Don’t Quit Before the End

When the path narrows, and the door looks locked… God may not be finished.

Read time: 4-5 minutes

The wild coast of Northern Portugal.

Opposition is often a sign that we are on God’s path.

Obstacles are an Important Signpost

Some paths with God begin wide.

Clear.
Paved.
Full of energy.
You can feel the wind at your back. The call seems obvious. The next step feels almost natural.

Then, somewhere along the way, the path narrows.
The stones disappear.
The trail gets rough.
The way forward becomes uncertain.

What once felt like conviction begins to feel like confusion.
That is sometimes when people quietly give up.
Not because they stopped loving God.
But because the road became unfamiliar, fear began to narrate the future.

And yet, in God’s strange and steady way, opposition is not always a sign to stop. Often it is a sign that something important is being tested—our resilience, our trust, our willingness to keep walking when the path no longer feels easy.

A Path that Almost Ended

A Pattern as Old as Scripture

This pattern runs all through the Bible.

Adam and Eve were given freedom, but freedom came with a test. Which voice would they trust? Which tree would they choose?

Moses carried a buried dream of deliverance, then spent forty years on the far side of the desert before God spoke again.

David was anointed for a throne he could not yet touch. Again and again, he refused to force what God had promised, even when shortcuts appeared.

Jesus walked toward the most impossible mission of all. He did not save the world by avoiding death, but by passing through it.

Over and over, Scripture tells the same story:

The path to all God has for you includes testing.

Because God is more concerned about your formation than short-term results.
God is forming something deeper in you than outward success.
He is forming trust.
He is forming courage.
He is forming character.
 

A Journey That Almost Ended Too Soon

This week, we hiked up a mountain in Viana do Castelo to a church and lookout point.

At first, the route looked straightforward. A broad stone path climbed steeply upward. It was not easy, but it was obvious. We kept going for ten or fifteen minutes, pushing uphill.

Then the path narrowed.
The paving stones gave way to dirt.
The dirt trail thinned to a one-person footpath.
Then even that gave way to a grassy strip that looked as though hardly anyone had walked there for a long time.

Soon we were moving between walls. The way tightened. The track faded. Up ahead, it looked like the walls came together and the whole thing simply ended.

We considered turning back.
And honestly, turning back often feels wise when the route grows unclear.
Cut your losses.
Save your strength.
Don’t be foolish.

But I said, “Let’s not quit before the end. Let’s at least see what happens at the end.”

So we kept going.
At the top of that narrowing stretch, we found a green door set into a cement wall.
Anni tried it.
Locked.
That seemed to settle it.
Wrong route.
End of story.

But something nudged me to try again.
This time, I pulled harder on the metal lever.
The door had not actually been locked.
It was only stiff with rust.
It opened.

And there, on the other side, we discovered something surprising.
We had not reached a dead end after all.
We had simply reached the place where things had become unclear.

Nearby was the proper route: a solid staircase of 659 steps from the ground to the top.
We were already about halfway there.
The path had looked as if it were ending.
But it was not the end.

A Breathtaking View—and a Parable

The authorities allow visitors to climb a narrow spiral stairway to the very top of the church dome. The panorama from up there was breathtaking.

And the whole thing felt like a parable.
Sometimes the road really does narrow.
Sometimes the signs are unclear.
Sometimes the gate looks locked.
Sometimes everything in you says, Turn back now.

And sometimes discernment does tell us to stop.
This is not a formula.
Not every hard road is the right road.

But this much is true:
Do not quit too soon.
Do not confuse difficulty with abandonment.
Do not assume that a rusty gate is a locked one.

When the Soul Starts Sliding

That little climb brought me straight to Psalm 13.
David sounds tired. Frayed. Flooded.
 

“How long, Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?”

—Psalm 13:1

This is not polished spirituality.
This is not tidy theology.
This is a person trying not to lose his footing.
David feels forgotten.

He feels alone inside his own thoughts.
He feels vulnerable to his enemies.
He feels as though if God does not act soon, everything may collapse.
Psalm 13 is short, but it tells the truth about emotional spirals.

One fear breeds another.
One unanswered question turns into five.
The imagination darkens.
The future shrinks.

And yet David does something profoundly wise.
He does not pretend.
He does not numb himself.
He tells God the truth.
That matters.

But he also does something else: he does not stay trapped in the first half of the psalm.
He lets truth interrupt the spiral.

The landing of the psalm
 

“But I have trusted in Your faithfulness;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has looked after me.”

—Psalm 13:5–6

The word “But” at the beginning of verse 5 is doing the heavy lifting.
That word is the key that changes David’s reality. 
The circumstances may not have changed yet.
The enemies may still be present.
The questions may still be unresolved.
But David remembers what is more real than his present panic.

