Perseverance is Fundamental

John Grisham is the one of world’s most commercially successful novelists of the last 35 years. He has well over 100 million books in print in 31 languages. He had authored 50 consecutive #1 best sellers. Yet Grisham was hardly an overnight success in his transition from attorney to writer.

A Time to Kill, Grisham’s first novel, was rejected by 28 agents and publishers. When an agent finally did take him as a client, the book’s first press run was only 5,000 copies. Grisham himself purchased 1,000 and hawked his work to bookstores from the trunk of his car.

Only after his second novel, The Firm, hit the bestseller list did he get his big break. Six of his books have now been made into movies, and the press run of his most recent volume, A Painted House, was a phenomenal 2.8 million copies.

Grisham is an example of the the power of perseverance. Success in any endeavor is seldom achieved without steadfast endurance. This is not only true in material pursuits, it’s true spiritually.

Listed in Peter’s ladder of Christian virtues is perseverance. It is among the traits we’re considering which are  fundamental to our faith.

“But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Pet. 1;5-8).

The Greek word hupomone is translated “patience” in the KJV. However, William Barclay makes the point that hupomone “never means the spirit which sits with folded hands and simply bears things, letting the experiences of life flow like a tide over it. It is victorious endurance. It is unswerving constancy to faith and piety in spite of adversity and suffering. It is the virtue which does not so much accept the experiences of life as conquers them.”

The word is better rendered “steadfastness” in the ESV. Or “perseverance” in the NASU and NKJV. Or “endurance” in the NIV. The Message translates it “steadiness.” And the CEV, “dependable.”

While the Bible often admonishes, “Be not weary,” the obvious reality is that we all do get weary. The book of Job describes in detail the weariness of his life. Numerous times King David expressed his inner turmoil saying, “I am weary.” The prophet Jeremiah admitted that he became physically, mentally and emotionally weary.

There are times that life beats us down. Problems abound. Obstacles seem to multiply. We run out of money before we run out of month. A relationship turns sour. A trusted friend betrays us. The doctor says, “I have some bad news from your lab tests.” We get that dreaded phone call in the middle of the night.

Then when it seems that things can’t get any worse, and we turn to a brother or sister in Christ for encouragement and consolation and like David, we lament, “No one cares for my soul” (Ps. 142:4).

However, it is important to note that David did not quit. He did not allow weariness to defeat him and drive him away from God. When others failed him, he looked to the Lord for help, strength, and encouragement.

In times like these, it’s important for us to dig deep and imbibe the virtue of perseverance.

As James T. White expressed it, “Perseverance is the stateman’s brain, the warrior’s sword, the inventor’s secret, and the scholar’s open sesame…Perseverance is the grindstone saying to the axe, ‘You are hard, but I am harder. I will wear you away.’”

“Somewhere along the way you should discover something that’s so dear, so precious to you, that is so eternally worthful, that you will never give it up,” advised Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “You ought to discover some principle, you ought to have some great faith that grips you so much that you will never give it up. Somehow you go on and say “I know that the God that I worship is able to deliver me, but if not, I’m going on anyhow, I’m going to stand up for it anyway.”

Don’t quit.  Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Don’t give out.   Persevere.

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman