Patient Endurance

For anyone who thinks being a Christian is a walk in the park, Willmington's Book of Bible Lists gives twenty-five reasons why Christians suffer and backs up each reason with at least one Scripture reference. God promises us heaven where there will be no more sorrow and pain, but this is not heaven yet!

The first item on the list is that we need patient endurance, and the only way to get it is through suffering. The writer of Hebrews talks about this in chapter 10. His readers had already experienced “a great struggle with sufferings” that included “the plundering of your goods” but they were in danger of giving it up and drawing back into their traditional religious ways. This is why they were told:

For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: “For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. . . .” (Hebrews 10:36-37).

My devotional says that the Lord sends me afflictions that He may give me the grace of patience to bear them, yet I have such a rebellious heart. I know my own perverse, easily irritated self-will. I know that my temper is easily stirred up, and my minds roused by the slightest things. I have so little patience under the trials that God sees fit to lay upon me, yet He uses these very trials to make me aware of my need. It is also in these trials that He shows me that patient endurance is not a fruit of my own nature.

Patient endurance comes from a humble heart. There is no greater need in my life. I need patience toward God when He thwarts my schemes and desires, and patience when instead of showing me why He is doing it, seems to hide behind a wall that my faith and prayers cannot get through.

I need patience with others in the world, in my family, and with other Christians. I need patience when people say things that slash at my ideas, wound my feelings, poke at my temper, and stir me with feelings of revenge.

Sometimes the word trials bring to mind illness, loss, and big events, but these peevish things are trials too. The good thing is that in them, God grants endurance. I’ve seen His hand and know the mercy of being given patience when in my old nature I would have blown up and retaliated.

The example is Jesus, “who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). Because Jesus lives in His people, and because the Father knows what He is doing, when He tells us to endure, we can.

There is one more reason that endurance is possible. Hebrews 10:37 reminds me that Jesus is going to return. When He does, how do I want Him to find me? Pulling back because “I just can’t take anymore,” or trusting His promises and doing His will with patient endurance?

Today, I choose option number two and will try to remember that patience means that I also don’t grumble about those peevish things God calls me to endure.