Endurance

We find ourselves at a time in history when “normal” life is a bit disrupted and we have to endure some discomfort, some much more than others. We didn’t plan for this. But our response to the unplanned, difficult times can result in a strengthening we hadn’t planned for either. Of course, that depends on how we handle the circumstances. As you’ve heard, trials can make us “bitter or better.”

Life is an endurance event. Overall, it’s a marathon and there’s no denying it can be tough. This pandemic has been especially difficult for many people’s health, livelihoods, personal finances and usual routines. Loved ones have been lost. Some states have been hit worse than others. In ours, the mandates have caused churches, including ours, to rethink and greatly alter the worship experience. Other ministries have been halted or had to greatly adapt. Zoom and other online meeting apps have seen their usage and popularity skyrocket for business and personal use. All told, it hasn’t been easy.

Add to all the pandemic-related disruptions the widespread protesting, rioting and lawlessness of over two months since the killing of George Floyd and one begins to wonder how it got this bad this fast! Nevertheless, compared to eternity, the Bible would describe these as “momentary, light afflictions producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17) if we don’t give up, if we approach these difficult circumstances by faith in the One who is sovereign over all, “knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (James 1:3).

Not all of life happens during things like pandemics. Circumstances don’t have to be this universally bad for there to be testing of our faith. For the Christian, just being a believer can create unique trials others don’t seem to have. People lose friends because of their faith. They may be shunned by family, marginalized at work, mistreated at school and simply not fit in. In some places in the world it means imprisonment, loss of life, real persecution. It causes some to abandon their faith. They simply can’t endure.

Have you ever thought about where you would be today if the people in generations past, leading to your salvation, threw in the towel when being a Christian got too difficult? If you know Christ, you probably can’t imagine life without Him, or what path you might be on today. Personally, I obviously would not have had a call to be a pastor, or met my wife at church, or had my kids, or be writing this to you. And who knows what great things may result in your life simply because you took the time to read this (though reading it may seem a “momentary, light affliction”). One never knows.

The truth is, you never know what future fruit will result from your endurance through life’s afflictions on behalf of Christ. The story of missionary Adoniram Judson illustrates the point well:   

The American missionary Adoniram Judson arrived in Burma, or Myanmar, in 1812, and died there thirty-eight years later in 1850. During that time, he suffered much for the cause of the gospel. He was imprisoned, tortured, and kept in shackles. After the death of his first wife, Ann, to whom he was devoted, for several months he was so depressed that he sat daily beside her tomb. Three years later, he wrote: God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in him, but I cannot find him.

But Adoniram's faith sustained him, and he threw himself into the tasks to which he believed God had called him. He worked feverishly on his translation of the Bible. The New Testament had now been printed, and he finished the Old Testament in early 1834.

Statistics are unclear, but there were only somewhere between twelve and twenty-five professing Christians in the country when he died, and there were not churches to speak of.

At the 150th anniversary of the translation of the Bible into the Burmese language, Paul Borthwick was addressing a group that was celebrating Judson's work. Just before he got up to speak, he noticed in small print on the first page the words: "Translated by Rev. A. Judson." So Borthwick turned to his interpreter, a Burmese man named Matthew Hia Win, and asked him, "Matthew, what do you know of this man?" Matthew began to weep as he said,

“We know him—we know how he loved the Burmese people, how he suffered for the gospel because of us, out of love for us. He died a pauper, but left the Bible for us. When he died, there were few believers, but today there are over 600,000 of us, and every single one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man: the Rev. Adoniram Judson."

But Adoniram Judson never saw it!

And that will be the case for some of us. We may be called to invest our lives in ministries for which we do not see much immediate fruit, trusting that the God of all grace who oversees our work will ensure that our labor is not in vain.

Adapted from Julia Cameron, editor, Christ Our Reconciler (InterVarsity Press, 2012), pp. 200-201. 

Jesus spoke of the willingness to deny ourselves, pick up our crosses and follow Him. That meant identifying with Him in the ultimate form of self-denial: complete submission, regardless of the circumstances. Remember what He endured for us.    

“…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

—Hebrews 12:2