per·se·ver·ance – persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.
As we have shared each year, Rachael and I choose a verse of the year and a word of the year. (Read about our year of HOPE.)
For the past three years, we have rested in some specific promises God has planted in our hearts. The thing about seeds is that they take time to grow. The thing about me is that I often lack the patience to wait on the growth. Yet, as we entered 2019, we sat with very few mighty oaks nothing but the acorns of promises in our hands. In those seeds stood some very specific and general promises from the Lord, so we held onto HOPE.
In 2020, a new year, a new decade, comes with it some new opportunities we sit face to face with. There are some conversations and connections that were sparked and begun in previous year adding gasoline to the fire of HOPE for what is in store for us. With all these new things for a new year, we understand will require effort and work. While new journeys come with an energy of excitement, that energy will wain as the real work sets in. With enough foresight or quite possibly a sensitivity to the Spirit, we chose the word PERSEVERANCE for 2020.
Anchored in the passage found in Hebrews: “But we passionately want each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness for the fulfillment of your hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and perseverance inherit the promises.”
Hebrews 6:11-12 NET
Hope…in the face of loss. Hope… in the face of trial. Hope…in hard seasons we have held onto. The writer of Hebrews challenges the reader to keep holding onto the hope until the end because there are promises to inherit. The promises, those whispers of heaven in late night prayers and early morning journals. Those moments that other people mark as coincidence and serendipity. Those are our inheritance. And our honest belief is that this is the year, this is the decade, this is the season that our seeds of hope filled promised become realized realities.
Yet, in order to see that happen will require PERSEVERANCE. Obstacles will rise. Distractions will come. Entities and enemies will stand against the plans of God, but promises are inherited by those who keep going with faith and perseverance.
Sometimes my faith needs a reminder or encouragement. Sometimes the Lord has to demonstrate to me that I am on the right track, so in his faithfulness he did just that. As Rachael and I sat in our seats at Passion 2020, listening to one of our favorite preachers, Christine Caine, she begins to wrap up an already powerful message that hit me square in the heart. She gives one last passage of scripture to put a bow on the gift of conviction the Word of God had brought. Could you guess which verse? Yep, Hebrews 6:12. Out of the thousands and thousands of verses, the Lord gave her that one. Christine may have been speaking to a crowd of 65,000, but Jesus knew I need that reminder.
I cannot predict the promise or the problems. I would be a fool to say I know what we will face in 2020. But I have the faith to say: “I will persevere.”
What is your word?
