Giving Up So Soon?

It happens often that when you start something with a negative attitude, the result is always negative. For instance, when I was about six years old, I decided I wanted to take violin lessons. During my first lesson, I learned two things: learning from a Russian teacher who barely spoke english (I was in the same linguistic state) and stank of pungent B.O. was going to be distracting, not to mention complicated because of the weak communication. I also learned that playing a violin was much more difficult than it seemed. From that very first lesson, I resolved to detest my violin class. This conclusion made failure very predictable. As you might have guessed, a couple of months later, I quit. What I must take into account is that my real giving up was done on that first lesson, not when I resolved to take action (by the way, I've been taking violin lessons for almost three years now). 

In this way, the hebrews didn't give up when they chose to build the golden idol, but instead gave up the second they started questioning God's power when they complained about their hunger and thirst during their journey towards the promised land. The tension sprang when "he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (Ex. 32.4) It is very important not to adopt quitting as a habit, because this is not one that is easy to unshackle oneself from.