Free Max Lucado by Facing Your Giants

first 450 animals died. The thousand that followed survived only because the pile of corpses cushioned their fall. 1
    We, like sheep, follow each other over the edge, falling headlong into bars and binges and beds. Like David, we crash into Gath, only to find that Gath has no solution.
    Is there a solution? Indeed there is. Doing right what David did wrong.
    He failed to pray. Do the opposite: be quick to pray. Stop talking to yourself. Talk to Christ, who invites. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest” (Matt. 11:28 MSG).
    God, who is never downcast, never tires of your down days.
    David neglected good advice. Learn from his mistake. Next time you lack the will to go on, seek healthy counsel.
    You won’t want to. Slumping people love slumping people. Hurting people hang with hurting people. We love those who commiserate and avoid those who correct. Yet correction and direction are what we need.
    I discovered the importance of healthy counsel in a half-Ironman triathlon. After the 1.2 mile swim and the 56-mile bike ride, I didn’t have much energy left for the 13.1 mile run. Neither did the fellow jogging next to me. I asked him how he was doing and soon regretted posing the question.
    â€œThis stinks. This race is the dumbest decision I’ve ever made.” He had more complaints than a taxpayer at the IRS. My response to him? “Good-bye.” I knew if I listened too long, I’d start agreeing with him.
    I caught up with a sixty-six-year-old grandmother. Her tone was just the opposite. “You’ll finish this,” she encouraged. “It’s hot, but at least it’s not raining. One step at a time. . . . Don’t forget to hydrate. . . . Stay in there.” I ran next to her until my heart was lifted and my legs were aching. I finally had to slow down. “No problem,” she said, waving as she kept going.
    Which of the two describes the counsel you seek? “Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed” (Prov. 15:22 MSG).
    Be quick to pray, seek healthy counsel, and don’t give up.
    Don’t make the mistake of Florence Chadwick. In 1952 she attempted to swim the chilly ocean waters between Catalina Island and the California shore. She swam through foggy weather and choppy seas for fifteen hours. Her muscles began to cramp, and her resolve weakened. She begged to be taken out of the water, but her mother, riding in a boat alongside, urged her not to give up. She kept trying
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    Be quick to pray, seek healthy counsel,
and don’t give up.
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    but grew exhausted and stopped swimming. Aids lifted her out of the water and into the boat. They paddled a few more minutes, the mist broke, and she discovered that the shore was less than a half mile away. “All I could see was the fog,” she explained at a news conference. “I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.” 2
    Take a long look at the shore that awaits you. Don’t be fooled by the fog of the slump. The finish may be only strokes away. God may be, at this moment, lifting his hand to signal Gabriel to grab the trumpet. Angels may be assembling, saints gathering, demons trembling. Stay at it! Stay in the water. Stay in the race. Stay in the fight.
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    Take a long look at the shore that awaits you.
Don’t be fooled by the fog of the slump.
The finish may be only strokes away.
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    Give grace, one more time. Be generous, one more time. Teach one more class, encourage one more soul, swim one more stroke.
    David did. Right there in the smoldering ruins of Ziklag, he found strength. After sixteen months in Gath. After the Philistine rejection, the Amalekite attack, and the insurrection by his men, he remembered what to do. “David found strength in the Lord his God” (1 Sam. 30:6 NIV).
    It’s