We don’t seem to use the word perseverance very often. Maybe because it has the word severe in it. Or maybe it seems a bit old-fashioned, like King James Bible English. There is no question that other words roll more easily off the tongue, like winning, succeeding, finishing. But here it is, the biblical mandate: persevere.
The best influencers know how to persevere. Whether or not they know the duration of the effort, the struggles ahead, the distance to the finish line-or even whether there is a finish line—they keep going. One foot in front of the other. Progressing one inch at a time. Each day a new opportunity to start again. People who persevere hold to a conviction that plodding ahead pleases God, even when there is no applause and no immediate reward.
Modeling perseverance is one of the most powerful forms of spiritual influence. People look to those who keep going in the face of adversity, who keep faith when they are disappointed in life, who keep their integrity when they are mistreated. Why? Because most people at some time or another plead, “Someone out there, please show me how I can get through.” The people who persevere are the influencers, the real leaders, even if they don’t have a formal leadership title.
Perseverance is constancy, endurance, steadfastness, stickability, staying power. The objective of perseverance is hope, the vehicle is faith, and the motive is love. That famous triad in 1 Corinthians 13 (and other passages) are called the things that “remain” (1 Cor. 13:13). Love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (13:7).
Our culture today values quick results over perseverance (which, in the end, drastically weakens culture). People fall for the allure of lotteries and pyramid schemes. Athletes take steroids, students abuse amphetamines, fast food replaces dining. We equate internet searches with serious research. In business people aim at short-term rather than long-term gains. Political leaders don’t even think of starting to solve problems that will take thirty years of work when those are exactly the problems we most need them to work on.
Spiritual influence is a countercultural movement today because it assumes that the best growth is organic and progressive. Discipleship develops over time; character forms in response to hundreds of different encounters; knowledge of God doesn’t jump off a Wikipedia page.
In spiritual influence, we are challenging people in many ways to slow down, let truth percolate, develop many relationships that will yield many different insights. This does not mean slowness or sluggishness, but deliberateness. Perseverance is long-view vision.
Excerpt from chapter 16, “Persevere and Plod” in Spiritual Influence: The Hidden Power Behind Influence by Mel Lawrenz.