Patient Perseverance

Copyright 2012:  singeronthesand

Make every effort to add to your faith goodness;

and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge,

self-control; and to self-control, perseverance..."

1 Peter 1:5-6 

Perseverance [King James-patience]: In the Greek: hupŏmōnē

Cheerful or hopeful endurance, constancy, enduring,

patience, patient continuance, waiting

One of the worst [and best!] things that you can own in this world is a credit card.  Credit cards allow you to have things now that you would otherwise have to wait for.  No money?  No problem - dig out the plastic.  Credit card company jingles - "What's in your wallet?" - fill the airwaves and are recognizable to almost everyone, including kids.  Buy now - pay later.  What a great concept!  You can have anything you want, when you want it, as long as you still have spendable space on your card.

Once you have everything you want, however, you have to pay for it [with interest!], and the monthly payments can be a real killer.  The statistics are mindboggling: 609.8 million credit cards are held by US consumers (average of 3.5 cards per person) with a revolving debt balance of $801 billion as of December 2011.  The average debt load per credit card household is $15,956. The statistics are unbelievable, but the situation in many, many families is all too real.  There is a high price to pay when you cannot wait for something until you have the cash to pay for it (what an old-fashioned concept!).

Peter didn't own a credit card, and he was not talking about living within your means when he recommended developing patience/endurance/perseverance.  When we pray, we must wait patiently for God's answer.  When we claim God's promises, we must wait patiently for the promised blessing.  The apostle Paul wrote that we must "run with patience the race that is set before us...," living in passionate continuance as we wait for the hope of ages - the return of our Savior, Jesus Christ.