Perseverance
1 Peter 5:10
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
A beaver struggles almost beyond belief to build a dam to create a pond. They might take days to drop one large tree, then they have to chew off individual limbs, drag them to the water, float them down to where they plan to build a dam. Some of the sticks and branches float away before they are used. Then they dig up mud and pack it in amongst the logs. It takes hundreds of hours to get a small Beaver dam built. Then they have to do the same thing again to build their house… then when that is done the beavers have to take smaller limbs with leaves still on them and stick them down in the mud to have winter feed. It’s an amazing undertaking just to survive and thrive.
Another amazing fact in nature to consider is the baby bird hatching. A baby chicken takes about 22 days to hatch from the time it starts incubating. At the time of hatching the chick starts pecking a hole in the egg from the inside. Once a hole is broken through, they begin breaking a line going in either direction from the hole. It could take up to one to two days to break completely free from the egg. At times people attempt to help the little chick free itself from the egg. When this happens it generally means the death of the chick or least a weakened chicken that will most likely be unproductive.
If the little chicken doesn’t go through the stress of breaking free of the egg; if the beaver doesn’t go through the hard work of building a dam, neither will be able to thrive later in life.
Both the beaver and the chicken mirror the human life. We all go through hardships in life that make us stronger. If we don’t go through some of these hardships we will never be strong enough to make it through life and become productive.
James 1:2-4 shows us God’s promise of seeing us through and the rewards that await us when we’ve finished the hard jobs we face in life.
“2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Don’t allow the hard time that you are going through today take away your joy of today or your hope for tomorrow. Perseverance through these struggles will show strength for all your tomorrow’s.
Galatians 6:9
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
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