Have you ever been at a place in your life when you knew what you should do, but you didn’t feel like it, not just passively, but quite aggressively, you know, with a bit of a growl in your voice when you said, “I don’t feeeeel like it”. So what now? Do you just pass on it, and declare your flesh the winner? If you do it will happen again, and then again with increasing regularity. But sometimes you are just plain tuckered out and there isn’t much fight in you, your self-control level is way down on the dip stick. Like tonight, I still have 14 chapters in my Bible to read, and it is 9:30, and boy did that 98 degree heat sap my energy, “I don’t want to read my Bible tonight”! So what I do at this point is not make it a fight, but instead motivate myself to the point of wanting to , a little bit anyway. I have a list of 25 very cool blessings that comes into the life of those who honor God by honoring His Word, and it takes just a couple of seconds to look them up on my phone and read them reflectively, pondering on how each blessing would impact me as a pastor, husband, dad, and grandfather. There is something about reward and blessing that really motivates me, and takes away the resistance.

As you have read on this blog sight before, I have identified 26 different character traits such as patience, kindness, and diligence. In studying each of the 26 it is clear that some are easier to acquire than others, and that some are more important in our life than others, though we definitely want to pursue all of them. I believe that the most important of all the character traits is endurance. James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” According to James all of the other character traits grow out of endurance, because to be “perfect and complete, lacking nothing” is to have grown mature in each of the 26 character traits. Endurance is the soil that your garden grows in, endurance is the foundation your house is built on, and endurance is like the bones of your body. The level of endurance in us as a developed character trait dictates the level of every other character trait in us, if you are low in endurance you are low in everything, and basically useless as a disciple of Jesus. If you started and finished a marathon, that would be an indicator of your level of physical endurance or if you began and made it to the top of Mt Adams in 6 hours. In life what is there that would indicate that you are high in this very important character trait? I think it is important for us to look at our heart, our inner person, the person that lives forever, the person that leaves our physical body when we die, that we examine who we are, really, and accurately assess our endurance level, and that we have a plan and strategy to grow stronger and stronger in endurance. How many people do you think regularly reflect about their endurance level and have a plan that they implement daily to become a stronger and stronger person. Not very many, is my observation. Why? I don’t think the average person actually realizes that they can proactively pursue endurance, most tend to think, “what you have, is what you have, and I don’t have a clue how I got what I have or how to get more”. We will talk some more tomorrow.