Day 305- Faithful Endurance
📖Daily Reading
1 Thessalonians 1-2
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
1 Thessalonians 1: 6-8
'So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Greece—throughout both Macedonia and Achaia. And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it, '
Faithful endurance, endurance is the fruit of true faith. It sustains us and helps us hang in there when the going gets rough, right? That is what faith is, it is persevering ‘even when’, ‘even if’, ‘even though’…. In this case Paul’s faith helped others have faith and then their faith circles back and helps his faith get even stronger.
This is a feedback loop of sorts and another one of the benefits of faith. My faith encourages your faith, your faith encourages others, this circles back and encourages me. Endurance, strength and confidence grows. The feedback loop is also a proof of sorts that the faith is working, it isn’t just a faith in the unknown. Faith gives hope and does prove itself to be useful in and of itself. It sustains us.
It gives us courage to keep going even on the days, in the moments, in the seasons and trial of life where we might other wise give up. We might not see the light at the end of the tunnel or even care. But faith and hope give us the endurance to keep going even when we aren’t seeing or feeling the results of our efforts. Paul is writing to the church to encourage their faith to keep growing strong, it is worth the struggle.
We can borrow on this faith from others. This is why it is so important to share our faith. Share is a tangible word. Often we think of sharing our faith as just ‘telling’ someone about it, but it is so much more! It is doing what Paul is talking about here. It is joining in, sharing the load, proving, and role modeling. Showing someone how it is doing by going alongside and encouraging and joining in. He compares it to like a parent with a child.
We can lend our faith to others and borrow faith even when we don’t have it for ourselves. We can follow someone else’s example and in the process we may gain our own faith. So much of what we do when it comes right down to it is an act of faith. There is no guarantee of anything in this life. This simple but profound realization can get you started if you are snuggling with understanding faith. Life can’t be lived without faith. Life is an endurance sport that is made better by faith. Every night we go to sleep with the faith that we will wake up tomorrow.
The notion of faithful endurance has big spiritual implications but also very practical applications. If you are wanting to make a change in your life, go find others who have been where you are and who have successfully made and sustained the changes you want. Often we don’t share our struggles or our ‘before’ self with people instead we feel guilt and shame and we keep it hidden.
This is sad and it makes that struggle not very useful to you or to others. Sometimes we are even in danger of backsliding. When we are sharing our struggles it strengthens our faith and endurance even more. If we only show our strength or our ‘finished product’ this can actually discourages faith and endurance in others and it can weaken our own. Paul talks quite a bit about his own struggles and the church at Thesselonica’s struggles and how they play an integral role in the evidence and strengthening of their faith and how this has helped them all endure. Sharing in the struggles and the enduring in faith is bonding.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
If you have a struggle that you are keeping hidden and are losing faith, how can you reach out to someone and be encouraged? If you have overcome a struggle and had the faith to endure, how can you encourage others? Are you sharing this struggle or are you only trying to present your new ‘fixed’ image?
📖Tomorrows Reading
1 Thessalonians 3-5
Coaching Opportunity
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