Endurance and Real Fruit

We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! - Romans 5:3-5 The Message

Traditionally this passage has been understood to be about endurance and how, if you stick it out when things are tough, you’ll get rewarded. Perhaps that’s not a bad approach to it. But perhaps there’s more to it.

Eugene Peterson, the translator behind The Message version of the Bible, emphasizes that the fruit of endurance (‘passionate patience’) is actually having our character refined, which in turn “keeps us alert for whatever God will do next.” The emphasis is not on some external reward, but instead on the reward of living in such a way as to be able to see God at work in our daily world - and then reaping the joy and encouragement that comes from this new God-awareness.

As the pandemic grinds on, are you allowing it to shape your character into the kind of person who eagerly and alertly looks for what God is up to? Or is it dulling your senses?

Talk with Jesus about these things.