The Power of Endurance: Hang in There, Friend

Do you have a word of the year for 2025? I don’t. But as we prepare to flip the calendar over to February, I (finally) know what word I’d pick to describe 2024. My 2024 word is endurance.

I’m not sure, exactly, when “endurance” became the refrigerator hum for the year. Maybe it was when I taught a Bible Study on James, who says we should consider it “pure joy” when we face all kinds of trials. The way James 1:2-4 tells it, the painful stuff we go through tests our faith and produces perseverance (aka “endurance”), which ultimately makes us mature and complete. Perfect, some versions say. Well-developed. Lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4 graphic about perseverance/endurance

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I needed (or wanted) to be mature and complete. Not if it meant having to go through—having to endure—things like sickness, financial hardship, or complicated relationships. Don’t get me wrong; I know suffering can produce good things in our lives—things like compassion, humility, and even a more resilient faith. But as I considered the gut-punching pain some dear friends were waking up to every day, I wondered if those promised benefits might ring a bit hollow. “I’m not sure these gals need more compassion or a stronger faith,” I said to the Lord. “What I think they need is to have their marriage restored. Their cancer gone. Their son to come home.”

That was my take on my friends’ suffering. Remarkably, though, they had a different perspective.

None of them looked or sounded joyful, at least not the way I would describe joy. All of them shared their stories through tears, both angry and sad. But even in their heartache, they were all holding on, standing firm in their faith. And they said they were open to joy.

“I’m not there yet,” the youngest confided. “I can see how God has prepared me, and how he’s provided friends to give me counsel and comfort, but I’ve never felt this level of sadness before.

“But,” she continued, “this ache is revealing a new side of Jesus, because I’ve never needed his comfort like this before. I’ve never needed this Jesus before.”

God can handle our doubts and our questions

My young friend’s words all but undid me. She was discovering a deeper connection with Jesus as a result of her suffering, one that was transforming her faith—shaping her character and glowing her up—just like James promised. Having read somewhere that every painful experience can become a portal to intimacy with God, I went back to James to learn more about the power of endurance.

Near the end of his letter, James offers three real-life examples of what it looks like to be patient in suffering:  The farmer (who has to wait for his crop), the prophets (many of whom endured ridicule, rejection, and physical pain), and Job.

Job? The guy who lost his wealth, his health, and even his children?

Not to get all testy about it, but if I am God and I want people to want to endure—to want to hang in there, when everything seems like it’s coming undone—I feel like I might pick a better, more appealing, character study. Noah, maybe, having to spend all that time shut up in the ark. Or Joseph,  innocent but forgotten in prison. Almost anybody but Job, whose story only gets happy a few verses before it is over.

But the more I considered Job’s life (and processed insights from folks like Tim Keller, Warren Wiersbe, and Eugene Peterson), the more I realized that Job is actually a great role model for us when it comes to endurance. Here’s why:

Job didn’t bear his immense suffering with a stiff upper lip. He cursed the day he was born, wishing he had died as a baby. He questioned God (“Why have you made me your target?”). He got frustrated and confused when God didn’t answer.

And, through it all, he kept going.

Like the psalmist who cries How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?, Job never stopped praying. He didn’t walk away from his faith or turn his back on the Lord; he kept talking, even when God remained silent. And Job never pulled away from community—not even when his “friends” showed up to provide comfort, only to spend their days telling him what he must have done wrong.

Job didn’t retreat. Instead, he held fast to his faith, staking his trust in what he knew to be true about God:

“If I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”

God knows the way that we take.

I have that passage—Job 23:8-10—starred in my Bible. It’s a comfort and an anchor when I feel unseen, or when I have no idea what God is up to. It serves as a testimony to the power of endurance in the hard seasons, a reminder to keep doing the things that we did when life was happy and fun: Talk to God, go to church, stick close to our friends instead of pulling away or tucking into our shell like a uncertain turtle.

As Richard Foster put it in his book, Prayer, “What we learned to do in the light of God’s love, we also do in the dark of God’s absence.”

Richard Foster quote on endurance: What we learned to do in the light of God's love, we also do in the dark of God's absence.

Put one foot in front of the other

I was still teasing out my thoughts on endurance, pondering the promise of passages like Romans 5:3-5 (which traces the pathway from suffering to hope and highlights the role of endurance), when I found myself in Hawaii last December. Not to go to the beach (although the chairs and umbrellas looked mighty inviting), but to join a few friends for a marathon.

As in, a 26.2 mile marathon.

