Now, here is where
perseverance comes in, our text says that perseverance must finish its work.
Joseph may cry, but that will not make “perseverance” to interrupt its work.
Perseverance means to be moving ahead in spite of difficult situations. That
means standing tall in spite of pain. Unknown to Joseph, the painful trials he
faced was producing a hardstand status in his life, and soon the hardstand
status developed character- right attitude that is the pride of the trainer.
When a coach has properly trained his ward, he does not join him in the race
but stands by to watch the ward perform, because he believes he has done his
part. The process of hard training is painful. So God uses hard training to
mold our character. There is no time frame for this; it goes at the pace of the
one going through the training.
We may ask, “In what
area is this testing or trial concentrating?” The area of our faith. We need to
prove we know God and believe in His wisdom to carry us through. We also need
to surrender our whole life and future in His hand when there is nothing else
we can do to help our self. In this process our attitude to people going
through problem begins to change; we now know that it takes the grace of God to
attain our dreams. That is the point our prayer life begins to grow, we begin
to stand with other people who are facing challenges and begin to borrow from
our pains to help others who may be going through pain. That means that perseverance
has produced Christian character and character has begun to produce maturity.
At this point we attain completeness; that means we understand every part of
life, whether smooth or rough. This is the point God can now trust us with the
blessings. When He was through with Joseph, hear what he had to say about his
enemies----------
We see the transformation; from a cocky,
prideful, self-centered, self-driven and reckless man to an emptied, God centered
and humanity driven personality. That was what God was working at. Even though
He did not tell Joseph this when He made him the promise of greatness, it was
inevitable route for all who will attain God’s kind of greatness. You may ask,
“Are there other routes to greatness”. The answer is, “Yes!” But those who
followed other routes were short-lived. Neither they nor those around them
enjoyed that greatness for long. They always crashed regretting the shortfall
in their lives. We have such example in Abimelech in Judges Chapter nine. His
rise, glory and doom were summed up in only one chapter of the bible. A sad
reminder for all who will rush through the short cut to greatness.
Excerpt from my new book, "While You Wait for the Promise
