THE ANSWER TO DISCOURAGEMENT

Are you discouraged in the face of everything that is happening in the world and our inability to fix the problems and protect ourselves from harm? What resources do you have to combat fear and our failure to experience joy in daily living?

“Love always perseveres” (1 Cor.13:7). “Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else is fallen.” (J.B. Phillips)

Paul is indicating

“an active, vigorous endurance, not a passive, resigned acceptance of all that happens. It describes the soldier in a keenly contested conflict who battles on undismayed. He does not allow the difficulties of the moment to rob him of strength and purpose; he fights on unflinchingly. So it is with love. Love’s endurance is a positive acceptance of life with all its difficulties, not a passive acquiescence in things as they are. Love does more than put up with life’s hardship; it grows and develops as it struggles against them. Love sees problems positively – as valuable tests that refine it and proves its worth.” (Leon Morris, Testaments of Love, 251)

Love is not just grimly putting up with a difficult relationship or situation, enduring it, persevering with it because you think it is the right thing to do; it is approaching the relationship or situation as a mission to be accomplished, an objective to be reached, a challenge to be conquered. Perseverance has the backbone of courage. Love enables us to have the courage to endure and succeed in the face of all that is painful. Courage is the inner power to resist the painful experiences of life by facing up to the evil that attacks us, and not surrendering.

Jesus said, “He who stands firm [endures] to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:22;24:13) Jesus, the incarnation of the love of God, endured to the end. He was courageous in the face of torture, agony, betrayal, rejection, and death. He did not seek to escape from persecution, and injustice. He set his face toward Jerusalem with the knowledge that he would go through the Cross to get to the Resurrection and the fulfillment of his salvation purpose.

We are called to face our difficulties in the same manner. When we seek to follow him and be his disciples we can likewise draw on his courageous love to persevere in the face of suffering, because we see beyond the trials to the victory. At the end of each letter to the seven churches in Asia, Jesus promises:

“To him who overcomes, I will give the right to …eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God…will not be hurt at all by the second death….I will give authority over the nations….I will never blot out his name from the book of life but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels…I will make a pillar in the temple of my God….I will write on him my new name…I will give the right to sit with me on my throne.” (Revelation 2,3)

John, bishop of Constantinople (344-407), titled Chrysostom (”golden-mouthed”), called perseverance

“a fortress that is never taken, a harbor that knows no storms, the queen of virtues, the foundation of right actions, peace in war, calm in tempest, security in plots, and neither the violence of man nor the powers of the evil one can injure it. It is the quality which keeps a man on his feet with his face to the wind. It is the virtue which can transmute the hardest trial into glory because beyond the pain it sees the goal.”

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage, be strong. Do everything in love.” (1 Corinthians 16:13,14) Love without strength is mere sentimentality. Strength without love can become aggressiveness that rides rough-shod over others. The combination of the two is a twofold cord which cannot be broken. We are called to be men and women of courage, to be strong, to do everything in love. What a high calling this is. To be a Christian in these terms is to be someone of consequence, someone who will accomplish something important. It is a noble calling, of heroic dimensions. There is nothing wimpy about it. Love that always perseveres resonates with strength.

“Be strong and courageous” is the exhortation of Moses to Joshua, accompanied by the promise, “the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6-8) Love is strong and courageous because God goes with us, and will never forsake us. We are not alone. God the Omnipotent, the Almighty, is with us.

The image is a military one. The core values of the United States Marine Corps are Honor, Courage, and Commitment. Those are also the core values of the Christian. We are committed to love of God and neighbor. We honor that commitment by having the courage to continue to love when the going gets tough, when life is difficult, when everything seems to be against us, when we are tempted to quit, when people let us down, and God seems to be absent.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will

When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill

When funds are low, and the debts are high

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh

When care is pressing you down a bit

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

 

Success is failure turned inside out

The silver tint of clouds of doubt

And you never can tell how close you are

It may be near when it seems so far

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit

It’s when things seem worse

That you must not quit. (Anon.)

Nathaniel Fick, in One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, recounted how the stress of continuous action in Afghanistan and Iraq, under adverse and deadly circumstances led some officers to avoid further action because they were exhausted.  Their commanding officer chastised them for transferring their own fatigue onto troops who were capable of more than they knew. “You are tired, and those Marines are capable of more than they know.” (p.129)  We can make excuses for ourselves so that we can under-perform in the battles of life. We are capable of more than we know when we are put to the test. All too often the battles are lost because we give up loving too soon. Dartmouth graduate Fick writes that he was drawn to the infantry “where courage still counts. Being a Marine was not about money for graduate school or learning a skill; it was a rite of passage in a society becoming so soft and homogenized that the very concept was often sneered at.” (p.33)

Love always perseveres in order to avoid the dishonor of letting someone else down who is depending on us, who believes in us, for whom we are the hands and heart of Christ. Love does not walk away from commitments when it would be easy and reasonable to do so. Love endures to the end. The world has a lot of starters but very few finishers. Love finishes the race. Love does not give up. Love does not quit. Love perseveres in the battle against evil because it wants to win the victory.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey;

Forth to the mighty conflict in this his glorious day,

Ye that are men now serve him against unnumbered foes;

Let courage rise with danger, and strength to strength oppose.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long;

This day the noise of battle, the next the victor’s song;

To him who overcometh a crown of life shall be;

He with the King of glory shall reign eternally.

(George Duffield, Jr.)

(Excerpted from Ted Schroder, SOLID LOVE)