To be clear, the event organizers said we could walk the whole thing; the idea was to promote movement and fitness at every level. Still, though. Doing a marathon—at any pace—was never really on my bucket list, and I found myself, around mile 18, wondering what I had gotten myself into. It was hot (a factor we hardly noticed, since it was so humid), the course was not flat (which came as a surprise), and—truth be told—my longest training run leading up to the race was only eight miles. Because honestly. Who has time to run (or worse, walk) longer than that?

“Endurance.”

I sensed the Lord whisper that one little word as I eyeballed mile-marker 19 in the distance. Had I not been so focused on finding the next water station, I might have actually laughed out loud. Here was God, telling me to keep going. To remember the wisdom from James. To simply do what I’d been doing since the start of the race and just put one foot in front of the other.

As it was, I did not laugh. Instead, I reached into my fanny pack and pulled out the card my fitness-guru friend Alisa had given me the night before.

Psalm 55:22 on an orange index card

Psalm 55:22. “Cast your cares on the Lord, and he will sustain you.”

Could there be a more beautiful promise—mid-marathon, mid-marriage crumble, mid-health crisis, or mid-anything?

When the hard seasons come—the times when putting one foot in front of the other feels like all we can do—consider the fact that that might be enough. God never asks us to carry our burdens alone; he doesn’t even ask us to pull half the weight. Instead, he invites us to let the hard things in our lives slide off our shoulders and onto his.

Hang in there, friend.

You might not see God in your season of suffering, but he knows the way that you take. ❤️

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Lost (and Found) in Translation

“If you don’t say theethou, or thine, God might not know that you’re talking to Him.”

At least that’s what my Gammy thought. In her world, it was the King James or nothing, and every Bible verse she made us memorize (that’s all she ever wanted from her grandkids for Christmas) was chock full of the good stuff:

I in them and thou in me…that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, even as thou hast loved me. 

(I might not have known what John 17:23 meant but boy, could I quote it.)

Me, I’m an NIV gal. I got my first copy of a New International Version Bible back in the late ’70s and never looked back. Call me Gammy 2.0; I like what I like.

Which is not to say that I don’t appreciate a walk on the wild side, every now and again. Like, this past summer when we were in a remote part of Canada and I was starting to think of potato chips as vegetables because it had been awhile since I’d seen anything green, I was super grateful for how the English Standard Version renders Nehemiah 8:10:

“Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Talk about a user-friendly Bible command. (Can I get a side of Rosé with those chips? Thank you very much, ESV.)

Anyhow.

This week I found myself grateful again, this time for The Message translation. I have a Bible that puts my old faithful NIV on one side of the page and The Message on the other…

…because sometimes words can be confusing, and it helps to look at things from a different perspective.  Especially if the thing you are looking at involves suffering.

Which (as you know, if you’ve been around this blog for awhile) tends to be a tricky topic for me. I know God always uses hard things for good, but I struggle to embrace the place of disappointment and pain in my life. Or in the lives of the people I love.

And honestly? In the case of 1 Peter 4:1-2, my beloved NIV didn’t help all that much:

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.

Those words were familiar, but they didn’t really add up. I didn’t think that I would ever be “done with sin,” and I hated the idea that I might be doomed to live my life in the pursuit of “evil human desires.” How was it, exactly, that suffering might help?

I stole a glance at The Message:

Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.

Ahhh. THAT made so much more sense.

Jesus suffered more than I ever have. (I get that.)

And I should learn to think like he did. (I agree.)

And suffering can help wean me from the habit of expecting to get my own way.

Now there’s a provocative thought. I actually DO expect to get my own way–or at least I THINK that I should. I mean, I am pretty sure that most of my ideas have some merit, and that God should at least give them a try. And when he doesn’t–like, when things don’t turn out at all like I think that they should–I can start to get a bit grumpy.

You might even say tyrannized.

(Can anybody relate?)

The idea that I could get out from under my wants, and run after the good things God has, is mighty appealing. And when I consider the example of Christ and the whole “not my will, but thine” thing (which, you have to admit, comes off pretty strong in the old KJV), everything sort of falls into place. If suffering is what opens the door to surrender–to realizing, once and for all, that God’s way is a zillion times better–well then, bring it on.

(Well, maybe not “Bring it on.” Maybe more like, “Help me please.” But you get the idea.)

And in the meantime…

Let’s eat some fat and raise a glass to the English Standard Version, and to all of the whip-smart Bible translators out there. Thank you for doing all the hard work so that the rest of us can just kick back, eat some chips, and read.

