Proverbs 24.10, 16
“If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small … the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
It’s a simple message: Be relentless. If you fall down, get up. As many times as necessary. As this proverb says, getting back up is a characteristic of people who trust God and live rightly. It’s an inescapable reality: Life will knock you down. When that happens, your job is to trust God and get back up.
I love what the first chapter of James says: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1.2-4)
The word that James uses for “steadfastness” is hupomone, which can also be translated “endurance” or “perseverance.” It literally means “to bear up under.” The idea is this: Keep going. No matter how hard it gets — no matter the pain, difficulty, or darkness — don’t quit. Stay the course. Never give up.
Responding to difficult and adversity with “joy” is not natural. It is not what normal people do. When most people experience hardship, they are resentful, and their resentment is often directed toward God.
Committed Christians think differently. They see adversity differently. They respond differently. When a faithful follower of Jesus experiences adversity, they aren’t resentful, they are thankful. This is because committed Christians understand the nature of life in a broken world. They are aware of the nature of the mission. They know that the Lord has saved them from the fallen world and then sent them back into the fallen world as his ambassadors. Adversity and challenging situations are simply part of the assignment.
When you are in the crucible … when you are in the furnace … when life presses on you and squeezes you, it reveals you. It reveals what you are made of. This is the “testing of your faith” that James 1 and Proverbs 24 refer to. When you squeeze an orange what comes out is orange juice …because that is what is inside. That is what it is made of. Same with an apple or any fruit. And so it is with us. When the difficulties of life squeeze us, what comes out is what is inside. Adversity reveals what we are made of.
Every Christian is given a periodic “adversity test” that reveals the current status of their faith. When that happens to you, don’t be resentful … be thankful. Circumstances don’t make or break you. They simply reveal you.
Do not listen to the god of giving up. Do not listen to the quitting voice. Listen to the voice of the God who loves you and calls you, and be relentless. Let us trust our God, align our personal and professional goals with his Word, and pursue those goals with relentless persistence. When you get knocked down, get up and keep going.
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:1-5)
