When you begin a journey, finish it, even the ones you shouldn’t have started.
“Finishing” can mean different things, but it never means “giving up”. Many times our eyes get bigger than our stomachs and we ask take more food than we can eat. “Finishing” in the food analogy does not mean stuffing yourself, but eating the left overs for your next meals until they are gone. If you decide that you can’t eat it, save it for someone who can; don’t just abandon the food and throw it away.
Finish.
Sometimes, we start out on a path leading to death. We don’t know the path will eventually kill us because it seems good and all at the outset. But, later on, we may discover it was a seduction of evil all along. “Finishing” that path might mean turning around and going back, perhaps warning others that the path seems good, but ends in a death trap.
Usually paths that lead to a death trap require us to tell “white lies” and break “insignificant” moral rules in order to star them. Eve was the best example because the fruit looked delicious and knowledge “isn’t that bad of a thing”, right?
My father once started a “selfish” motorcycle trip he shouldn’t have. His motorcycle broke down. Exhausted, he knelt in the desert sand and believed in Jesus. He didn’t finish as planned, but he didn’t take a bus home either; he rode his motorcycle all the way back.
His pastor, who always asked why dad wouldn’t become Christian, never even noticed, possibly because dad didn’t believe in Jesus the “traditional” way. Knowing dad, he probably learned more about Jesus and carrying his own Cross than the pastor learned at Seminary.
When one hasn’t finished hard journeys oneself, however regrettable those journeys are, those who do seem boring.
Dad didn’t finish his journey the way he first intended, but he did “finish” it, taking responsibility for the situation he got himself into. Because he “did the right thing”, Jesus changed his heart.
Learning means finishing. Abandoning the unpleasant is easy, but you’ll never learn that way. When the going gets tough—when your choices hurt—finish wisely.
Genesis 3:6-7, Jonah 1:17; 2:1, 10; 3:1-5, Luke 19:1-10