The most difficult decision for any adult is to know if I should hang on or let go. Whether it is a relationship, a financial decision, a vocational opportunity (or a thousand other fork- in- the- road experiences), attempting to discern whether to drop it and move on and persevere is perhaps life’s biggest challenge.
I believe the reason we struggle is because there are two competing “voices” in our heads…developed over time and honed by well-intentioned teachers, mentors, parents, friends that have delivered conflicting messages.
One voice says, “Where’s your FAITH?” Keep on keeping on! Don’t quit. Persevere! And that voice sounds reasonable, certainly spiritual. We’ve all heard stories of heroic proportions that make us admire the fortitude of those that “never gave up.”
But there is another voice that whispers, “Where’s your WISDOM?” If the horse is dead, get off the horse! This logical, practical voice says there are many opportunities out there and go fish in another pond. This voice, especially in the midst of no progress and deep fatigue, sounds good. At some point, we need a new beginning, a change of scenery…right?
What’s the answer?
First, this struggle will…and should, in this life…remain a dilemma fraught with tension. If I have enough information, I can make a good decision. But most of life doesn’t give us clarity. It remains gray. We manage a dilemma as best we can. Much of the time, there is no crisp, clean answer. As the old sage said, “The older I get, the less and less I know for sure!” Like intimacy in a relationship, if it ever ceases to be a struggle, it ceases to be intimacy. It is not a good sign if this tension is somehow resolved. It may be we have given up or “settled.”
Second, if we “error” (get out of balance), I believe we ought to error on the side of FAITH. There is a point in which faith becomes foolishness/folly, but most of us give up too soon. We’ve all heard of the 80/20 principle (that 80 percent of your results come from 20% of your efforts). Well, I embrace the 60/40 principle: that FAITH (the 60%) trumps the 40% (WISDOM) in most situations. I would always want to be criticized for hanging on too long than for giving up too soon. What I might call wisdom might, in reality, be passive laziness or playing it safe. It’s the easier way out.
Third, if we have the mindset of “I am going to stay with it until I am SURE I should stop”, I think there are certain spiritual principles that are allowed to work freely:
---“Without faith, it is impossible to please God…”
---“Press on…and if in anything you have a different attitude, He will reveal it also to you…”
---“Love believes all things…”
In the end, those that wrestle with this dilemma of “faith vs. wisdom” will have won because they have moved from off the bench to playing the game. Most of the time, the real head-scratch involves people, and it means that we’ve cared enough to spend energy figuring out how to help…how to serve others!
And in the ultimate end, being a servant and trying to give to others is what counts anyway!
As Mother Teresa said, when asked to pray for clarity, told a young man seeking to know God’s Will, “I will not pray for your clarity; I will pray that God gives you more faith…”
