“Tis a lesson you should heed,
Try, try, try again.
If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try, try again.”

This seemingly ancient proverb actually dates back to about 1840 in Thomas Palmer’s book “Teacher’s Manual”. Written to encourage students to not give up just because they failed to succeed on the first try it has been adopted by English speaking people in a shortened form of the last two lines. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.” We’ve adopted it because we’ve all been there and needed that encouragement when we failed.

But, is it always true? One of the things about proverbs is that they typically speak of general truths rather than absolutes, because they almost always have exceptions. In this case there are obvious exceptions. If we’re trying to jump over a hurdle and trip we should keep trying – if we want to learn how to jump over hurdles. However, if we jump off a roof and break a leg because it was too high, we shouldn’t try that again.

Early in the reign of King David he fought a pitched battle against the Philistines. When they learned that David had unified Israel they came out against him in the valley of Rephaim. So, at God’s direction, David attacked them head on and delivered a devastating defeat (2 Samuel 5:17-21). However, they must have had their own version of the proverb because their first defeat was not enough to convince them to submit to David. Instead they decided to try again and assembled for battle – at the same place as before. They must have thought they would be ready this time. And in a sense they were, but they were about to learn a lesson about David and Jehovah. No matter how often they tried they could not defeat God’s faithful king. This time God instructed David to slip around and attack from the side; with the same outcome (2 Samuel 5:22-25).

Persistence should be encouraged – except in rebellion against God. Both times the text says “David inquired of the Lord” and both times David did as the Lord commanded. Verse 24 tells us “the Lord will have gone out before them to strike the army of the Philistines.” They were fighting against God. David was fighting for God. If we find ourselves fighting against God, which we all do from time to time, we should stop immediately, repent and seek God’s commands. Repentance and obedience are two things we must try, try, try again.

We will always fail in our attempts to fight God. We won’t even succeed in every attempt to serve God – but we have to keep trying. Even the apostle Paul failed from time to time, but he kept trying and urged believers in Christ to keep trying (Philippians 3:12-16). So don’t give up on serving God, instead, when you fail and fall, get up and “try, try, try, again.”