I recently heard David Jeremiah speak on one of my favorite passages, Hebrews 12. Those first 4 verses would have to rank as life verses for me. How I long to daily "fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith..." But my focus today is on the 2nd part of that verse (2), on verse 3, and on verse 11. We're to fix our eyes on Jesus "who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning it's shame, and sat down at the right hand of of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Verse 11 goes on to speak of discipline (who likes that? Nobody!): "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

Now I love the first couple of verses of this wonderful chapter, but God has been teaching me a little different lesson from this passage, and it's all about endurance and faithfulness under pressure. Like so many, I struggle with patience. I don't like to wait. I don't like to suffer--and especially see my loved ones and friends suffer. "Lord, do something NOW! Change it NOW" is all too often my heart's cry. Like my dear friend, Ashlie, I have about a 5 degree window of comfort when it comes to the temperature: between about 68 and 73 degrees is about perfect. Otherwise we complain we are burning up or freezing to death. I don't get hungry; I am "starving." When my children display their sinful, selfish nature (which, of course, they got from their sinful, selfish mother), I tend to grow utterly discouraged and defeated and assume I am the worst mother on the face of the earth.

About 10 years ago, my mother died suddenly and unexpectedly, my sister-in-law discovered she had aggressive breast cancer, my beloved aunt, Janie, died, and my father was diagnosed with terminal melanoma--all within just a couple of months time. My dear Daddy, though shaken to the core, I'm sure, explained, "well, we're going through a rough patch." I always loved that, because it implied that while the present was tough going, the rough patch would one day end, and we would come out on the other side. I've got to think part of his resilient attitude came from serving as a gunnery officer on a destroyer for 4 years during World War II. Daddy won the bronze star for his service, but he never talked about it. After his death, we found his bronze star in his sock drawer. We realized he put it there so that every morning when he got out his socks, he would be reminded of all the fine young men who had so much potential for greatness in this world but who had given their lives so that we might be free. It was if he lived every single day for the rest of his life recognizing that he wanted to make a difference in this world for all those young men who never had the opportunity to do so. Seeing such sacrifice changes your perspective and gives you resilient strength.

But our ultimate example of endurance in the midst of unimaginable hardship is the Lord Jesus. As verse 3 commands, we need to daily "consider Him" and what He endured so that we will not lose heart. When someone mistreats us and we feel hurt, we need to consider Him and those who betrayed Him, spat upon Him, whipped Him, mocked Him. And He came to save them--the very ones who mistreated and rejected and hated Him! When we experience physical pain and discomfort, we need to consider Him hanging on that cross-naked, raw and bleeding, desperately thirsty, gasping for air, forsaken. When we feel as if our life is a failure, we need to consider Him. His disciples never seemed to "get it," one of them betrayed Him, another denied Him, and none stood by Him at His most desperate hour. And the people He came to save all misunderstood and rejected Him. When we feel exhausted and overwhelmed by all we have to do, we need to consider Him and the impossible task of saving the world, not to mention healing the hoards that flocked to Him, teaching and training His disciples, loving all those who came into contact with Him from the littlest children to the prostitute to the tax collector. Our challenges pale in comparison to what He faced and dealt with everyday--and He did it with love and grace and kindness and patience! O, if only we would have Him ever in the forefront of our thinking and consider Him with every decision we make, every word we speak, and every action we take.

But back to two phrases from these wonderful verses that I italicized earlier: "Who for the joy set before Him," "endured such opposition from sinful men so that you may not grow weary and lose heart," and "for the moment all discipline seems painful...but later on..." Aren't so many of us in that challenging inbetween place of waiting for that "later on" but right now stuck in the midst of "opposition" or "discipline" or "painful." If we can just hang in there past the discipline, past the opposition, past the "for the moment" and get to the joy or "the harvest of righteousness and peace" that comes "later on" or, as some translations express it, "afterwards."

Writing this blog entry has been a perfect example: I have been trying to get it written for 4 days, but every time I write a few sentences, life at our house seems to come unglued! I frankly have no idea what I've written so far or how incoherent it might be! Nothing major, but just the typical frustration of life and of not being able to get things done or finished. But can't life just sometimes be so hard? Waiting for that wayward child to return. Waiting for that medical report. Waiting for that relationship to improve. And while we wait, we experience pain or fear or loneliness or exasperation or exhaustion or persecution.

