Patient Endurance

This morning, I was reading 2 Peter 1 (NLT). Simeon Peter was not the wordsmith that David or Paul were, but something jumped out at me. To paraphrase the chapter, Peter is calling the faithful to live as God has called us and to exemplify certain virtues.

• Simply start with faith;
• Supplement faith with moral excellence;
• Supplement moral excellence with knowledge;
• Supplement knowledge with self-control;
• Supplement self-control with patient endurance;
• Supplement patient endurance with godliness;
• Supplement godliness with brotherly affection; and,
• Supplement brotherly affection with love for everyone.

What a list…

But patient endurance? Yikes…maybe you have the patience of Mother Teresa and the endurance of a triathlete. But me? That’s a tall order…

My junior year of high school, a friend asked me (after the season had started) to join the cross-country team. We were the reigning state champions, but the women’s team had lost over half the team when they graduated the prior year. The result was not enough women to actually have a full 7-person team.

I was NOT a distance runner. I was a softball player. I participated in indoor winter track solely to be ready for the softball season. In track, I ran sprints. But to be clear, just like I was not a distance runner, I also was NOT a sprinter.

My friend caught me on a weak day and for some bizarre reason, I agreed. I had missed the first three weeks of training by that time and I had never in my life run a full mile. Yet suddenly, I was thrown into distance running.

Throughout our training, we had days scheduled for different run lengths. Some were staggered length sprint drills up long, steep hills. Some days we would practice at one of our typical 5k courses. But there were days when the coach wanted us to do 5- or even 8-mile runs.

Um….no.

I was struggling as it was to get used to running a 5k, much less farther. So I developed the mindset that the team needed me more than I needed them. I refused to run further than 5k for any practice. I figured, what is the coach going to do, cut me? Of course not…

What a horrible attitude that was. And not only that, what a disservice to both myself AND the team!

I still did shockingly well that year. It wasn’t hard to do when literally every race was a personal best due to my late start to the season. I was the Rookie of the Year for the team, but we lost the state championship, which had been the most important thing. Dang. That was a hard pill to swallow.

How much more could I have given the team had I practiced patient endurance? Could we have retained the championship instead of falling into second place? We’ll never know.

We need patient endurance in our faith lives as well. Maybe it’s a prayer of healing. Or it could be discernment to know which path to take. If we’re not training our faith for the long-haul, how will we perform when God really puts us to the test? I can guarantee we will have better results if we are ascribing to these virtues Peter lays out for us.

We did reclaim the state championship my senior year. I learned the lesson of having patient endurance while distance training. But I am still working on the endurance I need for my faith journey, but this lesson was a powerful reminder for me. How do you practice patient endurance in your faith life?