Surfs up, dude!!!

Our best weapon against an ordinary life is to try again

[Real quick—as you may know, I’m a teacher by day. Strangely, writing a weekly newsletter on humor and faith does NOT pay the bills. However, with teaching comes the very unique perk of being provided with basically none of the supplies I need to succeed! As I prepare to teach a new grade in a new classroom, I have some series supply needs. If you like what I do here, please consider showing some love by gifting me an item off my Amazon wishlist found here. You da best. Love ya.]

In my recent quest to embrace my adventurous side, I found myself at my city’s attempt to be more relevant in the area of extreme outdoor adventure. There’s a fun little river sports park that’s like a waterpark but for jocks. No kiddie pool, no splash pad. Though there were plenty of kids there, this is serious stuff. You got things like rafting, rock climbing, kayaking, and then simulation surfing.

I tried all the things but found that surfing was the most interesting. After all, any Joe Schmo can raft down mock whitewater rapids with two trained guides in the back and water you can stand up in. But not everyone can surf!

Waiting in the slow line, I watched multiple people of all ages try out surfing. Some people were natural pros. Other people instantly flopped. But when a little girl no more than ten was balancing like she’d been doing it since birth, wiggling around the wave with ease, I began to feel pretty confident in my own skill.

How hard can it be?

Right?

After waiting in line, the instructor asked if I had ever surfed, skateboarded, or snowboarded. I semi-fibbed and said I had skateboarded—and it’s true, I have for like a total of two minutes throughout my lifetime—then instantly regretted it because he started using skateboarding terms that I knew nothing about.

I was guided out onto the fake wave and told to stand on the board with my knees slightly bent. He steadied me with his foot and then grabbed my wrists. Like a parent taking his hands off the big kid bike, the instructor let go of me, narrowly kneeing me in the crotch in the process as I solo surfed.

I lasted a big whopping two seconds.

It was tragic! The waves tossed me up and around in a disorienting daze. Turns out, it was not as easy as the ten-year-old show-off had made it look!

Luckily, I got to try again. That resulted in a similar failure.

And then I tried a third time. The results were the same, though I think I lasted a few milliseconds longer this round.

Oh, and I do have the video evidence of my abject failures below.

If I had been in the ocean attempting to surf, I’m pretty sure a shark would have eaten me purely out of pity. And I wouldn’t blame him.

Turns out, surfing does not come naturally to me. I have the balance of a drunk college freshman at their first frat party (truly, I’m just guessing at the imagery—I went to a Christian college). Yet nevertheless, I got back up on that board and tried again. If the line wasn’t so long, I’d have gotten back in it to test my metal once more. I still beleive, theoretically, I can do it. Theoretically.

I witnessed several people have a similar attitude. They kept trying. Many people, more fortunate than I, had much greater successes on subsequent attempts.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

“Trying again” I am convinced is some of the greatest demonstrations of a person’s bravery and strength.

Western culture has largely adopted the opposite mantra. As soon as you hit a roadblock, it’s time to move on. I’ve known many people that even spiritualize it—even a slight inconvenience is taken as a Divine Sign that they need to move on to something or someone else. Trust me, I’ve struggled with this big time, especially as an entrepreneur. I’ve started more businesses and projects and books than I care to admit. All of them bailed on when they became hard or I “wasn’t feeling it.”

Imagine where I’d be today if back then I had stuck with something instead of trying out a bajillion options.

I believe that what sets ordinary people apart from extraordinary people is the willpower to face the pain and keep going. To try again. To get back on the surfboard a million more times until it’s been mastered. That’s the difference maker.

When I used to listen to business and entrepreneurship podcasts almost religiously, I began to pick up many themes that all the great success stories have in common. One of the biggest ones is facing an obstacle—a turning point. The time when the choice to turn back or give up looks like the wisest move. But the only people who get interviewed on podcasts made the bold and sometimes straight-up crazy decision to power through even when it seemed difficult. Success doesn’t come without trying and trying again.

This kind of perseverance is a big-time theme of Scripture because the whole Christian worldview is built around the idea—allow me to simplify—“It kinda stinks now, it won’t stick later.”

Almost all of the letters compiled in the New Testament encourage believers to keep going because the writers realize that things aren’t great in the world (especially for followers of mysterious upstart religion) and people are tempted to give up. Without boring you with the details from a paper I once presented to the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion, I argued that Hebrews was written in response to some Christians who wanted to downplay their new religious identity or even go back to Judaism because the persecution was too intense. They were looking for the easy way out.

But as Hebrews reminds us, it’s worth it to keep going. Jesus knows some things about inconveniences—I mean, nails through hands and feet is not my idea of a fun Friday night. He understands both the pain and the payoff.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

-Hebrews 12:1-2

No one is guaranteeing success at every endeavor. But as my mom would say, “You never know until you try.”

I think the greatest reason to try, though, is because God works so powerfully in the in-between moments. Just last week, in Honduras, I preached one of my favorite messages: the story of Lazarus’ resurrection in John 11. I love the story because Jesus freaks everyone out by NOT going to heal Lazarus. He chills for two days and lets him die. Then he waltzes in and does this super cool miracle that converts like a whole town and turns a whole religious order against him.

Some of God’s best work is done in the waiting. In this time, we can self-reflect and learn to rely on God. We still have work to do—to keep trying—but I have found so many times that God has an extraordinary payout planned. It’s worth the wait. If we want the miracles, though, we have to keep going even when things look grim.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

-Galations 6:9

Don’t give up so easily. Of course, use wisdom and the advice of wise Christian friends, but you never know what’s right around the corner.

Keep your commitments. Keep your covenants. Keep the faith. Keep on going.

Keep trying with your struggling marriage, with the church that doesn’t quite “fill you up” but needs your gifts, with the friend that clings to you but also annoys you, with the God-given dream that isn’t yet realized.

Get back up on that surfboard. You never know when you’ll be catching that wave.

Question of the Week

Leave your answer in the comment section below or reply to this email.

What is something in your life that is testing your ability to persevere?

My “Goings On”

• My teacher wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/2GZJFJRN3K3YC

• For people in Oklahoma, I have a book launch event coming up: https://fb.me/e/2UZarZcdX

  

Surfs up,

Jake Doberenz

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