What reminder these verses are that God does His best work in the midst of those frustrating, lonely, painful, exhausting places that come before our "afterwards" for He uses those times in such powerful ways...and afterwards comes the joy! Jesus looked beyond the cross and saw us--we were His joy! He looked beyond the agony of the cross to see us, the many children He would bring to victory. Imagine the ridicule Noah endured as he built that ark for 120 years and preached repentance to the people who laughed at him and ignored him. But later on, he was able to save his family in the midst of the world wide flood. Or think of Joseph languishing in that prison in Egypt, betrayed by his brothers, left to rot in a dungeon in a foreign land. But later on, he rejoiced that he was able to save his family and his entire nation from starvation in the time of famine. The Bible is replete with examples of godly men and women who suffered and struggled and endured and waited for their "afterwards..."

David Jeremiah put it this way, "Everyday I have to face something I don't want to face or do something I don't want to do. So much of life is doing what you don't want to do because you know God has called you to do it, and somehow you have to get past the discomfort and pain of where you are right now and look into the future and do it by faith because beyond the pain of today there is the joy of the future." He went on to explain that endurance involves doing a lot of things I don't feel like doing." Isn't that the truth?! Endurance, to me, means doing the hard thing even when I don't feel like it; and then doing it again and again and again, even when I'm weary and overwhelmed and discouraged because I know that someday, somehow there will be that joy, that harvest of righteousness and peace.

Some days that just seems downright impossible. But I think heaven stands on tiptoe to watch and applaud when it sees that weary, discouraged but faithful man or woman of God who, though in the midst of the battle, keeps going, keeps enduring, keeps trusting. A story and poem Dr. Jeremiah shared sums this all up. A wonderful old chaplain who had been faithfully serving God for many years found himself in a place of deep discouragement. His life's work seemed to have come to naught, and he felt lonely and ineffective and depressed to the point that he was considering quitting. A friend came to visit him one day to try to encourage him, and the friend left Ray with a little box that had some poems that he had collected. Ray stuck the box on the shelf and forgot all about them.

A few weeks later, he pulled the box off the shelf and half heartedly looked them over. And God used one of those poems to minister to him in a powerful way. Here are the words to that poem:

I want to let go, but I won't let go

There are battles to fight, by day and by night

For God in the right, I'll never let go.

I want to let go, but I won't let go.

I'm sick, tis' true, and wearied through and through

But I won't let go.

I want to let go, but I won't let go

I will never yield--

What lie down in the field and surrender my shield?

No! I'll never let go!

I want to let go, but I won't let go

May this be my song, through legions of wrong--

"O God keep me strong that I may never let go!"

Amen! I don't know if anyone is reading this, but if you are, don't let go!! It's always too soon to let go! It's always too soon to quit, no matter how tough the battle or how hard the long day might seem! Our Almighty Savior, the Lord Jesus has been there before. There is no place we can go that He has not been, and He will lead us through these difficult days to the joy on the other side. He has already seen our "later on" and it is glorious! So, "may this be our song, through legions of wrong, O God keep us strong that we might never let go!" To the One who has been there and has already secured the victory for all of us be all the glory! Amen

But if not...

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Rom. 12:12

What a verse! So few words, yet so much wisdom and power! And, O, how short I fall in fulfilling Paul's command, but by the grace of God, might we all live out these 10 words. It can sometimes take so little, just some inconvenience or unmet expectation or disappointment, and we suddenly lose our joy, respond with irritation, become preoccupied with anxiety, be overcome by discouragement, or fall back into a bad habit we thought we had renounced. In nearly every instance where this happens to me, I can trace it back to a period of rushing about with my busy schedule and failing to really spend time alone with the Lord, allowing Him to transform and renew my mind. It's incredible how quickly we can lose our perspective when our focus is upon ourselves and our activities rather than the Lord and His agenda for our day.