😊

Heavenly Father,

Help us learn to think more like Jesus. And when we come up against suffering–when things don’t go “our way”–equip us to let go, like Jesus did, and embrace your will for our lives. Free us from the tyranny of living for what we want. (1 Peter 4:1-2, MSG)

Amen

Want your own side-by-side Bible? Click here for one option, or just put “Parallel Bible” into your Amazon search bar to see a whole bunch of choices.

 

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Why does God allow suffering?

Robbie and I were in Colorado last week. We had a blast hiking with friends and taping a couple of shows (Focus on the Family and Rebel Parenting; I’ll keep you posted on air dates in case you want to tune in), but there were at least two other highlights on our trip.

The first was that we did not get eaten by a bear. (There’s a story there, but it will keep. Maybe next week.)

The second big plus was seeing our friends, Ann and Ty Saltzgiver. Ann’s the one on the left in this pic…

…and Ty, as you know, is our featured author this month. We spent some time catching up, the way that friends do, and as we looked back on the peaks and valleys of our lives, Ty made an interesting observation:

“If I graphed my life by the times I was experiencing more of Jesus,” he said, “and then overlaid that graph with another graph of the difficult times in my life, the lines would match up. The graphs would be nearly the same.”

That was both a sobering and an encouraging thought. I mean, given the choice, I’m pretty sure I’d “just say no” to pain…but if difficulty or suffering serves as a kind of conduit to Christ, I want to at least be open to experiencing it. Or rather, to experiencing him.

Ty writes about suffering in his book, Longing to Experience More of Jesus“Suffering, pain, trouble, and affliction happen to each one of us,” he says, but it’s never “all right.” It’s a mess. It is crushing. And it can sometimes lead to despair.

And also to questions.

A lot of people, Ty says, find it difficult to trust God in the face of their hurt, or someone else’s. “How could God allow pain and suffering, when he could so easily fix it?”

There are, of course, no easy answers. We may find it hard to read Scripture in the midst of our pain, and our prayers can seem pointless or empty. We long for God’s presence, for some reassurance, but when we feel like we need God the most, we don’t sense that he is anywhere near. Ty quotes St. Teresa of Avila, who once said to God, “It’s not at all surprising You have so few friends, considering how You treat the friends you have.”

We get that.

But we also, if we are honest, get what Ty means about graphing his life. Pain has an uncanny way of making us realize that we are not in control. And in our desperation (marked, as it often is, by a diminishing sense of independence), we may find ourselves moving closer to God.

And when we come near to him, he comes near to us, enfolding us in his embrace.

In writing about the place suffering has in our lives, Ty says he is not trying to “put a smiley face” on our pain. Rather, his aim seems to be to remind us that Jesus took on the crush of our hurt (Isaiah 53:4) and that he understands exactly how we feel. After all, he he has been there before (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Suffering is just one of 30 sometimes-challenging topics Ty covers in Longing to Experience. There’s also stuff about trusting God, going deeper in prayer, discovering your true identity, and much more. None of the chapters are long–they’re designed for use as a daily devotion–but they’re rich.

And if you’d like to win a copy…

…hop on over to Instagram (@jodie_berndt) or Facebook (@JodieBerndtWrites) and leave a comment. Or tag a friend who might want to experience more of the Lord.

Which is what I want to do.

Even (and I’m struggling to type this next part) if it means also experiencing pain. I think it was maybe Joyce Meyer who said that, having tasted the incredible blessing of God’s comfort, she found herself almost hoping she’d need it. As in, she was open to the hurt because the hug was just so much more.

Yeah. I’m not quite there yet. But…I want to be.

Heavenly Father,

You are close to the brokenhearted, you comfort us in all our troubles, and you know exactly how it feels to be despised, rejected, and familiar with pain. (Psalm 34:18, 2 Corinthians 1:4, Isaiah 53:4)

Come near to us as we come near to you. Draw us into your loving arms, and may we take refuge in your embrace. (James 4:8, Song of Songs 2:6)

Amen

❤️

P.S. This post marks the end of our September with Saltzgiver…but there’s more to come! In fact, Ty has a brand new book that’s set to release on November 1. Designed especially for families, Ready or Not (clever title, eh?) is an Advent devotional that will help prepare our hearts and our homes for Christmas. You can’t pre-order the book, but jot yourself a note to visit SaltResources.com in early November and pick up a copy for everyone on your “nice” list! 🙂

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