Persevere

I've returned to my treadmill. After somewhat of a rocky break-up we parted ways for a time, but I'm working on trying to make the relationship work. It's a sad sight at 6:00 am - me, bleary-eyed and stumbling over my untied shoes. But after I warm up and wake up I crank up the speed (from 1 to 4 - out of 12!) and I jog. It had been so long since I'd worked out I literally could only run for one minute before I had to slow it down to a walk, then try again. Eventually I made it to three minutes, then five, then running ten minute intervals with incline climbing in between, now I'm up to a warm up and jogging twenty minutes and then a cool down. It's hard work, I tell ya. I've undone all my former getting into shape so now I have to work twice as hard for half my former results. But I'm persevering.

I'm remembering Hebrews 12:1 - "...let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

Perseverance - 'hypomone' - meaning not swerved from deliberate purpose, a patient enduring, a steadfastness. How do we get it? Rom 5:3 tells us suffering or 'tribulation' produces it. It's a 'pressing together' a pressure that continues to build. James 1:3 tells us that the testing of our faith develops perseverance. And perseverance? Perseverance develops character (Rom. 5:4) and godliness (2 Peter 1:6). It completes a work of maturity in us (James 1:4) that gives us everything we need.

So the whole 'no pain, no gain' thing? Absolutely true. Webster's says to persevere is to persist in spite of opposition or discouragement. To 'keep on keeping on' even when you don't want to. I totally get that - that's me and my treadmill. It's getting up early when I love to sleep in. Pushing myself to jog for one more minute, then another.

When I was young it seemed much more effortless. Not just the whole working-out thing. I never thought too much of the 'perseverance' Paul talks so much about. I mean, Paul would know. Beaten with rods (three times), whipped with thirty-nine lashes (five times), shipwrecked (three times), stoned, robbed, in prison for years - the man knew all about endurance, persisting in the face of opposition. Back then, I hadn't faced much opposition and I certainly couldn't conceive of being burnt out, beaten down, or in danger of giving up, but as I've grown in experience I've known people who have done exactly that.

I'm feeling what Paul says in 1 Cor. 9:26-27- "I don't know about you, but I'm running hard for the finish line. I'm giving it everything I've got. No sloppy living for me! I'm staying alert and in top condition. I'm not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself."

All for Him,

Missy