Week 7 Devotion - Perseverance

Virtue: PERSEVERANCE - Refusing to give up when life gets hard

• Scripture Verse: But those who trust in the LORD will receive new strength. They will fly as high as eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not grow weak. Isaiah 40:31 (NIrV)

Bottom Line: When life seems impossible, remember what you do can help someone else’s faith.

Have you ever thrown a rock into a lake? What happens? Have you ever noticed how the rock creates a ripple effect that starts out small and moves outward? Pretty cool, right? That one small rock causes a ripple of circles that reaches far beyond where it initially landed in the water.

When it comes to facing challenges, did you ever stop to think about the fact that the way you and I choose to handle tough situations might have an impact on someone else? Let me show you what this would look like on the soccer field. Let’s say at our next game, we play a team that is really beating us. Every time they get the ball, they score. It’s bad. Really bad. How would you feel if I, your coach, just folded my arms and sat down in a lawn chair for the rest of the game? How would you feel if I put my clipboard down and just said, “You guys just finish up. We’re gonna lose anyway”?

Crazy, right? I would never do that. I know that my words from the sidelines have the power to encourage you to keep going, to keep pushing, to keep playing hard until the very end. My actions have a ripple effect—just like when a rock is thrown into the water. My yelling “you can do it,” “watch the ball,” “quick feet,” “work together”—all of those words can really make a difference as to how you guys perform on the field.

The same is true off the field. The way you and I react to tough situations—to situations where we’re tempted to give up—has the potential to affect someone else. When you and I keep going, when we keep treating others the way we want to be treated, when we keep making the wise choice—we encourage others around us to do the same. When you persevere, you have the potential to help someone else persevere as well! Your actions have a ripple effect. You can help someone else’s faith to grow too!

Week 6 Devotion - Perseverance

Virtue: PERSEVERANCE - Refusing to give up when life gets hard

• Scripture Verse: But those who trust in the LORD will receive new strength. They will fly as high as eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not grow weak. Isaiah 40:31 (NIrV)

Bottom Line: When life seems impossible, remember what others did.

So we’ve been talking about perseverance—refusing to give up when life gets hard. And while it’s really easy to decide just to give up when the going gets tough, God wants us to persevere. He doesn’t want us to throw in the towel the minute the going gets tough.

And guess what? God has been helping people persevere for a very long time. People like Gideon. We can read about him in the Old Testament—that’s the first section of the Bible. Gideon was a guy from the weakest tribe, and he was the youngest in his family when God told him to gather an army to fight the enemy. Gideon thought that God had to be kidding! But he chose to listen to God. And once Gideon had gathered the army, God told him to narrow it down to just a few hundred men. Gideon thought it was the craziest plan ever! If it were me, I might have given up. But Gideon didn’t. Instead he chose to persevere.

He knew God was with him. Though it might have seemed impossible, Gideon and many, many others that we read about in the Bible, kept praying. They kept doing the right thing. They persevered.
Hebrews 12:1 (NIrV) says, “A huge cloud of witnesses is all around us”—meaning, since we’ve seen so many great examples of people who never gave up, like Gideon and David—“So let us throw off everything that stands in our way. Let us throw off any sin that holds on to us so tightly. Let us keep on running the race marked out for us.”

Chances are, you and I will never lead an army into battle. But we will face situations that are hard. We need to remember that God will be there to help us. He wants us, just like Gideon, to trust him and to keep doing the right thing, even when things get hard. Because when life gets hard, we need to remember what others did.

Week 5 Devotion - Perseverance

Virtue: PERSEVERANCE - Refusing to give up when life gets hard

• Scripture Verse: But those who trust in the LORD will receive new strength. They will fly as high as eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not grow weak. Isaiah 40:31 (NIrV)

Bottom Line: When life seems impossible, remember what God wants to do in you.

Have you ever heard the word “perseverance” before? Perseverance is refusing to give up when life gets hard. What are some examples of “when life gets hard?” Can you think of anything? How about on the soccer field? What if it’s the last few minutes of the game and the other team has been completely creaming us? Should we just give up and call it a day? Or should we keep trying our best, even when it gets hard?

That’s right. In order to persevere, you have to keep going. You can’t give up. But a soccer game is one thing. What about when your life gets hard? Like maybe you’re not doing so well in math. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to understand it. Or what if there’s someone at school who keeps picking on you? Maybe you’ve tried to be nice, maybe you’ve even told your teacher, but he or she still won’t quit. What do you do then?

The first thing you need to do is remember that God is always with you. He is your perfect Heavenly Father and he loves you. He knows what you need and is always there to teach you what is right. Bad things happen to everyone—it’s just a part of life. No one enjoys the hard stuff. But it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love you or that you should just give up on doing the right thing when life gets hard.

Because if you keep doing the right thing even when it’s hard, guess what? Your relationship with God will grow. God wants to teach you how to be like him. He wants to do something in you by changing your attitudes and thoughts and the way you treat others.