INSPIRATION FOR ENDURANCE

INSPIRATION FOR ENDURANCE

John grew up with good Christian teaching. He’s much older now, and he says he doesn’t believe in God anymore.  Many people who started as Bible-believing children, come dangerously close to wanting to give up on the Bible later in life.

 

Traumatic events take place, and God gets blamed. We’re born again, and we think things should be going better for us. But sometimes they don’t go well at all. The truth is faithfulness isn’t something for the weak-hearted. It takes some real inner strength to stay faithful, and our faithfulness gets tested over and over throughout our lives. Faithfulness isn’t that easy sometimes, but is it worth it? For sure!

 

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God rewards faith: “He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

 

In the big picture of things, our lives are short here on earth compared to our eternity. “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more” (Ps. 103:15).

 

Though life may seem unbearable at times, God promises that “there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

 

In Old Testament terms, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Ps. 30:5). You say, “That’s the longest night ever!” But God does promise joy in the morning. And God “is not a man that he should lie” (Num. 23:19). The Hebrew translation for the word “morning” doesn’t necessarily mean “the next day.” It also has the meaning: “the breaking forth of light.” When light comes, the darkness has to go.

 

In New Testament terms, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). I looked up the word “affliction” in the Greek. It is a thronging, crowding pressure. It’s narrow, burdened with anguish, persecution, and trouble. It comes from a root word meaning a rut or worn track. And isn’t that how the attacks come sometimes? We get in a rut of affliction, the same things over and over, or the rut of one bad thing after another, non-stop.

 

When the Bible says “light affliction” it doesn’t mean it’s no big deal. The word “light” has two meanings in the Greek. The older meaning is that the affliction is pushed like a torrential wind pushes or oars push in the water or how demonic powers push. We are all aware of what mighty winds can do to even the strongest of palm trees or buildings.

 

If you’ve ever watched the Olympic rowing teams, you know how powerful those oars cut through the water. And if demonic powers have pounded you at times, and pushed you continuously, you know it’s no small matter.

 

This verse is telling us that the Lord understands that the afflictions are hard to dismiss, hard to bear up under.

 

But the second meaning of the word “light” is just as we suspected. The afflictions we bear now are minimal, compared to the honor, praise, glory, and dignity we will have for eternity.

 

This is how Second Corinthians 4:17 is translated In the Amplified Version: “For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!” Read that again!

 

God shows us how to endure in this life. Read the Bible and see the many examples of men, women, and children who confronted adversity and came out victorious on the other side.

 

Take a look at Hebrews 12:1-2: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Romans 15: 4 tells us: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” So, it’s good for us to pick up our Bibles or our phones and read some of the Old Testament records to learn things. Personally I am reading the book of Jeremiah, as the Lord led me to do, and the truths there are definitely comparable to the troubles we now are experiencing in the world.

 

But the great thing is that we have Jesus’ help! Let’s use it. “Help me. Help me. Help me!” He will help us. So let’s do our best to stay totally faithful even through the hard things. Others have endured before us and we will do likewise. Let’s continue to read God’s truths from His written Word.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

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