Luke 21:13-19 (AMP)
This will be a time and an opportunity for you to testify [about Me]. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you [skillful] words and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. But you will be betrayed and handed over even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be continually hated by everyone because of [your association with] My name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your [patient] endurance [empowered by the Holy Spirit] you will gain your souls.
How often do you pause in the middle of a hard season in life and thank God? Do you ask, “Why, God?” or do you say, “Thank you, God. I’m honored to endure this and carry this burden for You.” When you’re under unrelenting attack—unbelievable pressure—in unalterable conditions, what do you do when you want to quit? Before we received this guidance from Luke, thousands of Christians under persecution were wondering this very thing. They’re trying to be faithful to Jesus, knowing that in doing so, they will be tried and possibly put to death.
Don’t we face this same dilemma today? We whine and complain and think that God has lost track of us despite knowing that God always rewards His children with an unfailing promise. He will gift each of us with survival. Every detail of our body and souls—right down to the hairs on our heads—are in His care. It’s just as Isaiah 40:31 says: “But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength” (NIV).
I’m excited about His promise. The hard part for me is the offering He wants in return. His gift is survival. Our offering is to endure. I like the fact that I’m going to survive, but I struggle with the fact that I have to endure; I’m not so sure that I won’t get shaky on my side of this covenant. Before we pass on to Heaven, we have to go through some things that won’t be easy. We have to sit right in the middle of the tough season we’re going through and be steadfast with our faith.
It’s one of the hardest disciplines to develop—to look into the arrogant eyes of our current realities and be hit with problems that bring us to our knees and yet still smile knowing that every detail of our body and souls are in His care. It requires patience and hope. We often associate patience with lying down—nonactivity. People can view that as weak and docile and to be frank, a cop-out. But British hymn writer George Mathison writes that patience shouldn’t consist of lying down. Rather, it should be an active response: “To lie down in a time of grief or to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, that implies some strength, but I know something that implies a strength greater still,” he says. “Patience is the power to work under stress. Patience is to have a great weight on your heart and still run. Patience is to have deep anguish in your heart, and still perform your daily task. It is a Christ-like thing.”
Patience means struggling and still doing the best job we can do with the best attitude we can manage. Patience means when we want to cry and quit, we still show up and shout, “I am HONORED to endure this!” rather than, “Oh God, when will it end?” Patience means having enough faith maturation that we understand that there is no sense in battling stress when God has already ordered our steps and planned our destinies.
Let me leave you with this golf analogy, because you all know how much I love golf. Have you ever looked at a golf ball and noticed all the indentations? At some point, the manufacturers of the first golf balls realized that a smooth golf ball would not fly far. A golf ball with indentations, however, has a much better trajectory. Now imagine yourself as a golf ball. God, our manufacturer, knows just how many indentations we need to have a high trajectory. We may be hit, but that indentation is a reminder that His grace is sufficient.
Don’t be discouraged. Each indentation is shaping you and making you better.
