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I might be wrong, but I don’t think it’s fashionable to endure these days. I wonder if it ever has been. We’re a society which wants answers now, things need to be fixed immediately, changes must be beneficial overnight, otherwise they are worse than useless. In my own life, if I try something and it doesn’t work, I’m prone to dismiss it immediately. There are several items in my kitchen, for instance, which have been bought for me to try and make my life easier (and to make my wife’s life a lot easier too) which I’ve not really endured, or persevered enough with, which lie underused, dormant, forgotten about.
This isn’t how we’re to be with faith. If we accept God’s invitation to a life of faith, walking with him, then we’re saying that we want to be in it for the long haul. Do things go wrong in your life? Endure. Does God seem distant, or even to have disappeared from view? Endure. Are you hated because you believe in Jesus? Endure. That’s what Jesus is saying here. It goes against the grain of our modern way of doing things. If an element of our life doesn’t work, a lot of us are free to find an alternative solution. There is no alternative to Jesus, his coming to earth, his living as one of us, his dying for us, his rising and his offer of forgiveness and opening of the way of relationship with God to us. We can cast around for a better option, an easier one, but we won’t find it. We’re alive for the glory of God. If you feel like your faith isn’t strong enough to endure, you’re God isn’t worth enduring for, pray. Pray and ask God to make your vision of him larger, wider, deeper. Ask him to show you where he’s at work, so you can join in with the building of his kingdom. Don’t worry too much if it doesn’t all make sense. Not many of the best or most important things in life do.