My heart hurts daily – not because people are mean to me, or my heart was broken by a guy or a friend. No, my heart hurts daily because there are people I love who do not yet love the Lord. We who know the Lord will live with a hurt heart until we share our faith with everyone and they all know and love the Lord. It’s a burden we bear. A burden they are unaware of, but a burden that the Lord helps us to mend.
We Will Patiently Endure While We Share Faith
We have patient endurance because we know God will keep His promises. This means that God will give us the patience to endure this hardship even when we feel entirely hopeless. God’s desire is the same as ours – He wants our loved ones to engage in a relationship with Him. Though we share our faith by having multiple conversations about God with our loved one, or we haven’t had that conversation yet but we’ve been leading by example and praying for years, our endeavors seem to lead nowhere. We put forth effort, yet there seems to be no change or interest in the life of the person whom we care about, leaving us feeling helpless. While we’re down, we must rest in God’s promise to bring our loved one to Him.
Romans 8:22-25 says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what He already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Followers of the Lord anticipate our time in heaven, but we simultaneously groan from the world’s wickedness, which has lead to the prevention of our loved ones living in the freedom of the Lord. Our bodies ache as we hunger for our time with the Lord because we’re being inundated by the suffering induced by Satan. But, God gives us a hope to pursue what is not already known to us. If we’re already completely satisfied, there’s no room for hope. We’ll always have a yearning for a more fruitful world, which includes a world where our loved ones are with us in heaven. We‘ll wait patiently for this reality, because it’s worth the wait.
Yes, patience stems from hope. Our work, prompted by the love of Jesus, produces faith. Our endurance inspires hope. When the world sees us relying on the Lord and using His strength to persevere (even through persecutions and trials) we bring a new awareness, inspiring them to seek out His character. Guiding others in the ways of Christ (Christian and non) is not going to be easy and will require a lot of patience. In that patience, we must not give up hope, but rather, we NEED to cling to the promises of our Lord.
