Perseverance - Thursday 21 June

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4.

A change from the running analogies today. I heard the following as part of a talk given by Steve Hellyer at Lee Abbey a few years ago.

The thing about perseverance is that it is hard! And don’t you consider it joy, just as it says in this verse, when bad things happen to us? I certainly don’t. But I don’t think the joy that James is referring to is disconnected from the bad events that happen to us, I think it is referring to the wider context in which God works things out in our lives and changes us.
In Enterprise, Alabama, is the only statue in the world honouring an insect – the Boll Weevil. Disaster struck in 1915 when the Boll Weevil arrived, destroying many cotton crops, leaving farmers in a financial bind and the area in a slump. However, the farmers refused to give up and despite heavy debts, tried growing peanuts instead. The result was amazing. The peanuts thrived which not only permitted them to pay off their debts, but brought them greater prosperity than they had known before. The adversity that the Boll Weevil brought had, through their perseverance in farming, led to a change for the better.
The circumstances of our lives may not be as significant as our responses to them - what we are making of them and how God is changing us through them. Let’s keep going, because then God can continue to work in us and change us.