Tenacity is more than endurance; it’s endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we expect to happen is going to happen. Tenacity isn’t simply hanging on. Hanging on can be a weakness, a sign that we’re too afraid to let go. Tenacity is the supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be defeated. As disciples, our greatest fear isn’t that we will be damned. It’s that Jesus Christ will be defeated, and that the things he stood for—love and justice and forgiveness and kindness—won’t win out in the end. God calls us to the discipline of spiritual tenacity. He asks us to do more than simply hang on. He asks us to work deliberately for him in the certainty that he’s not going to be defeated.
If we are disappointed and losing hope just now, it means that we are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled. One of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. But God has promised that our patience will be rewarded. “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial” (Revelation 3:10).
Remain spiritually tenacious.
