For you have need for endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. – Hebrews 10:36
I have need for endurance. I am tired. Are any of you tired? Does there seem to be no rest in sight for all of the pressures and responsibilities of your life?
When I am tired, my human flesh looks for rest. It is only natural to look forward to a respite from the work and toil of daily life. What do you look forward to doing in your rest? For me, it is a good meal and time spent watching a show or YouTube when no one will interrupt me, asking to have this or that taken care of. For me, it is sleeping in late on a weekend.
But when there is no rest in sight, how can one endure? How am I to continue on in diligence day after day, when my rope is short and my time is shorter? I have need for endurance.
How can I continue to, as the Hebrews verse says, “(do) the will of God” even when I have been doing the will of God for days, weeks, years? I have need for endurance.
In chapter 12 the writer of Hebrews brings to mind the picture of a runner in a race, who runs well and continues running to the end. Who disciplines his body to do what is demanded of it. A marathon runner does not begin her training in peak condition. Her mile time starts much slower at the beginning of her months-long training block than the time she is shooting to run on race day. The only way she can adapt to a faster running pace is by disciplining herself to train many times per week, for many weeks on end. It is in the moments when the runs are the hardest that the body adapts the most to the training.
I have need for endurance. I don’t have the answers, but I do know that my sweet Lord Jesus Christ is there with me in the most difficult moments of my training. He walks most closely with me when I am at my most desperate. I ask Him, and I look to Him, for the endurance that He provides. He promises to carry me through and His grace is sufficient for my weakness.
Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” – Revelation 14:12-13
