Add to Your Faith: Perseverance

Add to Your Faith:  Perseverance

Make every effort to add to your faith goodness;

and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge,

self-control; and to self-control, perseverance..."

1 Peter 1:5-6

Perseverance:

Cheerful or hopeful endurance, constancy, enduring,

patience, patient continuance, waiting

One of the worst [and best!] things that you can own in this world is a credit card.  Credit cards allow you to have things now that you would otherwise have to wait for.  No money?  No problem - dig out the plastic.  Credit card company jingles ("What's in your wallet?") fill the airwaves and are recognizable to almost everyone, including kids.  Buy now - pay later.  What a great concept!  You can have anything you want, when you want it, as long as you still have spendable space on your card. But there is often a high price to pay (in interest and otherwise) when you cannot wait for something until you have the cash to pay for it.

Peter didn't own a credit card, and he was not talking about living within your means when he recommended developing patience/endurance/perseverance.  When we pray, we must wait patiently for God's answer.  When we claim God's promises, we must wait patiently for the promised blessing.  The apostle Paul wrote that we must "run with patience the race that is set before us," living in patient continuance as we wait for the hope of ages - the return of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

*

We must wait, wait on the Lord.

We must wait, wait on the Lord.

We must learn our lessons well,

In His timing, He will tell us

What to do, what to say, where to go.

-Campfire Song