Going Uphill: Character

While running up hills develops perseverance in me, it is not the only reason I run—there are other benefits when I do.  The same is true with our trials and sufferings of various sorts.  Perseverance is produced but the Apostle Paul understood that it is not an end in and of itself. Though it is a good characteristic in a person’s life, it is also a road or pathway that leads to other benefits.  

Let me put it another way. When a little girl starts out playing the piano with a desire to play a piece from Beethoven or Bach, she does not have the ability or skill to just sit down and play it.  She will need to learn music notes, coordinate her fingers to the keys, practice repetitions and simple songs, tap her foot to the beat of whole notes, half notes and quarter notes, learn the meaning of rests and flats, and learn to read notes without looking at her fingers. The path to playing a great musician is perseverance, not just practice. She will need to practice but without perseverance she will not achieve her goal.  Through her practice she will need to learn perseverance through the painstaking repetitions, long hours, and her mistakes in both private and public atmospheres.  She learns perseverance but she does not play the piano for perseverance’s sake alone.  There is something greater beyond. 

The same is true when I run.  I do not run for perseverance alone.  Indeed, it will come in handy when I run a half marathon or marathon. However, there are many other reasons why I choose to run: lower blood pressure, a release of stress, overall health, a toned body, able to outrun my nieces and nephews and my sister’s three dogs (which comes in handy every now and then), able to beat my sister in a race (nope...not bragging, well not too much), and so on.

So if perseverance is a path, then what is the outcome? Why did Paul persevere through his sufferings?  What did he see as the end result of perseverance? This is what he wrote in Romans 5:3 “We know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, 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.”

Perseverance leads to ‘character.’ Character? What does this word mean?  Perhaps you have heard someone say, “Well, you know Bobby, he is a character” meaning that Bobby is a little odd or perhaps a little too funny for his own good.  And while you like Bobby as a friend, you would rather pass on the notion to become like Bobby.  While our English word ‘character’ has that meaning and a variety of others from an ‘actor in a play’ to ‘reputation’ to ‘moral strength,’ the biblical word for it has the nuance of ‘proof’ or ‘evidence’ or ‘approved and tried.’  Perhaps a good rendering for it would be ‘tried or approved character,’ something tested and refined by persevering up the rugged hills of our adversities and sufferings.

If we return to the running imagery (no pun intended), ‘character’ is equivalent to being in shape.  After you persevere in running up hills several times your body becomes toned, your muscles stronger, and your body now coincides with your mind that you can go that distance. Or with the pianist, ‘character’ is equivalent to becoming an accomplished pianist. Your trained mind now comprehends the notes to play while at the same time your fingers dance across the ivories to play Beethoven or Bach’s pieces. It is the same with persevering through suffering. Character is established or as James wrote, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you might be mature and complete.” 

So perseverance leads to Christ-likeness in our character and maturity in our faith.  You know it while you wait in patience for a slow cashier during the Christmas season. You experience it while you pray for someone who has ridiculed you at work. You taste it when you refuse to listen to gossip or turn from pornography on the internet. You understand it when you have compassion on your drunken neighbor and reach out to him with a basket filled with fruits and cookies.  You delight in it when you listen to your teenage daughter’s problems at one o’clock in the morning. You rejoice in it when your spouse has a rough day and takes it out on you. Instead of retaliation you ask questions, listen to his/her needs, and respond with love.

This kind of character is not formed overnight.  It takes time. It takes perseverance.  It takes trials, adversity, and suffering in our lives to get us there.  But it is worth it!  And in our society, men and women of character are sorely needed. We hear of road rage, embezzlement, fraud, statistics of divorce, abuse in the homes, fathers running away leaving families, drunkenness, gossip in workplaces, teenage pregnancies, and…well, you get the picture.  I don’t need to tell you the state of the world. You know it. If you open your eyes you see it.  If you open your heart, you’ll feel it.

Our world desperately needs men and women who will BE the light of Christ to the people around them. “You are the light of the world,” Jesus said (Matthew 5:14).  It is a statement, a declaration of character, and a truth you and I must reckon with. Light comforts those in fear, disperses the darkness of depression, and warms the cold heart. Light is visible.  So are people with character.  They stand out among the crowd not just with their voices but, more importantly, with their lives. 

And character yields the great fruit of hope.