Endurance In The Hard
Passage to read: Hebrews 10:19-39
Verse to Memorize: Hebrews 10:35-36
Life is hard. Sometimes it is downright exhausting. As I was preparing and praying over this week focusing on endurance, I had one of those weeks. You know them. Everything seems to be in complete chaos, and I just wanted to be done. I wanted to crawl into bed and quit. Mothering was hard, wife-ing was hard, managing my house was hard, work was hard. I was done.
When situations get hard, I am not the type of person you would consider to have great endurance. This drives my husband nuts. Some may like to call me a “quitter.” If I don’t know how to do something, or if it is hard, my first instinct is, “I quit.”
Clearly the Lord is still sanctifying me in this area. Oh how badly I need His endurance, because mine is pathetic.
Days will be hard, life will be hard, labor will be hard. What are we called to do during these hard times?
“Do not throw away your confidence.” Confidence here refers to hope in God. Don’t quit. When it gets rough, don’t lose hope in our God. The trials of this life, and the trials that will come in birth, should not discourage or dishearten us. They should increase our hope–not in our own abilities, but in God’s abilities.
There is a great reward that is coming (verse 35). Yes, your sweet baby is coming, but even more importantly, God himself, in His fullness, is coming to be seen and enjoyed by them and us!
We need endurance for this life and for birth. Where does endurance come from? Faith produces work, love produces labor, and hope produces endurance. We endure out of the hope we have in God.
If you are His, He will provide you endurance until the end. “He who calls you is faithful, and he WILL do it!” (1 Thessalonians 5:24)
Endurance does not come by “picking ourselves up from our bootstraps” or working harder, it comes from hope in God. We can rest when we feel like quitting, and we can look away from ourselves and to God’s grace and power and rekindle our hope that we can and will endure.
John Piper says it this way: “Endurance is a gift and endurance is a duty. And these are not in conflict. When dealing with a holy and sovereign God, these are not contradictions. We MUST endure to the end, for He is holy; and we SHALL endure to the end, for He is sovereign.”
Regardless of your week, or the trial you are going through, He will provide you endurance as you hope in Him. Let’s write these verses on our hearts and all over our life so that we can recall them in trials, so that our hope can produce endurance.
Here is a iPhone lock screen AND a printable for you to help you memorize this truth. Speak this verse aloud, read it, write it, do what you need to do to have it grow deeply in your heart. Save the picture below to your phone and use it as a lock screen or click to download and print the 8×10!
Abby, thank you for always being so transparent! I relate to you in the fact that God is working on my endurance and giving me the strength to not quit. Mothering, wife-ing, and keeping up the household duties can be three full time jobs! We are blessed to have grace-filled husbands and a merciful God. Thank you for your encouragement!
Thank you Rachel! We as mamas could encourage each other in this sometimes overwhelming season instead of comparing and tearing down! Oh so thankful for the mercy of our God!!