Tag: rats

Never Give Up

Thursday’s Column: Captain’s Blog

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Carl Pollard

I ran across an illustration on Facebook the other day that went like this:

“During a BRUTAL study at Harvard in the 1950s, Dr. Curt Richter placed rats in a pool of water to test how long they could tread water. On average they’d give up and sink after 15 minutes. But right before they gave up due to exhaustion, the researchers would pluck them out, dry them off, let them rest for a few minutes – and put them back in for a second round.
In this second try – how long do you think they lasted? Remember – they had just swam until failure only a few short minutes ago…How long do you think? Another 15 minutes? 10 minutes? 5 minutes? 60 hours! These rats swam for another 60 hours before they gave up. The conclusion drawn was that since the rats BELIEVED that they would eventually be rescued, they could push their bodies way past what they previously thought impossible.
If hope can cause exhausted rats to swim for that long, what could a belief in yourself and your abilities, do for you?”

While this illustration was made to show the value of believing in yourself, as Christians it’s more than just a belief in yourself!  How much more could we endure if we hoped in the Almighty God?

As a Christian, remember what you’re capable of. Remember why you’re here. Remember the hope that is placed within us. Never give up. When you face ridicule for the godly choices you make, don’t give up. When you start to lose zeal and the fire begins to die. Don’t let it go out.
When life seems overwhelming and you’re drowning in stress, don’t quit. When health issues plague your body, don’t give up. Never give out, never give in, and NEVER give up. Remember the cross, remember the hope, remember the eternal home that will soon replace this temporary dwelling.

As a wise fish once said in a cartoon movie, “just keep swimming.” And we are given a beautiful reason why. In Philippians 3, Paul gives every Christian our motivation. Our reason why we should never give up. We stay motivated by pressing on (14).
What lies ahead? The goal, the prize, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
We press on by holding fast (16). Once you’ve got it, don’t let go. Look to those who have set the example (17).
Imitate the mindset of Paul and ignoring the enemies of the Cross. Paul pleads to them with tears (18). Don’t get distracted and don’t follow the wrong example. Finally we never give up by letting go (20). Let go of this world and what ties you to it. Our true home is in heaven.

We can find motivation and comfort in recognizing what we can accomplish and endure through Christ.

PLAGUE IN MADAGASCAR

Neal Pollard

It is hard to believe that bubonic plague could be a problem in any country in the 21st Century, but that is exactly the case in the African nation of Madagascar.  Helped mainly by extreme unsanitary conditions in that nation’s prisons, 20 people died from the plague there just in the first week of December. There were 256 cases and 60 deaths in 2012, and while that is nothing to compare to the 25 million deaths in Europe during the Middle Ages it is alarming.  Since inmates’ relatives visit those detained, the disease can leap the walls of confinement and become an epidemic throughout the impoverished country bereft of a good, organized public health system. Though 90% of the world’s plague cases have occurred in Madagascar and the D.R.C., there have been outbreaks in India, Indonesia and Algeria in the last decade or so and this summer Kyrgyzstan had its first plague case (and death) in 30 years.  While it seems like ancient history, the last global pandemic occurred just over 100 years ago ( (BBC Scotland, BBC Africa; Quartz).

Read any medieval chronicles of the black death and they seem like horror stories, compounded in those days by the people’s ignorance concerning how the disease spread.  But what was obvious was how swift, painful, and fatal it was.  The resilience of the disease is demonstrated in the fact that it can still be a story today, despite the development of antibiotics and sophisticated means of detecting and preventing it.

Sin is a spiritual disease that cannot be contained by geographical boundaries, technology, medicine, education, or any such potential preventative.  While its effects impact the unseen part of a person, its threat is eternally more great.  People who die with it untreated are lost forever.  There are ways to cope with the symptoms, but there is only one cure.  It is universally accessible and no one who seeks treatment will fail to have the cure.  If we can fathom ourselves, as Christians, and relay to the lost how terrible the sickness of sin really is, we will reach more people and lives will be saved!  Of all the Bible passages that speak of the matter, perhaps none is more impassioned than Paul’s words to Rome as he says, “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 7:22-8:1).