Endurance.
The start of a rowing race is a sprint. Everyone is trying to get off the line as fast as possible. For many crews, the first few strokes of the race are some of the hardest they’ll pull. Yet, it’s rare for there to be any demonstrable difference between boats after these initial moments of the race. Then, after the first minute or so, a few crews start to gain an advantage on the field, while others fall back. Physiologically, this is where bodies are switching from the anaerobic to aerobic systems. By halfway through the race, these differences are becoming more entrenched, but it is the third quarter of the race where many races are won and lost. It comes down to who has the endurance and fortitude to keep pushing when your body is screaming at you to stop.
Angela Duckworth, UPenn professor and author of Grit, has observed, “Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” Anyone can start fast, but enduring to the finish line is another story. Undoubtedly this truth applies across so many areas of life, but since I first heard it put the way Duckworth does here, I’ve been thinking about how it applies to the life of faith.
We resolve to be more faithful and more diligent in our spiritual lives. I’m going to be better about reading my Bible this year. I’m going to be more intentional about sharing my faith. Prayer will be a focus for me. We’re start with zeal only to run out of gas in a few weeks. The answer for many becomes behavior modification. Take the insights of psychology and treat it like a new diet or exercise plan. If you’ll do it for 21 days, you’ll create a new habit. It just doesn’t seem to work. My self-discipline lags. My enthusiasm wanes.
Spiritual endurance is a gift from God. It is a gift that comes through the encouragement of the gospel. Our God is, as the Apostle Paul instructs us, the “God of endurance and encouragement” (Rom 15:5). He gives this endurance and encouragement to us through his Word. As Paul explains, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom 15:4).
Jeremiah needed God’s encouragement to endure in his work. After the prophet cries out to God in complaint, the Lord responds, “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?” (Jer 12:5). There’s a sense in which God is challenging Jeremiah, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” But this challenge is also a comfort, because Jeremiah has been brought so quickly to the end of his own strength. He has been wearied in his race with men. He can never compete with horses. Yet, his God and ours is the one who gives endurance.
This is the same God who spoke to Isaiah, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isa 40:28-31). On our own neither we nor Jeremiah could compete with horses, but when we wait on the Lord, he will renew our strength so that we can run and not grow weary.
Such enduring strength comes to us through the encouragement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As the author of Hebrews calls us to endurance, he points us to the endurance of Jesus. “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,” the author challenges and then explains how we can do it: “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Heb 12:1b-3). We can endure because Christ endured for us, and now, his Spirit is at work in us to empower such endurance.
