Today’s word is perseverance. Perseverance is the way through any resistance you may experience as you step out into the new beginning the Lord has for you. Keep doing the work that you were directed to do.
Doing the work unlocks opportunity, divine appointments, and an amazing future. It also is the way to defeat opposition that arises. Steven Pressfield, author of Do the Work, says that resistance will attack us every time we begin to step out in our creativity, our self-improvement, or our attempts to change the world. In his words, “Any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity” or “any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower” will hit resistance. His book’s premise is that the only way around resistance is to persevere and do the work.
The apostle Peter tells us that when perseverance is a step on the way to godliness and ultimately love when it mixes with faith, diligence, excellence, knowledge and self-control.
Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 2 Peter 1:5–7
Combining Pressfield’s advice with Peter’s direction, let me put it this way.
Persevere to do the work—the sometimes mundane tasks or the baby steps the Lord leads you to—in order to achieve your amazing future and to grow spiritually.
For me today, perseverance and doing the work meant choosing to not give in to habit for a particular snack. Not a major change, but one that keeps me on my fast and on the path to godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.
What about you? How can you persevere with doing the work that God has called you to?