The Grace Of Persistence

30 Jun

“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.” ~ Hal Borland

Patient endurance: that is what is exemplified by trees.  They grow slowly but surely through the years, through the centuries, and even through the millennia.  I was taken aback the first time I visited the Holy Land and saw the Garden of Gethsemane.  Our guide told us that many of the trees there were standing at the time of Jesus’ arrest in the garden.

What secrets those silent sentinels must retain. Those kinds of secrets are collected by being around throughout the ages.

Grass, on the other hand, Hal Borland will tell us, exemplifies the virtue of persistence.  Unlike trees which stand in place and grow each day, week, month, and year, grass is cut over and over again.  Grass does not need patience.  Grass needs persistence.

And so do we.

If we “do our job” as a Christian correctly, we are going to be mowed over time and time again.  The world has it out for us.  That is not the expression of someone who is paranoid.  That is the truth.  The world will do anything it can to erase all evidence of Jesus.  If we try to practice the faith, it will hurl everything it can against us.

Like the grass that continuously gets cut down and pushes its growth up once more, we, too, must do the same in our faith lives.  If we are belittled, ridiculed, or abused for being people of faith, so be it.  Let the world hurl whatever it wants against us.  We, for our part, must be persistent.  Every time we are cut down, we must put forth new shoots, new growth.  In doing so, the Kingdom of God will always have witnesses in the world.

FAITH ACTION:  Ask God to give you the grace to be persistent in the practice of your faith this day.