If you are trying to do something good and keep running into problems, does that mean you should give up?
On the way to the Akeidah, the Satan tried to stop Avraham Avinu. Chazal describe the obstacles he placed in Avraham’s path, including a river that blocked his way. Avraham would not give up. He davened to Hashem and continued toward the place of the Akeidah.
Later, after the malach told Avraham not to harm Yitzchak, Avraham saw an ayil, a ram, caught by its horns in a thicket. He took the ayil and offered it as a korban in place of Yitzchak (Bereishis 22:13).
But how did Avraham know that the ayil was not another trick of the Satan? The Satan had already tried so hard to interfere. Perhaps this was another attempt.
The Shai L’Torah explains that the answer lay in the way the ayil appeared. It was caught in the branches, struggling to get free. It did not simply come straight to Avraham without any difficulty. According to this explanation, that struggle helped Avraham recognize that the ayil was meant for the mitzvah. The Satan was trying to interfere with it.
A similar idea is told about Rav Meir Shapira, zt”l. When he became the rav of Lublin, he asked whether anyone had opposed his appointment. When he heard that some people had, he was pleased and invited them to celebrate with him. He explained that if everything had gone smoothly, he might have wondered whether something was wrong. The opposition reassured him that this was a worthwhile undertaking, one that the Satan wanted to disturb.
This does not mean that every difficult plan must be right. It means that difficulty alone is not a reason to give up on something good. A boy may be trying to improve his davening, understand a difficult Gemara, or work on a middah. The fact that it takes effort does not mean he is failing.
Sometimes the struggle is part of the mitzvah. When we know that we are working toward something right, the obstacles should encourage us to strengthen our efforts and ask Hashem to help us succeed.