Endurance from the Word
Does reading the Bible help with endurance?
Verse of the Day
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”
Today’s Devotional
Paul is referencing what we call the Old Testament. I don’t know about you, but for me, some of the Old Testament is not an easy read. I’ve never considered that these sacred texts are tools for endurance, encouragement, and hope.
I would say that in our current era, the entire Bible would fit Paul’s description of what “was written in the past.” God does not change, so what He says in the Old Testament is true in the New Testament. The entire narrative of the Bible is one of God’s love for us, His patience for our humanness, His desire for our hearts to be His. I can’t quite fathom why, but God really does desire a relationship with us. The Bible proves that point over and over again.
How does the Bible teach us? It’s easy to see God’s instruction for us in the Ten Commandments. In the New Testament, Jesus takes the teaching from the Commandments and digs deeper, trying to teach us the heart condition that the Commandments were attempting to create. Let me paraphrase Matthew 5:21-22: “You were taught not to kill anyone, but I’m telling you not to get angry or call names or wish bad things on anyone.” Here the Bible is teaching us one way to love our fellow humans. (Be nice.) There are many such examples. The Bible often teaches in stories. If we ask for the Spirit’s guidance, we can learn from the stories of the Bible. We can learn what to do and what not to do. We can see where people went wrong, and we can see what they did right. We can learn from their successes and mistakes. More than anything, we can learn how flawed, scared, and ill-equipped all of the people from the Bible are, yet God still chose them and used them to change the world.
How does the Bible teach endurance? The Bible teaches us endurance by showing us examples of endurance. A remnant of Israelites remained faithful for 70 years of Babylonian captivity. Moses led a huge group of whiny people in circles in the desert for 40 years. God’s people waited hundreds, if not thousands of years for a promised Messiah – and then couldn’t quite connect the dots when He arrived. We need endurance to be God followers. The Bible proves that point over and over. We need endurance to undergo spiritual growth and transformation because it is a SLOW process. The examples of people in the Bible show us the importance of not giving up.
How does this encourage us? I find it very encouraging that all of the people God used in the Bible were flawed. They got impatient. They were scared. They felt inadequate. Yet still, God used them. They made mistakes, and God’s plan still prevailed. They got distracted by the way the world lived, and God called them back to Him.
Intellectually, I believe we all know that we need endurance for a life of faith. I think we can read the stories of the Bible and agree that those people needed endurance to survive what they went through. But how does that translate into actual endurance today?
We can choose to look at what happened in the Bible and know that the promises given to those people are true for us today. We can look at any situation that requires endurance and decide not to give up, simply because God tells us not to in the Bible.
And…(I’m about to sound like a broken record)…when we keep a journal, we can see the promises of God being fulfilled in our lives in the same way it happened for the people of the Bible. To make my point, I looked at my journal from one year ago today. On that day, there were five specific issues that I wrote about and asked for God to guide and direct me. Four of those have been completely answered. Of those four, one of them took seven months for an answer to come. The last one is not yet resolved, but God continues to works in other ways. Reading how God has moved IN MY LIFE gives me endurance for the answers that are yet to come.
We can choose to be people with endurance because God loves us enough to give us His Word. We can have hope because God has given us examples of how to live. We can choose to see the Bible as an obligation. Or we can choose to see the Bible as a living tool for our daily lives- giving us exactly what we need if only we will use it.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
How does the Bible give you hope?
How can you look for endurance from the Bible?
How do you find encouragement from the Bible?
How can you read the Word from the perspective of it teaching you, showing you endurance and providing encouragement?
How could journaling help you to see God’s faithfulness in YOUR life?