When I was little, I learned a simple way to describe perseverance: keeping on, keeping on. I’ve remembered those words for years, but this weekend they felt especially real.
I had a long list of work I’d been putting off. I knew it needed to be done, but knowing that didn’t make me want to sit down and do it. The longer I waited, the more it hung over me.
Friday evening, I finally started. I made it through sixteen items. On Saturday, I came back and worked through more than twenty-five. Once I got going, I found that I could do far more than I had expected.
There is still work ahead of me. I’ll never reach a point where everything is finished and nothing new needs my attention. But I’ve cleared enough space to focus on work that needs more thought. And for the first time in a while, the unfinished list isn’t taking up quite so much room in my mind.
At church today, the message was about perseverance. I thought about how easy it is to confuse it with simply staying busy. I can keep moving and still lose focus on where I’m trying to go. Sometimes perseverance asks me to stop circling a task, sit down, and give it my full attention.
Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” (biblegateway.com) I don’t take that to mean every task will be easy or that every reward will come quickly. It reminds me to keep doing what is right, even when I’m tired.
I can still hear something a pastor in Fredericktown used to say: “Do the next right thing.” That gives me a way forward when the whole road feels too long to think about at once.
I see that in bigger decisions, too. As I think about living overseas someday, I have questions about healthcare and how I would make that life work. I need to take those questions seriously. I also don’t want the fact that I have questions to keep me from taking the steps I can take now.
Keeping on, keeping on doesn’t mean I always feel eager or certain. Sometimes it means doing the next right thing when I’d rather do anything else. Sometimes it means remembering why I started when the path ahead still looks long.
This weekend’s work didn’t give me complete peace. It gave me a little peace. And sometimes a little peace is enough to help me keep on.
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