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Posts Tagged ‘perseverance’

On Perseverance 3

Posted in Fifty days with Jesus, tagged , , , on November 7, 2008| Leave a Comment »

There is a perseverance that comes with our roles in life. As parents, we must be steadfast in our desire to train up our children or our failure to persevere will affect them adversely. For instance, to teach a toddler simple courtesies like “please” and “thank you” takes, at minimum, 10,000 repetitions. Think how many more repetitions it takes for other fundamentals of living.

But for the sake of their ability to survive and thrive, we do it. We tell them again and again and again. Hopefully, we also model these behaviors… and model our faith.

Perseverance is not just for us. We must remember that we are all intertwined in a great fabric. Our children, our grandchildren, our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our neighbors and so on, are impacted by our actions, our decisions, our beliefs.

So, now, what do we do in the face our failures? What do we do when we realize we have not persevered? I say, “we begin again.” It is never too late. In God’s eyes, there is no time. We can always start over. God can redeem anything and everything. Perseverance includes beginnings.

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On Perseverance 2

Posted in Fifty days with Jesus, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 4, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes we have to back into this process. What I mean is that there are times when circumstances drop into our lives and we are faced with learning perseverance the hard way. It can be done, but it’s not God’s best for us.

For instance, you might become ill with a serious disease that will take months or even years to battle. If you have not built on the phases Peter lays out in II Peter 1:5-7, you will probably discover that you must go back and pull them into the equation. If you want to live, you’ll do whatever it takes. And so, you endure. But as you endure, you discover you must control yourself, your anger, your frustrations. Careening emotions do not help the process. And then, you discover that the more you know about your disease and how others have handled it, the more knowledge you have, the more understanding you have of your circumstances, the stronger you feel. And then, you may find a desire to share that knowledge with others in the same situation. You may actually find that you feel better when you reach out beyond yourself and “do some good.” And finally, your faith in God is re-kindled!

And then, you head back up the chain and you are amazed to discover that you are stronger in each area and you are able to endure another day … another hour … another minute.

I discovered some of this backward/forward movement when Mike and I were in the adoption process for Lily. Being steadfast in our determination to adopt her was foisted upon us for a full two years. We did not go gently into this period of perseverance!

Perhaps it’s more accurate to call this process cyclical. It wasn’t a straight path from faith to virtue to knowledge to self-control to perseverance for me … it felt more like a circle and often there were times when I felt like I was on a race track going round and round and round with no progress; suddenly, a ramp would open up and we would be on another level. Yes, it was still going round and round but the view was different, the road was different, the goal was more clearly in sight, and the fire of hope was fanned into flame again.

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On Perseverance 1

Posted in Fifty days with Jesus, tagged , , , , on November 3, 2008| 1 Comment »

Here’s what comes to mind before anything else: the tortoise and the hare. This story has, by far, gotten the most mileage in my life… I suppose it’s because I’m the hare trying to learn the lesson of the tortoise. There are lots of spiritual applications, but perseverance is the dominant one. It’s the slow, methodical tortoise who holds fast to his goal. All of the circumstances and “common sense” say that he will lose the race and yet he wins. He’s good for the long haul. He knows how to keep on going no matter what. This is just one more paradox in Christianity and all true.

And let us not forget, this perseverance is grounded in the other elements of our plan to not fall away: self-control, knowledge, virtue & faith. I’m thinking that some of us “hares” are trying to do the perseverance dance without the grounding of the other elements.

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