A Reflection on Perseverance

I’m one of those people who is great at starting things. I’ve started writing books. I’ve started building a recording studio. I’ve started many different sports. I mean, I’ve even started plenty of other blogs. 

My problem is the finishing part. 

Perhaps you empathize with me on this. Starting is easy. Starting is fun. But as soon as things surpass my threshold for monotony or as soon as things begin to get too difficult, I drop them and move on. Usually with vague promises to myself that I’m not really done with that project, I just need a break. I’ve quit sports, books, construction projects and blogs, with promises to return to them that were never fulfilled. I know this about myself. 

And yet I also know that perseverance is a biblical trait. 

In fact, the first large chunk of scripture I memorized was the beginning of the book of James, which makes an emphasis on that very trait. James writes to the Jewish Christians, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work in you so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4). I loved these verses! They have given me so much hope that God is working to make me mature and complete even in the parts of life I would have chosen to avoid.

The hard part is - and it only grows more apparent as I age - we aren’t good at persevering. My close youth group friends have grown into nominal Christian young adults, or have even fallen away from faith completely. I still fight bouts of fear and doubt myself. Youth pastors leave the faith to live in sin… Famous Christian authors become apostates… even my leader who challenged me to memorize the first chapter of James has walked away from, and denounced the faith. 

We have a perseverance problem.

Are their many examples of faithful perseverance through the hardest of situations? Praise God that yes, there are many such examples. But such people have always seemed to me almost a different class of Christian. They seem to have a grit, and a stick-to-it-ness that I just simply don’t have. I’m good at starting… Not so good at finishing.

And that thought has terrified me. I don’t wish to fall away. I pray with all of my heart and soul and strength that I never do. I read passages like Hebrews 3:14 which says “For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold to our original confidence firm to the end.” (my emphasis), and I am filled with dread. What if I don’t hold firm? What if my fickle nature gets the best of me? 

And the truth is, if perseverance was a trait that I had to develop in myself, I would have no hope.

But praise the Lord! For he is faithful despite our faithlessness. He is firm despite our fickleness. He perseveres despite our passivity. The Christian’s hope for perseverance is not in their own ability to attain it, but rather that Jesus supplies it. The author of Hebrews writes, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23, my emphasis). We hold fast to our confession, albeit imperfectly, because we know that the one who does the promising is the one who is faithful. 

This is such great news! The perseverance that James says is developed through the trials of life is not some pass or fail test. Instead it is a promise to the Christian, that God will make in you the perseverance that he already has in himself. 

I am not a finisher. 

But my Lord Jesus Christ is. 

If I am found in Jesus Christ then I have been sacrificed for, once for all. Even when I doubt. Even when I turn away from the God of life to the gods of my flesh. Yes, even then God is faithful. 

It is true that “if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;” (2 Timothy 2:12). Faith is required. Jesus asks for faith as small as a mustard seed. But it is not the quality or quantity of our faith that saves us. It is the person we put our faith in. “if we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13). God is by nature faithful, and he will never change. 

And there lies the key to perseverance. Those saints who endure trial after trial, and remain steadfast through it all are not greater Christians. They don’t possess some extraordinarily great faith. They simply put their trust in a faithful God. 

And so my prayer has changed. I pray with all hope and assurance that God will teach me the same perseverance that he has shown towards me. That through the Holy Spirit I would display just a hint of the great steadfastness and faithfulness that my God supplies to me. That when my faith is tested, God will show his faithfulness to me, that I might fix my eyes upon my Savior Jesus. 

“‘For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.” (Hebrews 12:6-7).

O God, make in me the barest hint of your perseverance, that I may end my days all the more in love with you.