Stickability, Faith & Perseverance

July 22, 2025

“Let us rejoice in our sufferings because we know that our suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

If you study the original language in which these verses were written, you will discover that the Apostle Paul is essentially saying: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces the quality of character that will not run when things get difficult.”

The Greek word Paul used for character conveys a meaning similar to various patches military people wear that show they have been tested and proven. Paul told us suffering produces endurance, and receiving from the Lord the grace to endure our suffering produces proven character. When you have been tested and proved, the caliber of character that testing produces is often grown in the soil of suffering.

Paul also writes that proven character leads to confidence and hope. When you have developed character that perseveres, you will not be put to flight. Years ago, while visiting missionaries in challenging places overseas, I learned one of the most important abilities of faith is stickability.

Can we live out our lives as a fragrance of Christ, an irrefutable statement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people who are hostile toward Jesus and His followers? Our faith is living Christ until people we desire to reach “see Christ in our mortal flesh,” to borrow words from one of the greatest missionaries in the history of the Church. (2Corinthians 4:11)

Perseverance is stickability: the ability to hang in there and keep hanging in there. That is how an orange gets to be an orange; it just keeps hanging in there until it becomes an orange.

Dick Woodward, from 30 Biblical Reasons Why God’s People Suffer

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Pray Until Something Happens

June 17, 2025

Now it is required that those who have been given trust must prove faithful.”  (1 Corinthians 4:2)

A story is told of a man who was told by God to push against a huge rock as his primary work for a lifetime. The man did that for years. Exhausted, burned out and discouraged he told God the rock had not moved a centimeter. God responded that God had not told the man to move the rock, but to push against it. God made the observation that pushing against the rock had given the man a strong healthy and muscular body. God knew all along that only God could move that rock.

This leads to an acrostic based on the word push:

P- Pray

U– Until

S– Something

H– Happens

I am now living in my 82nd year. One of the observations I have made in my life is that God is our Mentor. God is always teaching us, and God is fiercely committed to the proposition that we are going to grow spiritually and in every other way. God deliberately assigns us tasks that are not only difficult but impossible knowing that those tasks will grow and mature us into faithful servants God can use to do through us what only God can do in this world.

So, this week PUSH and keep praying until God does God’s works in and through you.

Dick Woodward, 20 June 2012

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A Balanced Philosophy of Life

October 21, 2011

“In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: surely God has appointed the one as well as the other…”        (Ecclesiastes 7:14)

When Rick Warren was asked on a talk show how he could explain his wife’s cancer, he responded that he once thought life was a series of mountaintops and valleys, but his experience of life has brought him to the place where he now uses a different metaphor.  He is now convinced that life is like a railroad track. The left rail represents this hard reality: there are always adversities in our life because God is more interested in our character than He is in our comfort.  The right rail represents the glorious reality that something good is always happening in our life because God is good and He shows us that by the good things He’s consistently doing in our life.

The wisest man who ever lived wrote that when we are experiencing prosperity we should not feel guilty.  We should rejoice!  But when we experience adversity we should realize that God has appointed them both.  To test the philosophy of Rick Warren, think of a scale like the scale of justice.  Imagine placing all your problems on the left side of that scale.  Then imagine placing all your blessings on the right side of that scale.  Don’t be surprised if the scales at least balance, or that the blessings on the right side of the scale far outweigh the problems on the other side.

When problems happen, ask yourself what part of your character God is building in your life through those problems.  Then ask God how you can receive the grace to glorify Him through the way you respond to those problems.

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