is over know only the struggle and the pain; because they walked away, they never know the sweet, unmistakable taste of accomplishment.

Over the 24 years I have lived in this area, I have seen scores of new churches spring up. Ads are placed in the newspapers, radio spots are purchased, and the new pastor boldly proclaims how the new congregation is going to impact the community and change the world. A few years or even months later, most of them have disappeared without so much as a peep.

What happened? Why did they not succeed where others, who face the same struggles, are still meeting on Sundays, still marching (or lurching) into the future?

Perhaps, it’s because it became hard. The way was tough, paved with obstacles and problems. And so, that which was born in hope simply died because people quit.

Every day people make plans to get married and often spend enormous sums on weddings, parties, and honeymoons. I heard recently that one caterer made $30,000 on a wedding. Yet, when the relationship gets rocky — as it surely will — nearly half of these couples will just simply quit, causing damage to themselves, their families, their friends, and, most of all, their children.

I have seen many couples get a divorce, believing that, somehow, it will enhance their happiness. It almost never does.

My wife says that marriage is like two pieces of facial tissue being glued together. They can be separated after they are united but not without a terrible ripping and tearing that leaves both tissues hopelessly torn and damaged.

If quitting had been an option at Valley Forge, we’d be British subjects. If quitting during difficult times had been seen as a virtue, the pioneers would have never traveled farther west than Richmond. If pain, difficulty, and disappointment were valid excuses for quitting, Jesus would have declined to go to the cross and all humanity would be utterly lost and in darkness forever.

Maybe it’s too late. Perhaps we are such a nation of quitters that no one is willing to pay the price and keep up the struggle. If that is true, we deserve to fail. If we see defeat as fine and giving up as virtuous, then our fate is sealed. Our history is near its end. Our great democratic experiment is doomed to failure. The quitters will be to blame.

But, perhaps, it is not inevitable. Maybe, hopefully, there are those who are still willing to fight their own selfish demons and their own tendencies to give up.

Perhaps, there are workers who will not quit, students who will still study, churches and pastors who will still be faithful, employees who will still work hard, married couples who will still honor their sacred vows, children who will obey their parents, pregnant moms who will embrace their unexpected child.

If so, we have a future. If not, then listen carefully — you can hear the fat lady begin to sing.