60 Seconds – The Liberator

Rafael Solano, discouraged and physically exhausted, sat on a boulder in a dry river bed, and expressed to his two companions, “I’m through. There’s no use going on any longer. See this stone? It makes 999,999 I’ve picked up and not a diamond so far. If I pick up another, it will make a million – but what’s the use? I’m quitting.”

This occurred in 1942, when the three men had spent months prospecting for diamonds in a Venezuelan water course. They had worked, stooping, gathering pebbles, hoping for a single sign of a diamond. But they never thought of quitting until Solano said, “I’m through.” Glumly, one of the other men said, “Pick up another and make it a million.” “All right,” Solano said, and bending down, placed his hand on a pile of stones, and pulled one out. It was almost the size of a hen’s egg. “Here it is,” he declared, “the last one.” For that millionth stone, Harry Winston, the New York jeweler, paid Rafael Solano $ 200,000.00. Named, The Liberator, it was the largest diamond ever found!

In Luke 18:1, Christ admonished us “not to faint.”

The Greek word for lose heart or faint means “relax, become weak or weary in faith, give up the struggle, no longer wait for completion.”

One translation reads, “and not cave in.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe said, “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you until it seems you cannot hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time when the tide will turn.”

In John 5:1 – 9, we have the story of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda. For 38 years, he had been there, hoping to get into the water at the right moment and be healed. It has been estimated that this paralyzed man could have made several thousand attempts during those 38 years. Think of being disappointed thousands of times! Yet, he stayed with it, not giving up, and, eventually, he heard those welcomed words, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” Thomas Edison observed, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”

After a great snowstorm, a small boy began to shovel a path through a large snowbank in front of his grandmother’s door. He had only a small, toy shovel to use. A passerby asked him, “How do you expect to get through that drift with that shovel?” “By keeping at it,” was the lad’s cheerful reply.

Psalm 126:6, “Those who sow in tears, WILL REAP in joy!”