Giving up is not always bad. There is time to give up (Ecc 3:6b - NIV). Give up here (lə-’ab-bêḏ, אָבַד, abad) can be translated to ‘to perish’, ‘to lose’, ‘to quit searching’, ‘to give up as lost’, ‘to destroy’, ‘to break’, ‘to die’, ‘put to death’, or ‘to spend’ [1]. Giving up on something can be a beginning of a new fresh start:
Very truly I tell you, unless a
kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.
But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12:24 – NIV)
There are things that we should never give up, e.g. our belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior, our trust that God -our Father- loves and cares for us, our belief in the promises of God, our belief in God’s ability, faith, and many others. However, there are things that we should give up, e.g. sin, flesh desires, wrong motive, arrogance, pride, and many others.
Sometimes, even though the vision/work we do is good in the
eyes of God, flesh desires sneak in. I would like to illustrate this situation
as a tree branch that has a disease on its beautiful leaves. Depending on the
condition, the solution can be using medicine/treatment to treat the diseases
or to cut the leaves and let new leaves grow out from them. There are times (maybe
not so often) that giving up is needed to let something new grow by the grace of God.
The boundary of which to give up and not is different for
every situation and people. Therefore, we always need the Holy Spirit to guide
us.
[1] https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6.htm
