Called To Endurance

I think everyone would agree that strange and confusing things are going on in the world today. Profound changes can be seen in the church, upheaval in the political and financial arenas are in the daily news, and personal relationships that are stretched to the point of breaking. These things cause people to experience the recurring and almost tangible presence of fear, frustration, anxiety, or anger. However, it’s in and through these very situations that God has placed a call upon the followers of Jesus. What are we called to do? Each and every one of us, as Christians, are called to endurance.

The God Who Calls Us

While we may think that the world is spinning out of control, that’s not what God thinks about it. None of the events we experience have taken God by surprise. He didn’t ‘wake up’ this morning and exclaim, “Whoa, when did THAT happenI” The Scriptures teach that God is the one who declares the end from the beginning because He has already been through it and knows how it turns out! God’s endurance is made clear in the fact that He is omnipresent, meaning He is always present. All the time. Every time. EVERYWHERE.

When you feel like He is sitting right next to you, He is there. When you feel like you’ve been abandoned, He is there.  When things are lining up exactly how you had prayed and hoped they would, He is there. When nothing is going the way you want them to, He is there. When His people gather to praise Him, or when the lost gather to rape and pillage and burn, He is there;

Prov 15:3

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

Realizing that God is with us goes a long way toward building our endurance through patience. We gain confidence in the outcome regardless of what happens because we know that God is ultimately in control. Nothing escapes His attention and nothing occurs that He isn’t aware of, therefore we can rest in the fact that He is present in and through every circumstance in our lives. While He may not cause those circumstances He is still with us as we work our way through them, and that’s a very encouraging thought.

This is Part One of a multi-part series. Keep watch for the next installment!