steadfastness

the day i was most stressed by work, i heard the best sermon in the car on the way home. Francis really hit it home for me about learning to be steadfast. What he says:

Steadfastness is patience. Steadfastness is when you have a weight on you and you keep holding up that weight. It is endurance. We want to say; "God get rid of this weight so then I can just relax". But you don't persevere unless there is weight and pressure on you. And you want to quit when it gets more difficult. So most of us pray God, get rid of that weight. We don't pray asking for God to make our lives a little more difficult so that you could develop steadfastness.

why? because we care about our comfort far more than we care about our character. Most days we don't think about our character. we think i just want to be happy; hoping all our problems will go away. we get frustrated when something is going wrong because we aren't thinking about how it will build us into more Godly, more steadfast people with strong character.

God wants us to be Holy. He wants us to be this steadfast person. Instead of being frustrated at hardship, if we were really concerned about character we could obey James 1: consider it all joy when you encounter these trials. here is an opportunity to get stronger.


We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. - Romans 5:3-4