Sisu

[Darris McNeely] Have you ever come to a point on a job, a task, something you're doing and you just wanna give up? It's been too hard. Been too many challenges, too many obstacles, too much opposition, and you just physically, emotionally, spiritually, you come to the point, "I can't go any further. I wanna quit." We've all been there.

You know what you need when you come to that point? You need what the Finns call sisu. S-I-S-U, sisu. This is what you need. You know, other cultures have their terms for not giving in. The British call it a stiff upper lip, keep a stiff upper lip. And the Japanese tell you to summon up what they call gambaru, this intangible tenacity to stay with it. And yet, I'm drawn to this word sisu because I'm doing some research for another message. I came across the story of the Finnish Army during World War II, when they were vastly outnumbered by the invading Soviet Union. And through what is called the Winter War, the small outmanned, outgunned Finnish Army developed and dug deep for their sisu. And they eventually defeated or pushed back the Soviet Army.

And every Finnish Nordic athlete that you have seen on the Olympics in all the years of watching Nordic activities, the skiing, the ski jump, they are trained and they develop in their own mind and culture from the Finnish culture this sisu. It actually comes back from a word that means in their culture to bring from the intestines, from the gut, from the level here of their deepest emotions, the tenacity, what it takes to finish, to stay with it, to go against the odds.

It's what we all need, whatever faces us in our life, whatever challenge that we just wanna give up and move away from. In Hebrews 12:4, it says to the church there, "Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself," speaking of Christ, "lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin." In other words, what he's saying is, you haven't come to that point that Christ did, where He resisted without sin and paid the ultimate price.

Whatever it is that we're dealing with, it isn't anywhere near what Christ had to deal with. And we haven't resisted near enough in that sense. And so, whatever it might be, and ultimately, it comes to our own spiritual race and journey, we all need to learn a lesson from the Finns, sisu. Dig deep. Find that inner strength and turmoil to stay with it, to endure to the end and to finish.

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