Because you have kept My command to persevere… —Revelation 3:10
Perseverance means more than endurance— more than simply holding on until the end. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly.
Entrust yourself to God’s hands. Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of a soul , throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.
“for you know that the testing[a] of your faith produces perseverance.” James 1:3
My faith was grown and strengthened through trial. This is the 9 year anniversary of that dreadful night. My daughter had a seizure in the morning, wa in the ICU struggling all day. That night I prayed a prayer to God lacking in trust, built solely on fear. That evening despite my faith-filled and trusting wife’s urgings, my faith collapsed. I fell completely from trusting God, despite His speaking to me confident words to trust Him and coming physically to my daughter (see “I knew His voice’). I failed the test Hod had put before me, to trust Him with my daughter – surrender.
But, God already had a plan to rebuild me, better and stronger than ever before. He let me walk ‘alone’ in darkness until I started feeling that something was wrong, something was missing. He kept my wife and others around me to unknowingly keep me close to the path. And when it was time, He forged me from that fire into a tempered soul. He gave me guidance through a holy priest, my Emmaus brother, and a talk on trusting God to let me see what I had lost and then to shape it into a sword ready for battle.
Those days my faith grew into the armor the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of and my trust in Jesus exploded in my soul and maybe more so into my mind.
maybe some day the story after “I knew His voice” will be written down.
I praise You for Your plan, Father and give You all thanks and honor and glory for Your wisdom in dealing with this lost soul and the perseverant love You have always shown in guiding me.
I will build my life upon your love it is a firm foundation and I will put my trust in a You alone and I will not be shaken!!!
It is not I who live but Christ Who lives in me (Galatians 2:20)