By Brother Brian Shimer
It took perseverance to pack up the car each Friday, drive 150 miles with two children (one 2.5 year old and the other a 2 month old, to begin with) to reach the small, country church I pastored for a year as a seminary student.
It took commitment to “keep on, keeping on” to visit, write sermons, and try on the pastoral role.
It took a crazy amount of energy during church for Karen to parent, hold infant Grace on her lap and pay attention to Anna, while she played the piano joining Erma on the organ.
Yes, perseverance. And the name of the little church was Perseverance Chapel. How fitting!
But it wasn’t really perseverance as Jesus intended. I was in turmoil. One professor warned me tersely: “You are at war with preaching.”
Week by week, while sitting under the best preaching and teaching in the world, rather than reformat some of their great material to present on Sundays to bless that sweet congregation, I persevered to create “something fresh”. As a result, my preaching was poor and painful.
God was my taskmaster. I was his slave. I sought to please God and earn His love. I lacked freedom. I resembled Boxer, the horse, in George Orwell’s dystopian novella Animal Farm, as he repeated: “I will work harder.”
I believed God wanted me to work harder. Philippians 3:14 was my life verse: “I will press on to take hold of that for which Christ as taken hold on me.” But unlike Paul, I had not allowed Jesus to take hold of me.
Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon us, for his yoke is easy, his burden light. This perseverance is not a work harder life. A yoke hitched two oxen side by side, so they could share the labor. Jesus’ invitation was to work with Him — side by side — not work for Him.
Paul saw himself as crucified with Christ, so Christ was living through him. See Galatians 2:20. We live by faith in the “Son of God who loved (us) and gave himself up for (us).”
David captured this idea when he penned Psalm 37:34 the invitation to “travel steadily along His path.” The word steadily captures the persevering life; we walk His path, not our own.
