Keep On Keeping On: There’s Light at the End of the Tunnel
Summer is here. The days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, and the halfway point of 2022 is right around the corner. As you think about all the ambitions you entered the new year with—the dreams, goals and hopes of a “dream life” just beyond your reach—and reflect on all the ways you either met your expectations and rose to new heights or hopelessly fell short of completing yet another batch of New Year’s resolutions, it could be very easy to get distracted or discouraged.
How could I have let another year go by without doing all those things I wanted to accomplish? How could I have lost focus on God once again?
Well, I have good news for you: The year isn’t over just yet. There’s still time to choose grit over giving up, to choose perseverance over pulling out. There’s still time for you to embark on a journey of hope, trust and endurance in the Lord as you traverse both the suffocating valleys and breathtaking mountaintops you may encounter throughout life. In fact, the Bible calls us to endure on multiple accounts.
So, what is this call to endurance and how do I emulate it in my own life?
I couldn’t think of a better example of endurance than the model demonstrated by the Old Testament figure Job. A very wealthy man, Job’s life seemed enviable. He had a large family, a lot of livestock, and a healthy body which he used to glorify God. Within one day, all that Job owned was stripped from him—his children, his servants, his livestock, his home, and later his health. Yet despite these trials, Job continued to rejoice in the Lord:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing (Job 1:21-22).
“Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him” (Job 13:15).
Amid despair and confusion, Job proceeded to give thanks to the Lord and look to God for his hope, setting the precedent for all believers to remain steadfast in the Lord even in difficult circumstances. There is room to mourn when things get hard—even Job mourned—but he always clung to an underlying faith and remained rooted in his purpose: to glorify God in all circumstances.
While your circumstances may not be as crushing as Job’s were, Job provides an example for us to follow even in the worst of times: to trust in and worship God-always. In other words, to endure and persevere. However, endurance is not just a trait to cast aside until life gets difficult; endurance is also for the everyday and the ordinary. Waking up, driving to work, going to the gym, running errands, spending time with loved ones... These tasks, and even small interruptions and inconveniences that take us off our plan for the day, though seemingly trivial on their own, can take a toll on our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual being. So, what does endurance in the mundane look like for believers?
There are several verses throughout Scripture that point to Jesus’s command to “take heart” or persist through all of life’s circumstances. Here are a few of my favorite verses that speak about endurance, perseverance, and the implications it has for Christian leaders today...
Galatians 6:9: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
James 1:2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Colossians 3:23-24: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
2 Corinthians 4:16-18: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Did you catch that last line? The things we so often find ourselves worrying about are only temporary. The things of God, on the other hand... THOSE are worth fixing our eyes on. When life gets hard—and it will—remember these verses. And when you find yourself trudging through a seemingly endless routine of dull and ordinary, or inconvenienced by some unanticipated interruption, dig in! Keep working faithfully, and shift your focus toward Christ, knowing that the “dream life” you sometimes picture in your head pales in comparison to the eternal life you will one day inherit by enduring alongside Jesus.
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