~Perseverance~

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.”  (Rom 5:1-4)

Looking at the Scripture from Romans 5:1-4, we see that character is built through perseverance.  Todd’s and my goal has always been to raise children of great character so that the Lord can use them to have an impact for Him in our culture.  The problem is, I find perseverance to be a “tricky” thing.  As a mom, my “instinct” is to shield my children from difficulties, to want to make their lives easier.  And yet, I see in Scripture that our goal of building their character will not be accomplished this way.  By protecting them from disappointments and trying to minimize their struggles, I can see that I am actually getting in God’s way of trying to grow my children and build their character.  

I have a son who has always struggled academically.  He has to work twice as hard and twice as long as the other children and he doesn’t understand or retain the information nearly as much.  However, he is my most diligent and hard working child.  We have talked often of the character that God has developed and built in him through his struggles.  

There’s also the perseverance that we need to have as parents, to raise godly children.  In my last post, I shared my struggles of finding a college English course that my sons could take that would not defile them.  After much searching I am happy to report that I found a college that is offering an acceptable course.  By acceptable I mean that, with some white-out and a school policy that allows us to opt out of “inappropriate” stories, I think my sons can actually learn something from this course and not just endure it.

There have been many times over the years where perseverance was needed to raise our children with high standards.  One example is, I remember many times shopping for bathing suits for my daughters.  It took several trips to the clothing stores to find a suit that was appropriate, according to our standards.  There were times of temptation for my daughters and myself as we would come across bathing suits that were “almost” appropriate.  These suits were always “cute” and it was tempting to just settle for “close”.  However, the Holy Spirit always prompted me to not give in and settle for less than His best for us and He ALWAYS come through.

Another area we had to persevere in was with relationships.  This was and is an area that requires much wisdom.  We try to evaluate and balance all of our relationships.  On one hand, we want to have an impact on as many lives as possible.  However, we constantly evaluate the affect of those relationships on our children and family, as a whole.  It is very easy for the “pendulum” to swing too far in either direction when it comes to relationships.  We can restrict our relationships to such an extreme that it breeds pride in our children.  They could think that they were “too good” for that family or that the family was “too bad” for them.  On the other hand, God’s Word says much about friendships in the book of Proverbs.  This is where we seek wisdom to find the balance in our relationships.  It’s not always “black and white”, however, with wisdom from the Lord we can find the balance that God wants us to have.

So, I would encourage you moms not to give up when you are faced with an obstacle in training your children up in the way they should go.  Don’t settle for less than God’s best because He will come through for you but He wants to build your character and your children’s character through perseverance.

"But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."  (2Pe 1:5-8)