“…being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy….” Colossians 1:11
We left Texas on a sizzling summer day, dragging behind us a pint-sized trailer that held the remnants of our household furnishings. Our two little guys were playing in the backseat that had been transformed into a makeshift crib. It would be a long, slow, and tear-filled drive to Oregon.
Russ was headed to seminary. I was leaving my family and all that was familiar to head toward the unknown.
Our welcome to Portland was cold and wet. We expected cooler late summer weather than Texas but were totally unprepared for steadily dropping temperatures and incessant rainfall. We scrambled to buy jackets and warmer clothes from our non-existent clothing budget for the boys and ourselves.
Russ quickly applied for a job and was hired at the seminarian’s go-to employer, UPS. The day before he was to begin the new job, Russ had an unfortunate encounter with a lawnmower. The lawnmower emerged victorious, Russ and his injured right hand were unable to begin the new job, and the next applicant in line for a UPS job got lucky.
Russ was unable to work for a number of weeks, which meant I had to find a job. God provided and I quickly found one. Slightly over one month after arriving in Portland, early in the morning I walked through a windy, chilly mist to a nearby bus stop to catch the city bus that would drop me off a couple of blocks from my new place of employment in downtown Portland.
I cried every step of the way. It was October 17th; my youngest son’s first birthday and I would not be spending the day with him, instead, I started the first day of a new job. My stay-at-home momma’s heart was broken.
Over the next weeks the temperatures continued to drop and so did my spirits. Then unexpected snow and freezing sleet hit Portland bringing everything to a standstill. The city dug itself out of its icy mess, but winter had begun early, and it lasted well into March of the following year.
I was homesick. I desperately missed being with my little guys throughout the day. And the weather was beyond depressing to this transplanted Texan.
Patience. Nope. Didn’t have any. Perseverance. I’m not sure I understood at all what that meant on a practical, Christian-walk level at that point in time.
Sure, I was reading my Bible. I was praying. We were going to church. We were going to Sunday School. After all, my husband was in seminary. But I confess, my heart was hurting, I felt like I was in a season of endless ache.
And then, one morning in early April, I walked out to the bus stop surprised to see that the sun was shining brightly. Flowers, unlike any I had ever seen, were blooming profusely filling the air with fragrance and the previously gray landscape with color. It was glorious and my spirit soared. I felt like God had turned His face towards me and smiled.
As I look back, the challenges and difficulties of that time were so easy compared to the many really hard times that God has faithfully and graciously brought us through over the years.
God is so good and kind. He takes us step by step. Baby steps first, followed by bigger and ever-growing steps. God is teaching us each step of the way, never giving us more than He equips us to handle.
But I believe it was during that time that I began to get a glimmer of what patience and perseverance are supposed to look like in the life of a Christ-follower. It has taken many years, lots of difficult lessons, and much time in Scripture and prayer to gain a better appreciation for and deeper understanding of those two words: patience and perseverance. And still, I have so much to learn.
I recently reread for the umpteenth time a devotion taken from J. I. Packer’s book “Rediscovering Holiness.”1
To paraphrase Packer’s comment: patience and perseverance join in endurance.
Of patience, Packer says, “patience [is] the passive mode of endurance, whereby pain, grief, suffering, and disappointment are handled without inner collapse.” Patience is the internal God-given strength that allows you to deal with difficult people, difficult situations, and difficult times without falling apart.
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, a gift of walking in step with the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:22-25). And as Christ-followers, we are commanded to “put on” patience, along with other characteristics of the Spirit (Colossians 3:12).
Understand clearly, God commands us to be patient – to practice patience with others, but our gracious Father gives us patience as we walk in obedience to Him and in step with His Holy Spirit.
God asks nothing of us that He has not equipped us to do.
Perseverance, on the other hand, is the active mode of endurance. Perseverance keeps on keeping on – doing the right thing time after time – unwavering – staying in the battle – because it is the right thing to do. Perseverance is also translated as steadfastness.
Without the practice of patience, perseverance will falter.
Patience without perseverance will never take action.
Patience plus perseverance equals endurance.
Endurance produces Christian maturity.
Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance [steadfastness-ESV]. Let perseverance [steadfastness-ESV] finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:3-4 NIV
James 1:3-4 NIV
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance [endurance-ESV]; perseverance [endurance-ESV], character; and character, hope.
Romans 5:3-4 NIV
Don’t you love hindsight? It’s so perceptive. I came to see that my lack of patience with our relocation to Portland and the disruption of my plans to be a stay-at-home mom created great distress and frustration in my spirit, disturbing my peace and dampening my joy. It was God’s grace that kept me from utter collapse. And during that time, my ability to persevere was severely damaged.
Are you actively exercising the patience that has been gifted to you by God’s Holy Spirit? Are your patience and perseverance working together to produce the endurance needed to carry you across your spiritual finishing line?
Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
Colossians 1:10-12
1J. I. Packer, The J. I. Packer Classic Collection, page 207, from “Rediscovering Holiness”