Perseverance – Not always easy!
Oh to persevere…… I always think of it as accomplishing what I want to finish no matter what. The Merriam Webster dictionary says perseverance means: continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: the action or condition or an instance of persevering : STEADFASTNESS
What does perservance mean to you? Can you look back and remember when you have preserved? What were the circumstances? Did you succeed or were you able to let go of what had happened and leave it go? Was there a time when you had to get someone else involved to help you out?
Perhaps sometimes the hardest thing to do is ask for
help……. When we are first widowed, there
are many things we need to learn how to do as they were things our husband
did. We often had to except the fact
there were some things we just could not do.
Ironically in looking into what the
Bible had to say about perseverance, the parable that kept coming up was the
Parable of the Persistent Widow in Luke 18:1-8. It reads:
Then Jesus told his disciples a
parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He
said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor
cared what people thought. And there was
a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice
against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to
himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because
this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she
won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ”And the Lord said, “Listen to what
the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his
chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them
off? I tell you, he will see that they
get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find
faith on the earth?”
How many times have we heard a sermon on
this passage? In scriptures, Jesus often
talks about the widows and children. As widows, we are very important to Him
and there are many scriptures on helping the widows. With that being said,
while we are grieving, discouragement often sets in and we wonder how we are
going to make it through life. How often have we felt as time goes on that no
one cares, unless they have gone through what we have gone through!
There are injustices in life, but how do
we overcome them? We truly need to persevere
and to rely on God to help us through these injustices. We may also need to get counsel for some
things. The judge whom this widow had
gone to time and again did not seem to care.
What about God? What had he
promised? And would He fulfill His
promise! Isaiah 54:4-5 reads: “Do not be afraid; you
will not be put to shame.
God of all the earth. Do not
fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the
reproach of your widowhood. For your
Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is his name – the Holy One of Israel
is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.”
What a
fabulous promise! Sometimes reading this
is almost too good to be true. But if He
says it, He will do it. God granted the widow at the well justice against her
adversary. He will do the same for
you! The widow was persistent enough to
provoke the judge to grant her request.
Her persistence reflected faith, that her request would be granted.
Do we have
this kind of faith? Are we able to
persist with this kind of faith with God?
So often it is do difficult to truly believe that God is with us each
step of the way. My prayer is that you
do or you have someone to help guide you along the way.
God has
promised us in Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in
every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your
requests to God.” If you are going
through a tough time, this scripture may be difficult to accept. On the flip side, if you have seen God work
with you during those tough times, you know He is there for you.
My prayer
for each of you reading this, is that you will allow God to help you persevere!
