Endurance

Do you ever feel like you’d be able to go on if only you understood why? You don’t need to know all the details, but it would help to know why. Why must the road be so hard? Why isn’t anything happening yet? Why won’t this trial ever end? We waste a lot of energy in the Christian life by asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking why, we’ve got to start asking what. What is God trying to do in my life through this difficult circumstance? What does God want to change in me through this season of my life?

We get so focused on the tasks in our lives that we miss the Heart of God. God cares more about our relationship with Him than how much we’re doing for Him. When you consider your life right now, are you closer to the Lord today than you were last year? Do you long for more of Him? Are you sinning less? Are you striving for more holiness? Are you growing in your faith? Are you becoming more like Him?

Romans 5:3 says it like this: “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

The greater the strain you feel today, the stronger your faith will be tomorrow. The early Christians understood what you and I are still learning. Suffering leads to growth. Suffering is an opportunity to rejoice. It is the suffering process that makes the man or woman of God.

It’s time you stop asking the wrong questions and start answering the right ones.

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For more on standing strong in following Jesus even when it hurts, visit livingwithpower.org/stillstanding

Adapted from Still Standing: Following Jesus Even When It Hurts by Lina AbuJamra. Copyright © 2024 by Lina AbuJamra. Reprinted with permission of Moody Publishers. All rights reserved.