Building Endurance
Andrea Merrill / Worship Arts Director
Romans 12:12 says, "Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying."
Lately I think I've been getting pushed through life lessons on hope and endurance, and frankly it's been a little tough! I teach spinning classes and tell them all the time, when we're in the middle of an endurance sequence, that "endurance" isn't synonymous with "easy." Endurance rides force you to push your body beyond where it feels comfortable for longer than it wants to stay there. The word "endurance" means that you're having to endure something, and that typically doesn't come with a happy, joy-ride kind of connotation!
The same is obviously true in life. Sometimes things get hard and they stay hard for longer than we'd like. Sometimes I feel like I'm weaker than I want to be and don't think I'll be able to handle things for much longer (spinners, does this sound familiar? Ha ha!) But, in the fitness world, when you've built endurance it means that you're in better shape. It means you can take more and last longer than you used to. Endurance is used to MAKE you stronger, even though the process of building sometimes makes you feel more like you're falling apart. It's this knowledge of what the process is actually doing that gives me hope, and hope is what helps me keep going no matter how hard things get.
So, how do we find hope? For me, I find it in prayer. I find it in Scripture - remembering God's promises and looking back at His track record in my life. It's hard to get pushed down for too long when God has NEVER let me down in the past. Hope is found in knowing that this struggle is temporary, and God is using it for my GOOD. Romans 12:12 tells us to "rejoice in our confident hope" - a hope I can be confident in because of God's faithfulness in the past. It also says to "be patient in trouble, and keep on praying." We show our endurance to God when we keep on praying and hoping and trusting, and from what I know of my God, He sees that, picks us up and smiles as we keep our eyes focused on Him. He is a good, good Father. He won't ever let us down. Keep on hoping, church.
Romans 12:12 says, "Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying."
Lately I think I've been getting pushed through life lessons on hope and endurance, and frankly it's been a little tough! I teach spinning classes and tell them all the time, when we're in the middle of an endurance sequence, that "endurance" isn't synonymous with "easy." Endurance rides force you to push your body beyond where it feels comfortable for longer than it wants to stay there. The word "endurance" means that you're having to endure something, and that typically doesn't come with a happy, joy-ride kind of connotation!
The same is obviously true in life. Sometimes things get hard and they stay hard for longer than we'd like. Sometimes I feel like I'm weaker than I want to be and don't think I'll be able to handle things for much longer (spinners, does this sound familiar? Ha ha!) But, in the fitness world, when you've built endurance it means that you're in better shape. It means you can take more and last longer than you used to. Endurance is used to MAKE you stronger, even though the process of building sometimes makes you feel more like you're falling apart. It's this knowledge of what the process is actually doing that gives me hope, and hope is what helps me keep going no matter how hard things get.
So, how do we find hope? For me, I find it in prayer. I find it in Scripture - remembering God's promises and looking back at His track record in my life. It's hard to get pushed down for too long when God has NEVER let me down in the past. Hope is found in knowing that this struggle is temporary, and God is using it for my GOOD. Romans 12:12 tells us to "rejoice in our confident hope" - a hope I can be confident in because of God's faithfulness in the past. It also says to "be patient in trouble, and keep on praying." We show our endurance to God when we keep on praying and hoping and trusting, and from what I know of my God, He sees that, picks us up and smiles as we keep our eyes focused on Him. He is a good, good Father. He won't ever let us down. Keep on hoping, church.