Perseverance

Perseverance

Don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time.

Galatians 6:9

As a young mom, I remember coming to the end of some days feeling extremely inadequate for the job. Reflecting back on the day, I’d think of the times I’d been impatient. I’d think of times I wished I’d dropped whatever I was doing to play with the kids. Some nights, I felt so weary of waking up with a fussy baby that I wasn’t sure how I would find the strength to keep going.

Perseverance keeps us going when we feel like quitting. It prompts us to stick with the task even when we’d rather run the other direction. Sheer grit and willpower are helpful in the short run, but we need something more significant to keep us going in the long run. The Bible promises a prize—or, as Galatians 6:9 expresses it, a “harvest of blessing.” A harvest is a crop, a consequence, or a return on our investment.

One of my short-term prizes has been to see my sons grow in Christian character. But the long-term blessing will come someday when I—and my children—realize the prize of eternal life with Christ. Someday we will live and reign with him, and like a good farmer, I want us to enjoy the fruit of our labors!

Corrie ten Boom, a humble Dutch woman who along with her family hid Jews in her home during the Nazi invasion of Holland, had lots of opportunities to work on perseverance. Landing in a concentration camp, there were times that she felt like giving up hope. But she didn’t. Corrie wrote, “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away your ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”

I’m sure glad now that I didn’t “jump off the train” during the toddler years. They were certainly trying (for me they were the most difficult years of child raising), but now I’m reaping some of the harvest.

Father of the harvest,

Please help us to plant well and persevere so that we will reap a harvest of blessing. Amen.