WILLING TO ENDURE?

Endure: hupomeno (Gk) - to hold one’s ground in conflict, bear up against adversity, hold out under stress, stand firm, persevere under pressure, wait calmly and courageously.

It is not passive resignation to fate and mere patience, but the active, energetic resistance to defeat that allows calm and brave endurance.

One of the areas that we will be tested is the area of endurance. The only way we will know what we are made of is when God allows us to go through trials and difficulties.

Our natural response to trials/difficulties – run from it.

I realized that when God had spoken to me years ago about serving Him full-time, as I look back, my training did not come the moment I stepped into FGA. I was being trained in the secular, and I remember working for a lady boss that gave me such problems at work…”I wanted to quit.” But the Lord told me not to. He said, I should never quit because of people or circumstances. Only if it is His will.

To cut a long story short, the Lord came through for me and she was sent out of the country before her time was up. Please take note: I never prayed for her to be sent out of the country okay!! (I know some people send others all over the world through their prayers because they don’t like them!) I later had such a good boss that I had to pray that I get used to working for him. One year later, another test! Was told by the Lord, now is the time to leave!

Aargh!! Now?? When I have such good increment, things were so good here…am I hearing you correctly? As usual, the Lord always wins, I said “I will obey” and I bought a one way train ticket to Tung Ling Bible School in Singapore. I said I will go anywhere you send me after that.

Principal learnt: Never leave a job or situation until God has told you it is time to move on. Learn to endure and wait for His victory in that situation.

I was being tested in my ability to trust God to come through for me.
I was tested in the area of enduring the pain of working with her with her attitudes and sharp remarks
I was tested in the area of loving your “enemies.”

Sometimes, we may think that working in church is the best place to be in – everyone are actually angels in disguise? Always loving and forgiving, no pressures, just be in the presence of God continually – much like heaven?

If we cannot pass the test of working in the secular and enduring the hardships there, we better not come in full-time. Not to say people in church are not nice k…they are great! (Now I can say loh...work here for 10 years already mah..."endure" them so long...sure have to love them loh...nah! just kidding! They are really great people to work with!)

It is just that the process of changing us – the test we go through to put us through the fire, can be difficult if we are not willing to change! It is more that God is in the process of changing us and NOT the difficult person that we think needs change!

When we are in a ministry, or among Christians and when we get disappointed by them, we can get even more discouraged in our walk because of expectations that are not met.

Change begins the moment we begin to think differently.

-Our perspective
-Our responses
-Our actions

The way we think helps us to endure the hardships and helps relieves the pain that comes with it.

Job not only had to suffer the loss of wealth, family and health. He had to go through the pain isolation.

Have you ever felt that pain and having to endure that? We can be in the midst of people and yet feel isolated because people do not understand you and what you belief in. When you refuse to gossip, refuse to bow down to the world’s standards.

Or perhaps you are going through depression, and in the midst of it, you sense a deep pain of loneliness, because no one understands what you are going through.

Cynthia Swindoll summarizes her 15 year struggle with depression in these words: “Depression …black as a thousand midnights in a cypress swamp. Loneliness that is indescribable. Confusion regarding God. Frustration with life and circumstances. The feeling that you have been abandoned, that you are worthless. Unloveable. The pain is excruciating."

Isolation leads to loneliness. Job’s three friends did not understand his trouble, their presence only accentuates his loneliness. It has been suggested that the most early experience of an individual is loneliness, and that loneliness may be the greatest pain in suffering.

In the midst of our pain, we can trust on the character of God to see us though, if we are willing to go through it and come forth with greater depth and security.

God does not want us to be shallow Christians that give up on Him when we fail to see answers. Perhaps He is doing a deeper work of making us strong from within.

We can lean on a God who knows how much we can take.
I think our responses in life situations causes us to either please His heart or break His heart. Let us learn to endure and pass the test, He has so much more for us!

-jo-