"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair."
2 Corinthians 4:8, New Living Translation
Success is almost impossible to attain without having a persistent and persevering heart. Every road to greater purpose and greater heights will have setbacks, bumps and failures along the way. Regardless of the amount of trials we face, the important thing is the way we respond to them.
Basketball tycoon Richard Devos has this to say about persistence: "If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence." We all need persistence to go through life's challenges. But how do we build perseverance?
Trials are necessary to building perseverance
The one thing we must understand about perseverance is that it does not come by our own accord. We cannot generate perseverance out of thin air, but can only harness it from the Holy Spirit. It is a fruit of the Spirit, but also one that God freely gives to all.
Perseverance comes from God, but the way He builds it into us is not as easy as uploading things onto a phone or computer. God instead brings us through a set of trials and testings to build our perseverance. Romans 5:3-4 says, "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope."
Success doesn't come cheap. It comes at a high price. And there's no better example of costly perseverance than the example Jesus sets when He humbly came down to earth as man and went to the cross for the sin of all mankind. The result of that perseverance through trials brought the greatest gift we will ever know.
Accept reality and look to the hope in Christ
United States admiral Jim Stockdale shared this insight from eight years of captivity as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Persevering through torture, Stockdale shared the importance of balancing the harshness of present sufferings and the optimism of experiencing breakthrough as a way of staying resilient through hard times.
This is the same principle Jesus shares in John 16:33: "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." As Christians, we have the greatest hope which is the hope found in Christ. At the end of the day, it's that hope that builds perseverance in us. Perseverance comes when we face the trials head on, but not in our own strength but with the power of God's Spirit and the promise that is in Christ.
