"Never SAY Never"
I am sure people have offered you these words of "encouragement" before. You have certainly said them to others on numerous occasions. You have even said them to yourself. We say these words in an effort to keep spirits up and hope alive, either our's or someone else’s. This is often when a task we're facing isn’t going well or taking longer than expected.
Now, there is certainly a lot of truth in this statement, so I am not suggesting we totally cut it out of our vocabulary. But I believe I’ve come up with another very similar expression we might want to consider in its place.
"Never THINK Never"
Although the new will prove to be much a tougher task than the old, when taken to heart, it can be worth the extra “effort.”
When we're trying to accomplish certain goals, or even pondering doing them, there’s no question the idea of “never” will cross our minds, even when we don’t verbalize our doubts. What I mean by this is we may not always SAY “We can never …," “We will never …,” "We would never," etc, but that doesn’t mean we don’t THINK it.
Now, you all may be saying, I think I can handle “Never saying never,” but can I actually “Never even think" it?” Is that even possible? And if so, how can it be done? I wish the answer was "Yes!" That we could get rid of ALL our uncertainties. That we could squash ALL our skepticism. And it would be easy. Unfortunately, I don't think we can. Certainly not all the time.
However, I do think we have the ability to minimize our qualms and a chance to calm our disbelief. We just can't do it by ourselves. I believe that God has given us the Holy Spirit to help silence our doubts and erase our thoughts of "never."
So, maybe it's possible for us to “Never SAY never.” But let's do better than that. Let's be fueled by the Holy Spirit and not even "THINK" it!
