Going Uphill: Perseverance

Not long after I arrived in NC to visit my family, my older sister called and mentioned a 5K, wondering if I would like to sign up for it. Sounds great, right? Well…yes. It is good exercise…a good time with the family…I get to wake up early in the morning…but the race was in two days and I have not trained or run for several weeks.  But for better or for worse I signed up for the race. 

The next morning, I dawned my running clothes and started to jog out into the unfamiliar NC suburban sidewalks.  It was flat for a while. I turned onto another road and then another until I finally reached a little hill.  The hill was nothing to boast about. It was a gradual hill but not very steep or long. 

My mind went back to the hills I ran on while training for the half marathon last summer. I made it up all of them but one, my own ‘heartbreak hill.’  It was on my 8 miles loop across the Pennsylvania countryside where I passed horses, cattle, farms, and tucked away houses in the woods.  Running one way, which took me down the hill, I could complete the 8 miles without walking.  Running the other way, however, was a different story.  I would hit my ‘heartbreak hill’ about mile six, inevitably stop and walk the rest of the way up. The hill was steep, intimidating for a runner, and saturated my legs with pain as I ran up it.  Don’t get me wrong.  I didn’t come to the hill and just stop. I would give it my best.  I broke the hill into different segments in my mind.  Segments 1-2 were sort of gradual, section 3 began a steeper incline, and sections 4-5 were just plain steep. I usually could make it up to section 4 before my legs caught on fire. No pain—no gain, right? On one occasion when I almost made it up, I stopped, walked down the hill and tried again—I did this about four different times that day just trying to make it up!  

 Despite wrestling with my ‘heartbreak hill,’ it did something for me that I couldn’t see at the time. While I focused on trying to conquer the hill and just push through it, this hill developed a very important characteristic in me. The hill yielded perseverance in me.  This is something that I could not learn in the flatlands unless I ran greater distances.  So even though the most I ran at once was 8 miles, when the half marathon came (13.2 miles), I was able to run the race and finish well (if you would like to read about that experience it is my first blog entry).  Hills are important because they teach perseverance, the patient, stick-to-it attitude that refuses to give up and clings to faith, hope and joy.

The same is true in a different race, the one we run everyday of our lives whether we realize it or not. Only these hills are different.  They are not the steep inclines on roads but rather the inclines of adversity, trials and sufferings of various kinds.  They range from health hijacks to spouse skirmishes and from work wars to the crazy child rearing years.  Add into this mixture bouts of depression, fears of the future, anxieties with finances, and our own spiritual struggles to pray and obey and we quickly understand adversities, trials and sufferings of various kinds. Yet according to God’s word, they develop perseverance within us.

“We know that suffering produces perseverance,” the Apostle Paul writes (Romans 5:3). 

 And he of all people should know.

While we read his story in the book of Acts, he writes an autobiography of his sufferings and weaknesses in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 to combat the ‘super’ but false leaders of his day.

“I have worked much harder,” he begins. “Been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers…bandits…fellow Jews…Gentiles; in danger in the city…the country…at sea…I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.”

Chances are your autobiography of sufferings does not sound as grand.  Neither does mine.  Compared to Paul’s list of ‘sufferings,’ mine is fairly plain. Other then occasionally ‘being on the move,’ my life has never been endangered by bandits, my fellow countrymen or churchgoers and I have never faced death like Paul in prison or the open sea. Nor have I ever been flogged for my faith, chained for the Christ or stoned for the Savior.  I wonder, then, am I missing something about Christianity?  Is my faith to tame? Curious thought.

But I do not want to minimize your losses, illnesses, heartbreaks, heartaches and troubles at work, home or in the church.  For these also encompass sufferings and the ‘trials of many kinds’ that test our faith (James 1:2-3).  As a result, they develop perseverance in our lives.  They teach us to plug away at something with patience despite the obstacles, journey through the valleys with joy despite the sorrowful setbacks, and endure the race despite the hurdles set in our track.     

Paul endured many of them and thus earned his doctorate degree in them.  So we can sit in his classroom and learn from a distinguished sufferer.  He knew that sufferings of all kinds produce perseverance in him, this dogged perseverance that would not falter or fade from his desire to finish well. 

 We observe this in the book of Acts.  We watch him rise, bruised and bloodied, after his enemies stone him and then, utterly to our surprise, he goes back into the city (Acts 14:19-20)! We eavesdrop into a dimly lit dungeon where Paul and his companion Silas are fastened in stocks and hear them worship God instead of worry or complain (16:24-25). We catch a glimpse of his passion as he declares to the Ephesians, “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (20:24).  And hear his sorrow when he tells those who tried to stop him from going forward: “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Then we watch his arrest, further imprisonment, his defense, his transportation to Rome and a shipwreck.  All the while he perseveres.  He sticks to his task despite horrendous opposition against him closer then a dog sticks to its bone.

So it begs a big question. Why?  Why did he continue to persevere?  According to behavioral psychology, he should have learned to take the easy road and to avoid suffering.  Instead, he did the opposite.  He continued to share the gospel in every city despite opposition, persecution, adversity, trials and sufferings.  He was either a lunatic, insane for pursuing the gospel, or he knew what was ultimately at the end. So why?  And why do we persevere? What is the end, if any, of persevering through suffering?

More to come...