Endurance

Sometimes your heart gets a little sick, when you've lost hope that things will change for the better. Sometimes your heart feels a little raw and discouragement hangs thick in the atmosphere. Times when you watch someone else's happy ending and your heart longs and aches for your own, because you've been stuck in your wilderness for 39 years and it's about time to be done, y'all.

That was the kind of mood I was in yesterday and this morning, and when I was done pouring my heart out and began to listen to His, Galatians 6:9 came to mind. "Do not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

IF we do not give up. Maybe a breakthrough is right around the corner. Maybe it's further out than that. Either way, He leads me in victory, (2 Corinthians 2:14) so I should probably keep going! ;) Fight the good fight and all that. (1 Timothy 6:12)

So for anyone else needing a little inspiration and encouragement, here are the scriptures related to endurance that resonated with my heart this morning:

Romans 5:1-5 "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

Romans 12:12 "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

Romans 15:5 "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had..."

Romans 15:13 "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through the One who empowers me within."

Hebrews 10:36 "For you need endurance, so that after you have done God's will you can receive what he has promised."

James 1:2-4 "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."