perseverance

"You have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise." (Hebrews 10:36)

 

Scottish physician A. J. Cronin (1896-1981) was forced by illness to take a leave of absence from his medical practice. He then decided to write a novel. But when half done, he became disheartened and threw his manuscript into a garbage can.

 

Totally discouraged, Cronin was walking the Scottish Highlands and a saw a man digging in a bog, trying to drain it for use as a pasture. As Cronin talked with him, the man said, "My father dug at this bog and never made a pasture. But my father knew and I know that it's only by digging you can make a pasture. So I keep digging."

 

Rebuked and remotivated, Cronin went home, picked his manuscript out of the garbage can, and finished it. That novel, Hatter's Castle, sold three million copies. Cronin left his medical practice and became a world famous writer.

 

At times, you and I may feel trapped by circumstances that demand patience and persistence. Are we willing to keep digging away at whatever "bog" God has assigned to us?

 

The book of Hebrews tells us that we have "need of endurance" (10:36), and that we must "run with endurance the race that is set before us" (12:1). How? By "looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" (V.2). With Christ as our example, let's keep on digging!

-vernon grounds