Endure

Could it possibly be true that the greatest regrets you have in life are associated with quitting? Maybe you quit school, or wish you would have stuck with the piano, or you ended that relationship too soon or maybe you regret walking out of that job in anger. At the time quitting seemed to be the logical step and maybe the only step but now you wonder if it was the right step. Maybe if you would’ve just endured things would be different.

James, the brother of Jesus, gives the character trait endurance as a necessity for the follower of Jesus. He says, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing (James 1:2 – 4). There’s just no way to sugarcoat the fact that endurance is choosing to go through, to work through and to continue to follow through on your faith even in the face of strong opposition. It’s basically saying, “I’m not giving in.” Endurance is spiritual toughness.

The root of endurance is believing that God is at work in spite of what I see. We endure because we know that what we’re going through isn’t what we’re always going to be going through. When we endure we are giving God space, we are creating space for God to work. Even James says “for you know…” pointing to the fact that God is up to something and we know it. When we pull the plug too soon whatever could have happened won’t happen. Again, endurance is creating space for God to work; in those uncomfortable moments of toughing it out God is doing what we cannot do.

Enduring is hard because it seems so fruitless but out of endurance comes an intimacy with God and a dependence upon God that can be developed in no other way. James rates endurance so highly that he says that having it completes us. Faith must be able to endure the rough roads, the disappointments and the times it seems that God is absent. Endurance is the ability to keep going in the faith when these periods occur, and they will occur.

We may live in a culture that throws everything away but God’s kingdom still has a culture of endurance. Endure.