David comes back to three steady facts:

1. I have trusted in God’s faithful love
David is not saying, “I feel better now.”
He is saying, “I know who You are.”
If God’s love is truly steadfast, then even in silence, God is not absent. Even in delay, God is not careless. Even in confusion, God has not let go of the wheel.

2. I will rejoice in God’s salvation
David looks forward before he feels forward.
He remembers that his story is not ending inside this darkness. God is still the God who saves. There is mercy yet to come. There is rescue yet to come.

3. God has been good to me
This may be the tenderest line of all.
Memory becomes medicine.
David reaches back into what he learned in the light in order to survive the dark. He remembers that the God who carried him before has not suddenly changed His nature.

That is not denial.
That is sanity.
Do not rewrite your calling in the dark.

One of the great dangers of hard seasons is that we start revising everything.
We revise our calling.
We revise God’s character.
We revise what He already said.
We reinterpret the whole journey based on one frightening stretch of road.

But Psalm 13 teaches us a better way:
Do not make final decisions based only on temporary darkness.
Let what God taught you in the light help interpret what you feel in the dark.

David does not deny his emotions. He reorders them.
Truth first.
Feelings second.
That is not emotional suppression.
That is mature faith.

This pattern has marked our lives
Looking back, this has happened to us again and again.

• I never imagined I could leave the Yukon for Bible school in Texas.
• I never imagined we would help start the Vineyard in Northern Brazil.
• And then there were all the other stretches of road that felt bigger than our natural capacity:
• Premature twins.
• An MA and then a PhD.
• Cancer.
• New callings.
• New uncertainties.
• New invitations that seemed too large to carry.

And now—Portugal?

In purely natural terms, Portugal feels uncertain, expensive, complex, and more than a little daunting.

But we have lived long enough to know this:

When God is in something, the impossible stops being absurd and starts becoming an invitation.
Not an invitation to recklessness.
An invitation to trust.
Not an invitation to hype.
An invitation to walk prayerfully, carefully, and expectantly.

The quiet danger
There is also a warning here.
Without regular centering prayer, real circumstances will keep trying to drag us toward despair.
That is simply true.
If we do not stop and return our hearts to God, the noise of circumstances grows louder than the voice of memory, promise, and truth.

David knew this. That is why he prayed his way through the spiral. And that is why he watched.
 

“In the morning, Lord, You will hear my voice;
in the morning I will present my prayer to You
and be on the watch.”

—Psalm 5:3

That last phrase matters.
Be on the watch.
Wait expectantly.
Not passively.
Not cynically.
…Watchfully.

A Word for You

Perhaps you are in a Psalm 13 moment.

The path has narrowed.
The signs are unclear.
The gate looks locked.
Your thoughts are running ahead of your faith.

Then receive this gently:

Do not quit before the end.
Do not assume that difficulty means abandonment.
Do not confuse a rusty gate with a locked one.
Do not throw away what God showed you just because the middle has become hard.

Some breakthroughs do not belong to the flashy or the fearless.
They belong to the men and women who keep walking with God a little farther.
Who stop.
Who pray.
Who remember.
Who watch.

And some of the dreams you almost buried may not be dead at all.
They may simply be waiting for you to meet God again at the place where the path narrowed.

And Now, Portugal?

We are still in the discernment stage here in Portugal.
We are not rushing.
We are listening.
We are paying attention.
We do sense a quiet nudge from the Lord, but watch for details about who, when, and how.

There is beauty here, yes. But also weariness. Longing. Hidden hunger. Layers of history, faith, disappointment, and possibility. This feels like the kind of place where God may already be stirring hearts long before anyone sees the fruit.

We are reminded again how much slow, faithful presence matters.
Trust is rarely built by noise.
More often, it is built through humility, patience, prayer, and love.

And perhaps that is exactly the kind of work God loves to bless.

Prayer Requests

• For Deanna’s continued healing and strengthening: We are deeply grateful for the progress she is making and continue to trust the Lord for full restoration.
• For wisdom and discernment in Portugal: That we would know when to move, when to wait, and how to follow the Lord without striving.
• For the right people and the right doors: If God is in this, may He bring the relationships, provision, and confirmation needed.
• For endurance for weary believers: Especially those who feel they are walking a narrowing path right now.
• For renewed hope: That the Lord would breathe again on dreams, callings, and prayers that many have almost forgotten.
• And one more quiet sign of hope: Deanna walked up all 659 steep steps to the foot of the sanctuary in Viana do Castelo—and then climbed more narrow spiral stairs inside. For us, that felt like a beautiful sign of healing strength returning.

To Partner With Us