Keys to Perseverance

This week marks the one-month point of my membership at the Y and beginning a new habit of going for early-morning workouts with my husband. It is going quite well! I have gotten used to getting up at 5 in the morning (mostly!) and have developed some good routines for cardio and strength training, as well as time exercising and swimming in the pool. I can't say that I have lost much weight, but I am definitely becoming more toned and fit, feel great, and I remind myself of the health benefits I am working for.

But - this morning was hard. I didn't sleep well last night, was awake and up at 3:30 a.m., and had just gotten back into a good sleep (of course) when the alarm went off at 5. I REALLY didn't feel like getting up, getting out of the house, and working out. But I did. I kind of slogged through the first 20 minutes on the treadmill until I started feeling a spark of energy, and ended up finishing my entire workout.

This kind of goes along with the subject that I have been studying this week, which is perseverance. The Lord has impressed upon me in several ways this week the importance of persevering in our walk with Him. To persevere means "to persist in a state or undertaking in spite of opposition or discouragement. " So much of our Christian life calls for a need to persevere. And I'm not talking about getting up to exercise when it is still dark outside and I am tired. There are a multitude of everyday trials, discouragements, oppositions, and problems that tempt us to give in to our feelings of discouragement and despair, to wonder if God knows what He is doing, and to doubt that God is really a good God after all. There are days when we feel like failures and that God will never be able to use us. The temptation to quit is very real.

In her book Disciplines of a Godly Woman, author Barbara Hughes says, "Faith in the goodness of God in the face of adversity doesn't just happen. It grows out of the discipline of perseverance in the day-in, day-out grind of our everyday life." We can persevere because we can be confident that God is completing a good work in us (Phil. 1:6). We can persevere because it is in times of adversity that we better see God for who He is, and not just what He does for us.

This week I have been reading and studying 2 Cor. 4. The apostle Paul is a great example of someone who learned what it means to persevere. He had about every adverse circumstance and opposition that you can think of in his ministry. But in 2 Cor. 4:1 he says this: " Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not."  The context here is Paul's ministry, but we all have ministry of some sort - we are wives, mothers, teachers, employees - whatever God has given us to do. I think in this verse we have one of the keys to perseverance: we have received mercy, or grace, from God. We have to remember that He provides grace and mercy in order for us to persevere.

There are many other great truths in this passage that I studied this week, but I will just mention a couple. Verses 5 and 7 remind us that "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." We can persevere because it is not about us - it is about the surpassing excellency and power of the Lord. We are just "earthen vessels" (clay pots!) who are prone to the pitfalls of this life, but the real treasure and the reason we persevere is the Lord who is working in us.

Perhaps the best encouragement when it comes to perseverance is in verses 17 and 18: "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the unseen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." The stuff that happens to discourage us and tempt us to give up on living for the Lord is just "light affliction." When it is happening, it sure doesn't feel like "light affliction" to us - but the reason is found in the next verse: when we keep the proper perspective, we realize that these things are just temporary, and they will not last forever! Our responses and our keeping on for Him are forever. We have all of eternity to look forward to being with the Lord, and all of our present suffering will be a thing of the past.

When you are tempted to give up or give in, remember:

He is in sovereign control.
He gives us grace for every trial.
He does not ask us to understand, but to trust.
If we keep our eyes on Him, we can walk in obedience through our storms.

"The secret is Christ in me, not me in another set of circumstances." (unknown)

Keep on keeping on!
Kathi