"To Him be glory forever": perseverance

Showing posts with label perseverance. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Preparation to Persevere

Yesterday was the Boston Marathon, and for the first time in 33 years an American, Desiree Linden, won the women's division. There was a time in my life when I was up-to-date with who was who on the international marathon scene. I knew that I had heard of Linden before but I had to look online to learn more about who she was and how the race had turned out. And as I did so, I was surprised.

What surprised me was not that an American had won, but how slow the winning time had been. And when I looked at the men's results, I noticed the same thing. Slow times, perhaps not as slow for the men in a relative sense, but for both men and women the winning times, and the times for the top five finishers were far below the averages there. For a world-class race they were not what might be considered world-class times.

A little more investigation showed the cause of the slow times, and that was because the weather, to put it charitably, was atrocious. Cold, wet, and windy. Far from the conditions that can bring out the best from an athlete's preparation.

But even in bad weather, the race goes on, and someone has to win. So congratulations to those who ran yesterday, not just to the winners but to everyone who made it to the finish line. A marathon is a physically demanding event, and the conditions demanded even more out of the runners. But each of the finishers had what was needed, physically and emotionally, to persevere to the end.

As a Christian father I'm learning that the Psalms are a wonderful school for learning perseverance. We are currently reading the Psalms with our daughter, so each night at bedtime I read all or part of a Psalm and then we briefly talk about it.

Last night we read Psalm 85. So often in the Psalms the author is in great need from God. Sometimes the trouble has to do with other people, and sometimes it is of his own doing. And yet he understands God's character, and so he never lets go of God's promises. He continues to trust in God as he waits on God's timing for God to act.

God's word, in general, and the Psalms, in particular, train us for those times when life will be difficult. For those times in life when things move beyond difficult and into incredibly hard. The Psalmist hangs on to God as he prays for God's help.

That is the other great benefit to the Psalms, in that they model persistent prayer in the midst of challenging circumstances. Similar to Desiree Linden and all the other runners being prepared to varying degrees for the challenges they encountered in Boston yesterday, reading and praying God's word, prepares us to persevere, and even praise God, during all parts of our lives.

In Psalm 85:6 the psalmist asks:

"Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?"

That is a question that virtually begs an answer, for God is both faithful and unfailing in the promises he has made to his children.

In even the most difficult of times, God will revive his children. May we persevere in praising him in times of hardship, and continue to praise him when his deliverance comes. Amen.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

To persevere

I have served as the pastor of the Jicarilla Apache Reformed Church for just over one year. Something I have learned about the people I serve is that when it comes to prayer and the desires of their hearts, they persevere.

In my Webster's Dictionary the word "persevere" is defined like this: To persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counter influences, opposition or discouragement.

Here is what I mean. Each Sunday as we gather for worship there are three ways that people share the things that they would like prayer for. One is healing prayer. We invite anyone who feels a need for healing to come forward, be anointed and prayed over in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

On any given Sunday between four and ten people come forward. I bless and anoint each person by name and then we invite anyone else to come forward and lay hands on the group as I lead a prayer for them. No one ever shares what it is that they desire healing for. If I know the reason it is something I have only learned incidentally.

The second way prayer is shared is through verbal requests. Before beginning our congregational prayer I ask if anyone has anything they desire to be lifted up in prayer. This past Sunday there were 16 different requests. Some are very broad and others are specific. They can be about situations in the world or our community. Most frequently they involve friends and family members. It is common to ask merely that a particular person's name be brought to God, trusting God to provide whatever it might be that is needed in the situation.

And the third way prayer is sought is by private request. We always have some slips of paper available and people write down the people and situations they desire prayer for. They put the requests in the offering basket or pass them to me after worship.

Each of these various ways of seeking prayer shapes the way I pray for my congregation during the week. I have the things that were shared publicly and the private requests, and I try to remember who came for healing prayer.

Here is where perseverance comes in. As a congregation we have prayed, and as their pastor I have prayed, for a number of people and their same requests, for as long as I can remember. To apply the dictionary definition, we have persisted in prayer in spite of counter influences, opposition and discouragement.

I serve among a people who know that God isn't some kind of overly generous grandparent, who always gives us what we want whenever we ask.

I serve among a people who know instead that God is God, and that God acts in ways that we don't always understand, but in ways that are always good.

And I serve among a people whose receive answers to prayer. For one person the counter influence of alcohol may be at bay for the day. For another there is respite from opposition during the time we gather for worship. And another may know encouragement as they feel the hands of others laid on their shoulder as prayer is lifted up.

On the reservation I see the struggles of people's lives differently than I would if I served a congregation back in the Midwest, where we came from. And I see a different way of people persevering, in prayer, with faith that God hears them and will one day answer them.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Perseverance

Yesterday I ran an ultra-marathon. For my non-running readers that would be a race that is longer than the marathon distance of 26.2 miles. Yesterday’s run was supposed to be 50 kilometers, or 31.1 miles. It was held on the trails in a county park, and trail courses are not always accurately measured. The GPS watches that several runners wore showed that the distance we ran was actually 32.5 miles, although none of us knew this until it was all over.

To put together a 31 mile race in a park the race director had us running several laps of a circuitous 10-mile route. There are some fairly challenging hills, all of which we ran multiple times. He also included a side excursion at the beginning to make the full 50k distance. But a long race over a hilly course, daunting as they could be, weren't the only challenges awaiting us yesterday. The weather was also a factor.

We have had a lot of rain over the past few weeks, including several inches the night before the run. While we ran in clear skies, it was over a course that was very wet. The side loop at the start was through a meadow that had spots of standing water. When we left that part and went onto the main course I thought that we were done with the wet spots, but it turned out that they were just beginning.

Over the next 30 miles we ran through standing water in grassy trails, through mud on trails going up and down hills, through water running over the trail as it came off the hills in sheets, through water running down the trail as it found the most direct route to the river, and through two spots where the lake adjacent to the trail was so high that lake water covered the trail.

A consequence of repeatedly running through all that water was that my shoes loosened and needed to be retied. I stopped three times to re-tie them and when one of them loosened again with just one mile left to go I altered my stride a bit and kept going, deciding I was only going to re-tie it if it came off my foot. The picture above is of my shoes after the race.

As a runner, yesterday’s race was an exercise in perseverance. The distance itself was a long one and the conditions were much more challenging than I had anticipated. Running three loops meant that I had the repeated opportunity to decide that enough was enough and just stop when we were close to the finish area. What kept me going was primarily a matter of my will. I continually decided that while the going, for the moment, was hard, that I likely had enough to keep on going until the end. And thinking about persevering as a runner led me to think a bit about perseverance as a Christian.

While running is primarily a function of my will, being a Christian and a disciple of Jesus is a function of God’s will. The Bible teaches that God has put a claim on us before anything was created (Ephesians 1:3-14) and that He has known every part of our lives before a single moment of our life came to be (Psalm 139:13-16). And best of all, He promises to see us through to the end.

In Philippians 1:6, Paul writes:

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Throughout the ups and downs of life, our joys, our failures, our moments of deep gladness and our moments of deep pain, God is holding us firmly in His hands. There will be times when we may be tempted by despair and want to quit but God is persevering, with us and in us, with a love that is eternal and unfailing.

In the challenging times of your life, when you feel the weight of life pressing down on you, may you know that you are always held in the hands of God, hands that will hold you both now and forever.