Keep on Keeping On. Persevere.
To persevere, according to Oxford Languages, means to “continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty or with little or no prospect of success.”
Seasons of waiting require perseverance and can be so hard, especially when days turn into months and months turn into years. While there is an ebb and flow to difficult and joyous seasons, sometimes, even though you can speak of God’s faithfulness and blessings, the weight of persevering through the trials can pull you down.
It’s easy to find yourself doubting and depressed in extended seasons of waiting. It’s simply our human nature. God built us with emotions and feelings, and there are many biblical people in the pages of scripture who found themselves in trying times, crying out to God.
Because we don’t have God’s vantage point, it can seem like there won’t be an end and this waiting is all for nothing. But as believers, we have the hope of heaven and the understanding that God works all things for the good of those who love Him. We find ourselves in the company of men like Jacob, Joseph, Job, David, Daniel, Peter. Paul, and even Jesus himself, to name a few, who found themselves in difficult situations, crying out to God. Sometimes they were asking,” Why?” Sometimes they asked God where He was. Sometimes they asked God, “How long?”
In Psalm 13, David laments:
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Psalm 3:1-2, ESV
Me? I’ve been asking God where this abundant life the Bible talks about is. I’m not necessarily looking for financial abundance, but it feels like life is just hard all the way around. Maybe you can relate. Like David, I desperately want answers and solutions, resolutions to life’s problems.
David doesn’t just ask, though. He petitions with God:
“Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
Psalm 13:3-4, ESV
One result of walking through the hard seasons is the exhaustion that comes from pushing through and the weariness of staying the course. So what are we to do when these extended seasons of waiting threaten to undo us?
So what are we to do when these extended seasons of waiting threaten to undo us?
First, we can view them as a personal invitation.
Seasons requiring perseverance are a personal invitation to draw near to the Lord. God reaches out to us and grows us during these seasons. I found that God taught me about His sovereignty and how I can trust and rest in that attribute of Him. One of the greatest things God taught me was that nothing surprised Him, and He already knew the outcome, one that would bring Him glory.
Choosing to trust Him and remember His goodness to us is the point of it all, really. David closes his Psalm, reminding himself of who God is:
But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
Psalm 13:5-6, ESV
Second, we can rest in God’s Sovereignty.
Once I realized that God had it all under control, I began to rest in His sovereignty and thank Him for how He was going to work things out, how He would provide, or what He was protecting us from, depending on the situation, when anxiety and exhaustion knocked at my door. That is the Lord dealing bountifully with me even though I am unaware of it.
I came across a quote from Lysa TerKeurst recently that said, “God sees things we can’t see. He knows things we don’t know. Only God knows what the good plan is and what it will take to get us there.” Her words are so very true, and this is where His sovereignty shines.
Sometimes the unpleasant experiences we walk through are exactly what we need to get us to where God wants us.
This reminds me of Joseph. He went from being a favored son to being sold into slavery by those he should have been able to trust, back to being a favored but as a slave, only to be lied about and thrown into prison. It was about 13 years between the time he was sold to when he was called before the Pharaoh and he found himself walking in the calling God had over his life. God had ultimately appointed him to the role of saving the world through overseeing the abundance of grain in Egypt before a severe famine.
He maintained his integrity and Hebrew upbringing through it all, acknowledging at the end that it had been God who had sent him to Egypt to preserve life. That perspective was won through many smaller choices to view God as sovereign and trustworthy in his minute-by-minute thought life over those 13 years. I’m sure, like us, there were times he fought weariness and homesickness, questioning why this had happened to him. He was human, too. But in the end, he knew God’s hand had been in it all along.
A few weeks ago, my daughter was singing that popular children’s song about how “my God is so big and my God is so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do for you.” It is such a faith-boosting song for the little ones, yet I had to tell her after we had fun singing it that while God is definitely big and mighty enough to do anything and everything, sometimes he doesn’t. That is just as important, and sometimes he says, “Not now.” Her response was, “Like how you prayed we’d be moved before school started, but we weren’t?” That sweet girl is pretty smart. She had observed it already, and I am so glad God enabled me to speak into what could have been a seed of doubt in her heart.
We have been on the verge of moving for about 3-4 years now, but despite prayers and effort, there is this unseen holding pattern, and everything is standing still. All I can see is how many problems moving will resolve, and it’s difficult to wait on God’s timing. But God must see personal growth and circumstantial changes that need to happen similar to Joseph’s journey.
Sure, God can do anything, but it’s more accurate to say that He is big and mighty enough to know when the trials will be for our benefit and allows them out of love for us and humanity in general.
But there are other, more serious questions in our lives. I am sure you have your own to add to my list.
Why did he allow Charlie Kirk to die? I had prayed that He would allow full healing to refute the evil that attempted his life, only to hear a short time later that he had entered glory.
Why does he allow seasons of trials to drag on when we are begging him for answers and solutions and following the leads He provides only to see things get worse? We struggled for years and years with my oldest, only to have him end up needing a residential therapeutic placement for a year.
Why is he not giving us a clear path through my husband’s employment, even though we have been praying for a clear path out of this extended season of uncertainty?
Why does he allow good-hearted people to be taken advantage of, even to their ruin?
Seasons of waiting are hard and exhausting, yet we can rest in God’s timing, knowing that He will move and bring things about at the perfect time. We can trust what we read in Ecclesiastes about how “He makes everything beautiful in its time.” We can lay down our striving and ‘abide in Jesus, allowing Him to give us rest.’
Sometimes, and most importantly, that includes the beauty of spiritual growth that happens as we learn to trust Him and rest in His Sovereignty.
I’m sure Joseph’s character was refined and molded through each hardship he endured, and I’m willing to bet his 17-year-old self was not prepared to hold such a high position in Egypt’s government. This is an example of God’s on-the-job training at its finest. Sure, God could have kept all that bad from happening, but He knew it was crucial to His plan.
If you find yourself in a long season of waiting, be encouraged that you join the Bible’s great men like Jacob, Joseph, Job, David, Daniel, Peter, Paul, and even Jesus himself, asking God why, how come, and how long!
Friend, God welcomes your questions and conversation through prayer, and He’ll be with you every step of the way, helping you through the exhaustion, the doubt, and the weariness that come while we persevere through extended seasons of waiting and trials.
Remember Joseph and the difficult journey he had before he could walk out the calling God had on his life. Your trials and seasons of waiting have a purpose, too.
Remember David conversing with God and choosing to focus on God’s goodness towards him while he waited to become king.
A few chapters over, in Psalm 138, David writes some encouraging words for us:
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.
Psalm 138:8
Keep on keeping on!
