Our family’s SPIRITUAL ENDURANCE TANK is being drained by the cancer battle raging around us. My daughter’s 2-year-old son—Briar Strong–has clear-cell sarcoma and is halfway through nine week-long sessions of chemotherapy after having a one-pound tumor removed from one of his kidneys. That has us constantly searching for charging stations along this dark road to receive much-needed and sustaining doses of GOD’S HOPE.
And we got a FULL CHARGE in our spiritual endurance tanks last week when Briar’s mid-way scans came back CLEAR!
YOU may not be facing cancer, but ALL OF US are facing some kind of test or trial or challenge. And all of us need to regularly pull into God’s HOPE STATION to recharge our spiritual endurance tank.
We must do that for two important reasons: 1) Hope PRODUCES endurance; and 2) Endurance is the RESULT of hope.
That is the foundation behind our ability to endure in Christ. Of course it’s difficult to remain connected to Christ while sitting in one of life’s waiting rooms. That’s a NORMAL feeling for ALL BELIEVERS! But we MUST fight back and regularly ask God to fill our ENDURANCE TANK.
Endurance comes to us as a gift of the new covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus for those who look to him and look away from themselves in surrendered obedience to God.
Doing this regularly, especially in times when our hope tank is depleted, keeps a rhythmic cadence in our connection with Christ that continually renews our hope that we can and will endure.
We will endure to the end because God is sovereign and that keeps us away from trusting OURSELVES and thinking we can be the king of our life. We CANNOT. That was bought by Christ on Calvary.
We are called to ENDURE and that means we must be HOPEFUL. And the only way to be HOPEFUL is to blow up our sense of being in control and, instead, trust God.
Even with cancer and even with whatever else comes along on our journey through life on this side of God’s Heavenly divide.
I ask God to help me stay connected to him every day. To drop me to my knees in surrendered obedience so I can remain hopeful and endure this test and those that will surely follow.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Do you regularly check in to God’s HOPE STATION?
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” Romans 15:4
