The Power of Endurance

^{The Power of Endurance}

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. –Hebrews 10:36

We “need” endurance? Really? What flavor does it come in? Or is that something that you naturally get in life, like getting a blister after digging a hole without a shovel? The reality is we often try to avoid anything that smacks of endurance. Why? Well, it’s hard! Yet, endurance is as necessary as the air we breathe.

There are several reasons endurance is important, both for us and our children. One obvious reason is because life is hard. Ever since the fall, everything is harder, from childbearing to gardening. Thank you, Adam and Eve. When sin entered, the need of endurance was snapping at its heels because it is our only way to survive the mela of life. A sinful world and the demons of hell will do anything and everything to squelch hope out of a believer. Luke 21:19 reminds us, ^“By your endurance you will gain your lives.”

Another reason endurance is important is because it strengthens us for the next chapter in life. Ask any weightlifter, it isn’t until those last two to three reps that really stains the muscles that causes the muscle fibers to tear, making them stronger when they do repair. Spiritual endurance prepares us for increased spiritual battles that await us as we age. Contrary to the declarations of prosperity preaching, this world is not heaven … it is a battlefield, with eternity as a reward or a punishment. We will go from battle to battle, with scattered, divine moments of R & R, until we reach eternal destination. We must not grow weary in well-doing. (Galatians 6:9)

Endurance also gives us clarity. The longer a season hangs on, the more we take it apart and examine it, as well as we do ourselves. It is one thing to hear about a sickness from someone else, but it is a completely different animal when you go through it yourself. (Proverbs 14:10) When we feel we are at the end of our rope is when we become laser focused and keenly honest with God. This is why Solomon declared it better to go to the house of mourning that a house of mirth.

Finally, endurance teaches us the power of sticking and standing. Paul told the Ephesians “… having done all to stand firm, stand therefore.” (Eph. 6:13, 14) Sometimes, simply holding our ground is going forward in the long haul. It is okay to stand ugly, as long as we continue to stand. In a post-Christian world, our children will have to have endurance.

This month’s prayer and fast is for God to endow us and our children with a spirit of endurance. Surely, we need endurance in the homeschooling journey. Success in life is often less about the highest level of education, natural talent, the family pedigree, or the most money but rather it is about hanging on at all cost. If our children learn the value of enduring, it will pay them rich dividends in the future.

1. Pray that our children will realize the necessity of endurance in the race of life.
   • For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. –Hebrews 10:36
2. Pray that parents will not be too quick to rescue their children from difficult situations that God ordained to teach them endurance.
   • For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: –Ecc. 3:1
   • and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, —Hebrews 12:1
3. Pray that endurance will have its intended effect in our children’s maturation process, even if it is painful.
   • And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. –James 1:4
   • Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, –Romans 5:3
4. As Christ has endured with us sinful creatures, pray that we will patiently endure the people in our lives who are not always easy to live with.
   • What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, –Romans 9:22
   • and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; –1 Cor. 4:12
5. Pray that the Holy Spirit would put such a deep sense of purpose and vision of God’s glory in our children’s hearts that will cause them to endure anything the enemy throws at them.
   • When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, –Acts 11:23
   • May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. –2 Thes. 3:5
6. Pray that our children will show endurance when they go through seasons of temptation, especially as they come to the age of emancipation.
   • No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. –1 Cor. 10:13
7. Pray that our children will know that they will receive reward from the Lord when they endure. God doesn’t miss a thing.
   • Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. –James 1:12
   • And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. –Hebrews 6:15
8. Pray that God will send encouragement to our children when they are in a prolong season of waiting.
   • For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. ⁵ May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, –Romans 15:4,5
9. Pray that we parents, along with talking with our children, will be given a genuine burden to pray our children’s ability to endure whatever comes their way by the grace of God.
   • And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding … ¹¹ being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; –Col. 1:9, 11
10. May that our children learn the glory of endurance, not with a bad attitude, but with a joyful expectation.
    • looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. –Hebrews 12:2
    • being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; –Col. 1:11