I could spend months meditating upon this verse (and I plan to--since I need to so badly!), but just a quick thought or two. How do we remain "patient in affliction" when we often stumble at even minor annoyances or struggles? We have to be "joyful in hope" and "faithful in prayer!" If my hope is in my accomplishments, my children's successes, my appearance, my pleasures, my good works...if it is in anything that begins with "my" then I am in trouble because none of those things will ever provide lasting joy. Our hope, our joy is in Christ and His faithfulness, His sufficiency, His goodness, His grace, His love, His infinite provision for any and everything that we'll ever face. When I recognize that I am a great sinner but the Lord Jesus is an infinitely greater Savior then my hope is in the right place--and it is a place of abundant joy!

And faithful in prayer--well, how much time do we spend worrying or plotting rather than praying? The power comes from prayer--not from trying harder or working longer. Not from sleepless nights or frenzied days. No, power comes from faithful prayer. Many years ago on a cold winter morning, a group of college students decided they wanted to hear the great Charles Spurgeon preach at his church, The London Tabernacle. As they entered the church, an older man approached them and asked if they wanted to see the heating plant. Though this did not interest them in the least, they did not want to offend the man and so followed him down the stairs to the basement of the church. Their guide opened the door and inside the students saw 700 people on their knees praying for the service that would be occurring on the floor above them. The older man quietly shut the door and whispered, "This is our heating plant." That guide introduced himself and told them, "This is the secret of the ministry of the Tabernacle." The man's name was Charles Hayden Spurgeon. No one in that service knew of those praying in the basement below them, but what power resulted from that faithful prayer! No one else may ever know of our faithful prayer, but God knows and responds, and we will deeply feel the supernatural difference.

I have several friends that I see living out the truth of this verse. They are facing hard, at times heart breaking, challenges in their lives, yet I see them joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. What a powerful witness they are to a world so often devoid of hope, joy, and patience! In their own quiet way, they are loudly, yet without words, proclaiming the truth of the Gospel. How I thank the Lord for their testimony--though if you asked them, they probably have no inking of their impact upon me and, I'm sure, many others. Their courage and faith in the midst of affliction encourages and inspires others as they face their own battles.

I couldn't help but think of one of the most desperate times in World War II. Hitler's mighty war machine had stormed across France, leaving destruction and defeat and despair in it's wake. Thousands of British and French troops were dug in along the coast of northern France in a last ditch effort to hold off the German forces. But now, trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk and facing imminent obliteration by the Nazis, the trapped British soldiers broadcast a brief 3 word message across the channel: "But if not."

This was not some kind of code. Rather, they were broadcasting a Biblical reference to Daniel 3:16-18. I bet you remember the story: King Nebuchadnezzar had ordered everyone in his kingdom to bow down to the golden statue or be thrown into the fiery furnace. Everyone bowed down, except 3 young Jewish exiles: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In one of the most stirring passages in Scripture, they tell the most powerful man in the world at the time (as they faced imminent incineration) that "our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." Dan. 3:17-18

Now that is faith! That is joyful hope in the invisible God even in the midst of the very visible choking smoke and flames. If God delivered them, they would trust Him, obey Him and worship Him. "But if not" their response would be the same--trust, obedience, and worship of the One True God. Their hope was founded not upon the changing circumstances but upon the Changeless Sovereign Lord.

Likewise, those British soldiers sent a message of courage to their beleaguered nation that even if they were not rescued from the hands of the Nazi enemy, they would continue to trust God and remain loyal and courageous to the bitter end. They would never bow down to the Nazis. (and if you are not familiar with the story of the miraculous deliverance of the Allied troops from Dunkirk--well, it's worth looking up!! Incredible! Their seemingly impossible evacuation and salvation from certain annihilation literally saved the nation of Great Britain from defeat by the Nazis )

"But if not"--even if my child never recovers or my loved one dies. Even if I lose my job and my home. Even if that addiction is not overcome or that relationship is not reconciled. Even if the worst happens, God is still faithful and worthy of my trust, my obedience, and my worship. No matter what "but if not" you are facing, choose today to be "joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer" and watch what the Almighty will do. And know that you are wordlessly testifying to a watching world of the greatness and power of your God. To Him be the glory.