This is the second in a series of articles dedicated to the most important attitudinal pieces it takes to be a good disciple.  On tap today, an entry about perseverance.  (I can sense your enthusiasm already!)

One of the most difficult things for most Christians to grasp is the perseverance it takes to be a devoted follower of Jesus Christ.  If you decide to follow Him, it will cost you everything.  I get frustrated pretty often with the way our culture (and many a church) talks about self-discipline, perseverance, and sacrifice.   Before we get into the particulars of living as a disciple though, let’s once again talk about what we know.

If you read Part One in this series, you were reminded that the sanctification process (the process by which God makes us into little versions of Himself) lasts for as long as your life does after you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior.  For most of us, that means a period of several years.  Likewise, where we start is a pretty significant distance spiritually from where we desire to end up.  In other words, to be like Jesus is a pretty long way from where most of us are when we accept Him.  For these reasons, it’s foolishness to think that your process will happen instantaneously, in a day, in a week or even in a year.  Christian maturity takes time and concerted, continuous, devoted, self-sacrificial effort as we strive to follow the God who changes and remakes us. (Titus 2:11-3:8)

In our culture, this is a dirty and undesirable idea.  Technology has taught us that anything that can’t provide immediate gratification is a waste of time, no matter how good the payoff at the end might be.  The media routinely reinforces the idea in us that anything can be done in 22 minutes or less.  A recent study noted that the attention span of the average adult is between 12-20 minutes, or just about the time from the show starts to the third or fourth commercial break.  We have become accustomed in our neck of the world to having instant access to information, food, friends, pleasure, entertainment, and just about everything else.  There has never been a culture like ours in the history of the world, which has had access to so much so quickly with so little effort required to have complicated needs fulfilled.  (Want to talk to someone in a remote part of China in twenty minutes?  No problem.  Want the entire text of one of Shakespeare’s plays in 5 minutes?  Easy.  And so it goes!)  We have grown accustomed to having whatever we want within seconds of deciding we want it.  For most of us, our happiness in any moment is directly tied to the stopwatch running in our mind from the moment we decide we want something to the time we get it.  God will not be hurried in this way.

The Christian life is decidedly not, and will never be, an exercise in immediate gratification.  Following after Jesus, as we have already said, is a life-long journey.  You won’t be there by lunchtime, I promise, so you’d best pack a lunch and settle in for a hike.  To become who Jesus has called you to be will require, as Eugene Peterson has called it, “a long obedience in the same direction.”  You will need to make a choice to continue on the path long after your patience for the work God is doing in you has run out.  You will be dying to stop and go back, to deny God’s calling on you to follow after Him, and relax.  You will get tired.  Your spiritual muscles will ache.  And then you have to take another step.  You will make mistakes that will set you back.  At that point, all that is left to you as a follower is to continue on.

Most people subconsciously venerate the older saints they know who have successfully navigated this path of following Jesus for many years.  I suspect that the reason that people do this is that they recognize the wisdom and value in a life that has been changed by Jesus Christ into something more beautiful than it was when they began.  What is interesting is the reaction that this veneration for the “dear older saints” causes for those who are newer in the faith: impatience.   They want to be “done.”   Let me cut the suspense for you.  Done in the Christian life is a closed coffin.

One of the great shocks of my early seminary career was when I went to visit an older couple in the church where I was doing a mentorship.  The couple I visited that day with my mentoring pastor were home-bound, but they were delightful people who clearly loved Jesus.  About 2/3 of the way through my time with them, the older woman started confessing to the pastor that she was having difficulty forgiving a former pastor who had wounded them very deeply.  I must have had a confused look on my face, because the woman then turned to me, and without batting an eye told me point-blank, “older people have sin issues they are working on too, young man!”   She then turned back to the pastor and continued her discussion.  The point was made:  the older saints aren’t ‘done’ either.

It’s good to respect those who have nobly and devotedly followed Jesus for many years–their obedience and perseverance are something all of us should aim at.  But don’t fall into the falsehood of believing they are done either.  They might be the closest thing to Jesus in the flesh we will see, but even that is a pale shadow compared to what God will reveal in us on the day when we meet Him face to face.  Until then, the task for every Christ-follower is the same:  wake up in the morning, thank and praise God for the breath to live another day, and then take one step at a time in obedience following after Him.  If you’re serious about being a follower and disciple, this has to become your default setting.