Endurance
'You are what you habitually do'
Exercise
Endurance is the Spiritual Exercise that requires perseverance and steadfastness, cultivated through consistency.
Why is Endurance important?
It equips us to withstand suffering and trials and remain faithful and supported in our relationship with God.
Spiritual Endurance brings us greater joy because we learn that nothing - not even death - separates us from the love of God.
It brings us closer to God by seeing how God is with us even in the hardest times.
I can’t remember when I first started running.
I’ve sometimes run more and sometimes less. I’ve considered myself ‘a runner’ for the last 30 years or so. I’ve won medals and age group awards in my 50s, but in my very first race - at age 20 - I came in dead last!
Still, running has been a great constant of my life - through moves and career changes and relationships and health issues and everything else, I’ve always had running.
My prayer life is the same.
I can’t remember when I didn’t talk to God first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
Even as a child, God and I had a robust conversation (as many children have with God!).
When I was first dating my husband, we started praying together on the phone every night before bed, and we’ve never missed a night of prayer in our relationship - even when he flew to Australia and we basically just prayed every 8 hours or so because one of us was always going to sleep!
Endurance: ‘Continued existence, ability to last.’
Physically, endurance means facing hardships and not giving up. It means that things don’t change overnight, but we ‘keep on keeping on.’
It means that sometimes we look back and see how far we’ve come - and how we’ve been shaped - without even realizing it.
Spiritually, it’s much the same.
It’s our day in/day out relationship with God. It’s the rise and fall of our spiritual energy, maybe even our faith. It’s ‘dry’ seasons when we’re not sure what we believe, but we keep showing up anyway.
It’s practices we continue - even when we don’t feel like it - because we know they’re shaping our souls.
Faith practice for every day, every part of our lives, our whole lives.
Endurance is the third YLWG Spiritual Exercise.
The Endurance practices are:
Prayer: Active conversation with God, formally and informally.
Sabbath: Rest on a regular basis. Rest from work, and rest intentionally in God.
Witness: To actively see God’s activity in the world. To see a rainbow as God’s promise, for example.
Scripture: Reading, hearing, and engaging with the Bible regularly.
’You are what you habitually do’.
This quote is often attributed to Aristotle but it was actually written by philosopher Will Durant. The Spiritual Exercise of Endurance, then, is the process of becoming our true selves.
I am a runner. I am also a pray-er. I am a follower of Jesus.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.
(Hebrews 12:1)
Endurance Practices
Prayer:
Set 1: 'Help me, help me, help me.' 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.' - what prayer is
Set 2: Talking with God in full sentences
Set 3: Types of Prayer
Set 4: Collects: How to write prayers
Sabbath:
Set 1: Which of the 10 commandments is broken most often?
Set 2: ‘But I'm so busy!’
Set 3: Sabbath is about delight
Set 4: ‘I’m God and you’re not!’
Witness:
Set 1: 'You are witnesses of these things' - Jesus asks us to share
Set 2: Witness to miracles
Set 3: Witness to beauty
Set 4: Witness to love
Scripture:
Set 1: Don't study the Bible!
Set 2: ‘Wave your hand over it and feel the heat’
Set 3: Memorize verses
Set 4: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth